Reading Room RADIO BOY "Conclusion"

When Last We Left Our Tiny Robot Hero...

What do you do when giant monsters attack?

If you're the Electric Patrol, tasked with guarding the globe, you throw up your hands and call upon that tiny triumph of technology, Radio Boy!

Eclipse's never-reprinted Radio Boy #1 (1987) one-shot is 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 American 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.

Please Support

Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Manga

the Complete Guide

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.

Please Support
Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Manga

the Complete Guide

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics SERAPHIM 26661336 WINGS

For our final (for now) "diseased future world" posting...

....we offer a most unusual manga by two masters of anime...Ghost in the Shell’s Mamoru Oshii and Perfect Blue’s Satoshi Kon, who wrote and illustrated Seraphim 266613336 Wings, the story of a future dystopic Earth devastated by the “Angel Plague,” a pandemic that induces apocalyptic visions in the afflicted, even as it ossifies their bodies into angelic-looking forms, complete with wings!

The graphic novel is the first chapter of a never-completed mini-series, due to creative differences which the untimely passing of Satoshi Ken kept from ever being resolved.

Nonetheless, it's a fascinating look at incredibly-detailed world-building and, since this volume ends on a cliffhanger, it leaves many loose ends and unexplained aspects that the creators obviously planned to explain, there's lots of things to speculate about (which I feel is the hallmark of successful storytelling)!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Seraphim 266613336 Wings

by Mamoru Oshii and Satoshi Kon

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.

GANTZ!

She's not Kei or Masaru, but do you really care?

The last thing Kei and Masaru remember was being struck dead by a subway train while saving the life of a drunken bum.
What a waste!
And yet somehow they're still . . . alive?
Or semi-alive?
Maybe it's reanimated . . . by some kind of alien orb with a nasty message . . . "Your lives are over. What you do with your new lives is up to me!"
And what this orb called "Gantz" intends to do with their lives is make them play games of death, hunting all kinds of odd aliens, along with a bunch of other ordinary citizens who've recently met a tragic semi-end.
The missions they embark upon are often dangerous. Many die-and die again.
This dark and action-packed manga / anime / live-action movie deals with the moral conflicts of violence, teenage sexual confusion and angst, and our fascination with death.
Hang on to your gear and keep playing the game, whatever you do; Gantz is unrelenting.

This is the cast, in Japanese. If anyone can translate, please e-mail me.

NEW PEOPLE and NCM Fathom are bringing the world premiere of GANTZ to movie theaters nationwide for a one night live event on Thursday, January 20th at 8:00 pm ET/ 7:00 pm CT/ 6:00 pm MT/ 8:30 pm PT (tape delayed).
This live-action feature, based upon the popular Japanese manga / anime series, is the ultimate survival game. It will be English over-dubbed exclusively for this big screen event.
Following the feature, the two stars, Kazunari Ninomiya and Kenichi Matsuyama will participate in an exclusive live interview that can only be seen at this event.
Click HERE for a list of participating theaters.

Design of the Week--Giant Japanese Robot!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...
Call him Mecha!
Call him Metal Man!
We call him Generic Giant Japanese Robot!
You'll call him "KOOL!"
Available for a week on a variety of goodies including t-shirts, mugs, messenger bags and other collectibles!

Before Scott Pilgrim was...Cutie Honey!

Scott Pilgrim vs the World got me to thinking about other films derived from comics/graphic novels/manga that utitlized not just the storytelling aspects that comics/graphic novels/manga derived from movies, but the particular visual bits created for the printed page that teleported to film versions.
In America, the Batman tv series and first Hulk film are the most obvious aspects, with sound effects spelled out, and the screen broken into panels.
But I always felt the movie creators were holding back, as if they were somewhat embarrassed about using those print-based elements.
OTOH, foreign movies based on print properties are the place where filmmakers go totally bonkers in adapting those visual cues on a massive scale.
Case in point...Cutie Honey!

Also based on a print comic/manga (Cutey Honey created by the lengendary Go Nagai) this flick is just as lunatic, just as filled with visual cues derived from comics/manga and video games as Scott Pilgrim!
Cutie Honey is a weird, wild, film.

 If you liked Scott Pilgrim, you owe it to yourself to check it out.