Reading Room RADIO BOY "Part 1"

Here's a never-reprinted 1987 manga/anime spoof...

...in, of course, glorious black and white!

Manga (and its' Korean counterpart, mahnwa) seem "weird" when colorized.

To be concluded and finished...Thursday!

Loosely-based on Osamo Tesuka's Astro Boy, which had achieved success as a translated anime in the early 1960s and opened the door for a flood of Japanese cartoons on American TV that continues to this day.

Note: Though Astro Boy is best-known in the US as a tv cartoon series, it began as a wildly-successful manga in 1954.

The premise of Radio Boy is that the creator himself did the translations for this edition, resulting in a mish-mash of syntax and tenses as well as some literal translations of Japanese phrases.

As a collector of foreign videos (including Japanese and Chinese DVDs), I can attest that the English subtitles on them often do read like the captions and copy in this spoof.

I suspect writers Chuck Dixon (yes, that Chuck Dixon) and Jim Engel had also seen some mis-translated films/videos, and wanted to re-create the experience on the printed page.

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Where are the "Kool" Uniforms for Don da Con's Space Force?

The uniforms for Don da Con's "Space Force" have been unveiled...

...and are military surplus camos...for space warfare!
When you're given a multi-million dollar budget and you cant even do better than a 1970s tv series...

...you're really badly off!
Ironically, the comic-book version of Space Force has a much better uniform...

But, then, in the comic, Don da Con has lost over 100 pounds from his real-world weight!

(Or those spacesuits have built-in Spanx!)

Sad, ain't it?

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TRUMP'S SPACE FORCE Serious or Satire?

Self-identified con comics writer Chuck Dixon created this one-shot...

..which claims to be a "work of satire and parody"!

But, considering the writer's political leanings...is it...or isn't it?

Consider the following...

Don da Con has lost over 100 pounds from his real-world weight!

(Or those spacesuits have built-in Spanx!)

Fellow three-wife-philandering con and hypocrite Newt Gingrich is shown to have tech knowledge far beyond his real-world mental capacity!

And, like many senior citizens (but not anyone under 65 with an average IQ or higher), he wears a baseball cap with a suit or blazer!

We won't even go into the plot point that anyone who disagrees with Don da Con is a disguised alien!

To any rational person, this is, indeed, a satire!

But to a con, (including many of the "deplorables"), the story reads as "possible if not probable".

But then, they thing pro wrestling is unscripted...

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Trump's Space Force

(either for yourself, or as a gift for a con friend/relative)

RADIO BOY by Chuck Dixon & Jim Engel

In the 1980s, manga finally gained a foothold in the US...

...and American creators began doing their own manga-style material.

Some, like this never-reprinted one-shot title from Eclipse Comics (the first major American company to publish translated manga), were parodies.

This particular spoof was loosely-based on Osamo Tesuka's Astro Boy, which had achieved success in as a translated anime in the early 1960s and opened the door for a flood of Japanese cartoons on American TV that continues to this day.

Note: Though Astro Boy is best-known in the US as a tv cartoon series, it began as a wildly-successful manga in 1954.

The premise of Radio Boy is that the creator himself did the translations for this edition, resulting in a mish-mash of syntax and tenses as well as some literal translations of Japanese phrases.

As a collector of foreign videos (including Japanese and Chinese DVDs), I can attest that the English subtitles on them often do read like the captions and copy in this spoof.

BTW, if you don't have a multi-region DVD player, get one.

Much of the Asian material released by Dimension (especially their Jackie Chan catalog), Buena Vista, and other mass-market companies is butchered beyond belief, and seeing the originals (even with bad sub-titling) is eye-opening!

I suspect writers Chuck Dixon (yes, that Chuck Dixon) and Jim Engel had also seen some mis-translated films/videos, and wanted to re-create the experience on the printed page.

You'll have the chance to judge for yourself...tomorrow.