tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post5775010963634724762..comments2023-10-08T07:22:58.997-04:00Comments on Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?: The Negative Zone: The Problem With Fancy-Pants Reprintsbrandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-60318753858088085882009-05-15T20:24:00.000-04:002009-05-15T20:24:00.000-04:00afdumin-
Oy...no because I never held the Catalan ...afdumin-<br />Oy...no because I never held the Catalan one as any kind of ideal, just a preferable recontextualization, best of two evils thing...as I said, I think the best would be to just reproduce the original covers, however wrong or off, because it's like the default.brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-87909683732017639042009-05-15T19:38:00.000-04:002009-05-15T19:38:00.000-04:00But the Catalan version of Good-Bye is just as muc...But the Catalan version of Good-Bye is just as much a reissue/re-contextualization as the Drawn and Quarterly one. Neither replicates the original Japanese design. So really, doesn't your argument come down to liking apples over oranges?afduminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17220619899553738870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-38029250810975569452009-05-15T14:10:00.000-04:002009-05-15T14:10:00.000-04:00Damn homey, you're dense. I think I'm giving up on...Damn homey, you're dense. I think I'm giving up on this one. I'm also still laughing at "it's like a guy who has sex with men who says he isn't gay" comparison.<br /><br />Can Shea step in? I like when people disagree with me and something might come of the conversation.<br /><br />I prefer an offensive "Oriental"-y cover to a cover that completely recontextualizes the work within the realms of "alternative comics" in 2008/2009 anyday.brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-72181776303833371922009-05-15T12:24:00.000-04:002009-05-15T12:24:00.000-04:00I must add: I do agree with you in that I do think...I must add: I do agree with you in that I do think "shoddiness" is aok in a lot of ways. Depending on what it is. No need for a Garfield hardcover but who knows what is on the horizon. I don't see the design of Tatsumi's new book as all that "fancy" though. It's simple. It fits the purpose. He himself is probably stoked on his new resurgence late in life. He probably doesn't divide his readers into "hipster" and "non-hipster." Your old 80's cornball "oriental" Tatsumi is fine as an artifact and you may hold it close but why in the world would D and Q publish something that looks like that now!!?? It would be absurd!Gerardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-77707541174353020142009-05-15T11:58:00.000-04:002009-05-15T11:58:00.000-04:00Re: Matt the Hipster
Wait a second here. Part way...Re: Matt the Hipster<br /><br />Wait a second here. Part way down the thread, a gentleman by the name of Matt has self-idenitfied as a hipster. Is this a first? I don't know if I have ever heard anyone self-identify as a hipster. Usually "hipsters" are called out as an "other" by a demographic that could probably be described as "hipsters." You dig? Not that I pretend to be clear on what the term actually means. As far as this article goes, the "hipster" is often brought up as the "straw man" in these kind of weird unfounded attacks so I was alarmed to see one of these hipster persons step forward!!Gerardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-66290348266611063342009-05-15T08:41:00.000-04:002009-05-15T08:41:00.000-04:00I think what you're trying to say is that many...I think what you're trying to say is that many successful comix artists today base their success mostly on visual and conceptual stylization.<br /><br />Even simpler … it's easier to sell pre-commodified things to the public and the critics.<br /><br />And finally, Zen-simple … make 'em think less & you'll earn more.Mahendra Singhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15308770582240496910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-87022161117149508112009-05-15T07:59:00.000-04:002009-05-15T07:59:00.000-04:00brandon,
congratulations on being right about eve...brandon,<br /><br />congratulations on being right about everything. i'm such a soft baby, i'm going to go cry in the corner. sorry i couldn't grasp your more interesting ideas.Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14215810599956933532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-82863418863901057352009-05-14T22:21:00.000-04:002009-05-14T22:21:00.000-04:00Also, this is exactly what I mean by comics fans b...Also, this is exactly what I mean by comics fans being soft babies about everything...brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-35428237461851133442009-05-14T22:14:00.000-04:002009-05-14T22:14:00.000-04:00Graham-
I'm glad we can keep wasting our time ...Graham-<br />I'm glad we can keep wasting our time with Orientalism debate some more and my way more interesting points can be ignored. We can go back and forth on this forever dude, my only point and really David's is, "Orientalism" as a term rarely connects to Japan in this sense. In all my academic career, this is rarely how it's used/termed/etc.<br /><br />That said, if we want to extend it that far, well then, what D & Q's doing is a form of Orientalism too.<br /><br />One can be a man, have sex with men, and not be gay but I guess I see your point. Still, one can stumble into or accidentally express a racist thought, expression and idea and it not encompass their life. If by your definition you're a racist, then hang your head and get real sad about it...no one here was like "Dude, you're an fucking racist" just that your language stumbled in that direction.<br /><br />I'll wait for the other more interesting points to be addressed...brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-41450548909934596212009-05-14T21:07:00.000-04:002009-05-14T21:07:00.000-04:00brandon,
a couple of brief things.
first, there ...brandon,<br /><br />a couple of brief things.<br /><br />first, there is no distinction between me being a racist and me making a racist connection. this is the classic "sure, I have sex with men, that doesn't make me gay" argument. it doesn't fly. thus when politicians say "oh, i said a racist thing but i'm not actually a racist" everyone laughs at them.<br /><br />second, i quoted said to you. that quote made it clear that orientalism can extend far, far beyond the middle east...for said. many others have perhaps taken it farther, i don't know, it's not my academic specialty. but if you'd like to read the actual said quotes I listed, rather than refer me to wikipedia, i would welcome that.<br /><br />i will close with a wikipedia quote, one which is not from the said entry that you gave us but from the entry on orientalism: "These meanings were given a new twist by 20th century scholar Edward Said in his controversial 1978 book Orientalism, where he uses the term to describe a Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of hostile and deprecatory views of the East, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. When used in this sense, Oientalism implies essentializing and prejudiced outsider interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples."Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14215810599956933532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-23808172214989951632009-05-14T20:04:00.000-04:002009-05-14T20:04:00.000-04:00Anon-
First, you got a name? Really, the Anonymou...Anon- <br />First, you got a name? Really, the Anonymous thing is terrible, I don't need an email or nothing but if your name is "Barry" how about that?<br /><br />Re: Orientalism. I know this is the internet so you can just say anything and not back it up but Orientalism is, at least as I and most people I know, the use (and abuse) of Middle East, Arab, and Islamic cultures. <br /><br />While yes, it could be extended to Japan--this simply isn't how it's generally discussed. By the vague sense of Orientalism you guys want to apply, it could apply to the exploitation of American black culture (something I've written about in many places w/o lumping it in with Said's thesis), but yeah, come on guys...<br /><br />I know Wikipedia isn't like the #1 source on earth but we can all meet there I think, so yeah, read <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)" REL="nofollow">this</A>...<br /><br />Like, this is one of those things where Graham would benefit from just being like "Okay, I used the wrong term" because as I said above, you'd never discuss say, a rapper like Asher Roth in terms of Orientalism even though by Said's broad definition it would apply. You said Orientalism because this involves Asian people--"Orientals" as my aging racist Grandpa might say--and now you're backtracking which is silly. You won't lose any points by being like "whoops man". Graham, you weren't called a racist by David, the choice you made by connecting this to Orientalism was racist.<br /><br />Back to Anonymous-<br />You're playing law school undergrad or something by suggesting there's nothing manipulative or connotative about the Tatsumi reissues. If you isolate a single frame or a part of frame and use it as a cover, you're implying a lot without blood splatters...think of those All Star Superman dividers in the trades which blow-up a small piece of a page and totally change the sense you get from it.<br /><br />Re: "Hipsters" (which is really just an issue of audience). You're really mistaking my critiques of the aesthetics adopted for these reissues as some like deep-rooted dislike of "hipsters" or something. It's simply an audience issue. <br /><br />Look, the designs for all of these look cool and all but they're problematic because they're forcing the work into ANOTHER wrong context.<br /><br />That's to say, there ain't nothing we can do about the 1988 Catalan version of the original version, but we can avoid their recontextualizations by not lumping it into a pre-established--and wholly different look and style--because it's convenient or "cool", which is what D & Q or Vertical...or Criterion sometimes or New York Times Review of Books or Continuum or whatever do.<br /><br />In terms of now recognizing or explaining these "visual cues", I apologize for assuming I could keep this entry to somehow readable length and make a few assumptions about the design. Assumptions that the earlier commenters got--even if they disagreed--until you guys derailed the discussion. I think "Wes Anderson hues" and all it implies doesn't need to footnoted or hyper-explained.<br /><br />Lastly, why doesn't this just work like music re-issues?? Rarely does a record label reissue an original album with different art. The only one I can think of is Shuggie Otis' "Inspiration Information" (google it) and it's a prime example of making a cover that has little to do with the intent of the music inside.<br /><br />The only other thing album reissues sometimes do is provide you with the "original" art vs. the one a label decided and even that is sort of pointless since part of a reissue is providing it with its original meanings.<br /><br />Concluding (for now), it isn't that the original is perfect or ideal, especially in music (older music even more so) where labels possessed insane power over artists not unlike say Jack Kirby and Marvel or something, but that it's the most reasonable way to do it....brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-63766488408257126732009-05-14T14:25:00.000-04:002009-05-14T14:25:00.000-04:00you're using a pretty narrow set of parameters to ...you're using a pretty narrow set of parameters to define "orientalism" and one that's pretty at odds with how most of academia uses the term.<br /><br />i think discussing the covers at this point is a bit like beating a dead horse, but these arguments are all over the place:<br /><br />"in the case of the tatsumi books, the tempering of the highly charged images from the stories in those muted soft palette pastels and design 101 fonts sorta castrates the work by lumping it together with the sort of "highly personal" narrative navel-gazing that is generally presented with a similar aesthetic, like, this book has some tough subject matter but we all know its just pulp and we thus don't have to take it too seriously"<br /><br />well, which is it, a highly personal, navel gazing aesthetic, or a pulp one? since those two don't have much overlap. i think this argument would make more sense if the violent image was just a profile of someone's face, or someone in repose - then i would get a parallel between this tatsumi cover and, say, the book jacket to Shortcomings. but it seems to me using muted colors and simple text is a way of letting the image stand alone as something violent and shocking - if they combined it with distressed type and blood splattered in the background, it'd immediately read as tacky and exploitative.<br /><br />" just because someone might not recognize it for what it is in the terms in which it was described doesn't mean the person describing it doesn't have a sense of what he's talking about"<br /><br />you couldn't ask for a more precise example of someone not knowing what they're talking about than what you just described. brandon's lumping aesthetics and visual cues together because he doesn't like their associations, but hasn't really demonstrated an ability to define them or even recognize them at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-49433217030246875082009-05-14T12:08:00.000-04:002009-05-14T12:08:00.000-04:00I think David's explaining my side quite well and ...I think David's explaining my side quite well and we did discuss my post in the car yesterday so yeah, he's on it..<br /><br />Quick points:<br />-Ditto on Orientalism though. It's referring to the Middle East. Check out Edward Said guys...you're talking plain ol' racism/stereotyping.<br /><br />-Never said the Catalan version was "original" just that it's preferable to the new one especially in terms of American re-issues of his work.<br /><br />-I'm glad this is spurring discussion.<br /><br />-Why not just use the Japanese originals then? Not because they're "truer" or "pure"--I addressed this in the post--but because they provide a historical context and when you re-issue shit, part of what you're doing is history or deconstructive history.<br /><br />-If we're bringing up Said--or trying to, zing!--we know about Authorial intent, right? And how it's sort of a load and/or an impossibility to determine? And so, in the small world of comics let's go for historical context and not "I decided Tatsumi's work is like Tomines"<br /><br />-I think the Vertical reissues are dope. Still problematic though.<br /><br />-As I said, if these were being marketed at like high-brow types or were being republished as wacky "conventional" Manga and it was like the character from "Just a Man" dancing with the Geisha riding a dragon and doing a Kung Fu on some Naruto shit, I'd be parodying that audience too.<br /><br />-The difference in audience though is that this "hipster" audience often considers and presents itself as particularly thoughtful and this or that, and slowly appropriate parts of culture in often negative ways. See: My other love in life, RAP MUSIC.brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05331746353766612879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-40480866238965628922009-05-14T12:03:00.000-04:002009-05-14T12:03:00.000-04:00david,
I think you're right on in alot of ways ab...david,<br /><br />I think you're right on in alot of ways about the dororo cover, but I can't say "enough with that" about the orientalism stuff when you seem to have described those of us who would argue that japanese culture could be "orientalized" as "sorta arrogant and paternalistic and probably a little racist." If i'm accused of sorta probably racism, I feel the need to respond.<br /><br />First, again, there's no need for orientalism to refer strictly to the middle east; Said declares"that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability (xvii) - in other words, what we might declare to be the occident and the orient is fluid, and in this case both Anon and I are making (I think a valid) case for Japan as Orient.<br /><br />So what is Orientalism? It is "a project whose dimensions take in such disparate realms as the imagination itself, the whole of India and the Levant, the Biblical texts and the Biblical lands, the spice trade ...etc etc...many Eastern sects, philosophy, and wisdoms domesticated for local European use" (and post-WWII, American use) (4). In other words, Orientalism is the capturing of "Oriental" culture for the use of the "Occident," with an emphasis on the Orient's difference from the Occident, which is exactly what having a geisha on a cover gives you - an exoticized other, and a far cry from Tatsumi's urban wasteland as depicted on the cover of The Push Man - an urban alley that would look very much like a Western alley if more of the signs were in English.<br /><br />Finally, although Japan was never explicitly colonized, Said's definition includes the Orient as anything the West wanted to dominate and exoticize for its own purposes, and if Commodore Perry sailing to Japan with an armada, threatening Japan with military force if they did not trade with the U.S., isn't an example of Orientalism, I don't know what is.<br /><br />There, I've had my say. I'll keep debating if you respond, but if you want to let it rest that's fine too. And I wouldn't mind hearing what Anon has to say, wherever they may be.Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14215810599956933532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-91857712599438916102009-05-14T11:21:00.000-04:002009-05-14T11:21:00.000-04:00again, this is stupid, but i think the word that y...again, this is stupid, but i think the word that you're dancing around is "racism." orientalism specifically carries connotations of colonialism and to my knowledge japan was never a colonial possession of britain or any other country. its not a formerly subjugated culture and so speaking of it in post-colonial terms implies a desire of lumping all non-white cultures together into one sort of "protected" group that is sorta arrogant and paternalistic and probably a little racist. enough with that, though.<br /><br />again, brandon can make his own arguments, but what i see in that dororo cover that gets to what brandon was describing is on the one hand, a specific use of geometrical visual cues, which is a chris ware hallmark, and on the other hand a sort of highly designed presentation of something that is supposed to look tattered or patched together, which, i think, gets at the urban-outfitters, intended to look perfunctory and used but just sort of coming off as ever so highly designed. in the case of the tatsumi books, the tempering of the highly charged images from the stories in those muted soft palette pastels and design 101 fonts sorta castrates the work by lumping it together with the sort of "highly personal" narrative navel-gazing that is generally presented with a similar aesthetic, like, this book has some tough subject matter but we all know its just pulp and we thus don't have to take it too seriously and it can sit comfortably on your shelf next to all those other books that speak so clearly to your experience. this aesthetic and this culture are definitely out there and just because someone might not recognize it for what it is in the terms in which it was described doesn't mean the person describing it doesn't have a sense of what he's talking about.david e. ford, jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13530623430089464503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-39133549245957536622009-05-14T08:53:00.000-04:002009-05-14T08:53:00.000-04:00I think I've said all I want to say about Tatsumi,...I think I've said all I want to say about Tatsumi, cover design, Tomine, etc, but I do want to back Anonymous up that the term "Orientalist" does not apply exclusively to the Middle East. Sure, Said wrote the book on Orientalism and all of his examples of Orientialists are people like T.E. Lawrence, but post-colonial and its related fields are quite comfortable using the term "orientalist" for any treatment of non-Occidental culture that deliberately "otherizes" that culture. So just because Said's book discussed the perception of Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, etc. doesn't make the deliberate and bad-faith exoticization of South, Southeast, or East Asia not Orientalism. It is Orientalism, which is what Anonymous pointed out in the case of the geisha cover - something I hadn't thought of but became blindingly obvious once he mentioned it.Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14215810599956933532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-34378168993446995442009-05-14T06:51:00.000-04:002009-05-14T06:51:00.000-04:00oop, ignore the newark thing. i typed out the resp...oop, ignore the newark thing. i typed out the response on notepad since it's annoying to type in these narrow blogger margins, that got carried over from the copy and paste.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-11155587829492356302009-05-14T06:50:00.000-04:002009-05-14T06:50:00.000-04:00newark, nj
time hotel
the term has since been fre...newark, nj<br />time hotel<br /><br />the term has since been frequently applied similarly problematic western depictions of other non-west cultures. throw a rock on any campus and it'll bounce off five students writing boring essays on said and sofia coppola<br /><br />"i'm not going to try to speak for brandon, but as i see it, it not so much the reputation of tatsumi or tezuka that is at issue here, but rather what the significance of the work becomes once it is marketed in a certain way to a certain audience."<br /><br />i agree with you that the context and packaging and marketing of a work like this is important, but i just don't think brandon's arguments for why these two in particular are problems really make sense<br /><br />he's not even certain what this awful "hipster indie comic" audience is. when he criticizes the dororo cover, he's angry it would appeal as both a hoodie print and a chris ware design? to start, there's nothing about the design that really screams either to me, but even accepting the premise that those were the designer's intended parallels - what is this hypothetical chris ware/urban outfitters demographic that could not possibly have the capacity to fully appreciate dororo? are they granta subscribers or fashionable 17 year olds? is there really that obvious an overlap between the two?<br /><br />the tatsumi criticism seems even more shaky when that cover does such a better job of of depicting both the subject matter and the severity of tone of the book than the example he posted. when you see an image as striking as that that on the cover, i don't think the immediate reaction is "this is probably about a bassist dealing with his break up! boy, this comic is totally up the alley of a tomine-loving, 'sad, indie fucks' like me." it seems like brandon just doesn't like tomine, and would criticize any involvement from him on the project at all. that's clear when he goes as far as attacking tomine just for having the nerve to cite tatsumi as an influence to begin with - isn't that pretty unfair? can't he be influenced by a creator but be concerned with different subject matter in his own work? brandon's assuming that this audience of western comics readers is filtering all this material through their own shades of "sad fuck" autobio, which is a pretty big leap to make. (and, by the way, painting western alternative comics with pretty broad strokes. there are plenty of well regarded "comix" concerned with politics and history - Maus, Joe Sacco, King, Louis Riel, My Mother Was a Schizophrenic, Jack Jackson, etc)<br /><br />these posts are getting longer than i wanted them to be, sorry dudeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-15948169981138518012009-05-14T01:19:00.000-04:002009-05-14T01:19:00.000-04:00anon- this is obviously this pointless thing, but...anon- this is obviously this pointless thing, but orientalism as a phenomenon and also something to be derided in, like, post-colonial studies, or whatever, doesn't really have anything to do with the far east. i know we all grew up calling people from the far east "oriental," but that's just not what the term refers to. orientalists were dudes like sir richard burton or t. e. lawrence, as opposed to lafcadio hearn or donald richie.<br /><br />i'm not going to try to speak for brandon, but as i see it, it not so much the reputation of tatsumi or tezuka that is at issue here, but rather what the significance of the work becomes once it is marketed in a certain way to a certain audience. it's sorta the same way that, like, gerard manley hopkins has been tossed about from ahead-of-his-time progenitor of modernist poetics, to catholic/christian apologist, to gay icon, to logorrheic throwback and back again. this is a problem in the long run because simple decisions such as jacket design can change a way a text is read, which can ultimately lead to the forgetting of the real significance of the work which can eventually lead to its being forgotten altogether. obviously i am projecting way forward here, but there are implications to these things outside of some argument about what makes a hipster. it's also true that these judgments or interpretations of aesthetics are subjective, but really, what else can they be?david e. ford, jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13530623430089464503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-43947889918664185302009-05-13T23:56:00.000-04:002009-05-13T23:56:00.000-04:00i think the term fits pretty well for that cover d...i think the term fits pretty well for that cover design, especially with that "vaguely asian-y!" typeface used. i'm not a big fan of the tomine design, but i think it definitely makes more sense than the other one, which is pretty generic and kind of relies on the fact that a geisha is just a provocative image in any context whether than offer any insight into the tone or content of the book<br /><br />i'll buy your argument for the jiro kuwata book, but i'm not sure if tatsumi or tezuka's reputations are affected the same way in these two examples. the criticism for either cover design was pretty subjective (the Dororo cover apparently looks both like a hoodie and a Chris Ware drawing? huh?) <br /><br />it feels strange defending them because these covers aren't really my cup of tea to begin with. but i don't see how either design is forcing their authors into some "western alt comix" canon (one which brandon has pretty narrowly defined as an apolitical, frivolous landscape of "sad indie fucks" or whatever)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-4562816551241634752009-05-13T23:41:00.000-04:002009-05-13T23:41:00.000-04:00You're part of the problem.You're part of the problem.Brandonhttp://illegibledreck.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-75620918650526951312009-05-13T23:32:00.000-04:002009-05-13T23:32:00.000-04:00the problem with chip kidd is that when you have a...the problem with chip kidd is that when you have a dude whose book designs are collected in monographs, you run the risk of relegating the work of the artist responsible for the ostensible content being sold to a sort of second position to the "art" that is supposed to sell it. it's not really a problem for a writer like murakami or cormac mccarthy whose reputations are firm and won't be affected much by design decisions, but what do you say to a dude like jiro kuwata.<br /><br />briefly, anonymous and graham, i think you have a sort of misunderstanding of the concept of orientalism, because it wouldn't really apply in this case . . . maybe wilson and perker's cairo?david e. ford, jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13530623430089464503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-84949097329692970672009-05-13T22:42:00.000-04:002009-05-13T22:42:00.000-04:00I enjoy your incendiary camix articles Brandon, I ...I enjoy your incendiary camix articles Brandon, I am always in favor of a Catalan edition over just about everything. <br />Plus I love comparison photos.<br /><br />And there is definatly something kind of annoying about the design of the newer editions. But yeah, mostly that it reminds me of the design of that brand of nose in the air comics you were pointing and lauging at.<br /><br />word.Brandon Grahamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-55614320561828660182009-05-13T21:15:00.000-04:002009-05-13T21:15:00.000-04:00"That's a really good question! I'm n..."That's a really good question! I'm not any kind of graphic designer but I think the Catalan cover in contrast to the D&Q is a good place to begin. Simple, conveys the story, doesn't overpower the work."<br /><br />I don't see how the Catalan cover is less problematic than the other. The image of a geisha is pretty loaded one to most American audiences, and the combination of that with a cheezy "sort of Asian-looking!" typeface smacks of orientalism. I don't think it's malicious in any way, but I'm not really sure that's the shining example you should hold the D+Q design against. <br /><br />i'm curious, do you have issues with chip kidd's cover designs for haruki murakami's books?<br /><br />you're also pretty unclear about what constitutes a "hipster" design sense. the examples you use don't overlap at all - wes anderson movies, chris ware and urban outfitters prints don't have anything in common. and i'm not sure there's anything about the design on the tatsumi cover that directly links him to tomine. tomine's presence on the book isn't felt any more or less than that of an editor or translator on any other translated book. that design doesn't do much for me either, but i don't see it as a particularly "comix" one - muted palette, large striking image, simple sans serif text - it seems to fit in with most other book covers you'll find in a store. <br /><br />and your criticism of the dororo cover is pretty subjective too. . . i haven't read the book, but my impression from the cover wouldn't be "this is something hip and exciting and hoodie-suited." i'd guess the subject matter was bleak and horrific from the anatomy photos in the background, and the cut up comics figures imply some sort of formal experimentation in the work itself, which sounds about right<br /><br />this is tough because i sort of know where you're coming from. there's a sort of wrongheadedness about some reprint projects that have bothered me too - something like turning dennis the menace strips into expensive hardcovers, when that material makes a million times more sense read in raggedy paperbacks - but i'm not sure i follow your argument here.<br /><br />i wrote this pretty quickly, so i hope it's not too scattered a response.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781642913058207208.post-39657267760996198032009-05-13T20:04:00.000-04:002009-05-13T20:04:00.000-04:00You make some good points, but don't drag the good...You make some good points, but don't drag the good name of Vertical into this. The "Buddha" (their spines will seem pretty ambitious after you read this), "Ode To Kirihito", and "Black Jack" editions are incredible and Vertical took a real chance on publishing comics (albeit manga), picked the perfect ambassador/creator for this foray, and didn't even make any money on the hardcovers until the 3rd one hit (well, those Eisners didn't hurt sales either). As far as reprints, I'm more bothered by Marvel (and DC/Vertigo to a smaller degree) pushing out their HCs first, sometimes lagging forever on their SCs, and spitting in the face of the people who bought all those by pushing out an Omnibus a year or so later. Ech, good talk...Joshua Nelsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05904744226339288031noreply@blogger.com