Asterios Polyp & This One Summer

Asterios Polyp is a book I enjoyed the minute I saw the cover, the design choices in general in this book are amazing.  The way David Mazzucchelli planned out his panels to lead his reader through is brilliant all the way through, the concept behind the main characters duality and how it's displayed in regards to showing personality is simply excellent visualization and leaves the reader with an excellent read that's hard to put down.  The main characters Asterios and Hana create a fascinating duo in how their chemistry balances off each other until a fundamental disagreement in communication leads them astray.  It's a story of facing flaws and opposing philosophies on life and art in a way I've never seen done before in comics.  I ended up fully enthralled by how their lives would end up and was left in awe.

The first time I read This One Summer was back in the summer actually weeks after school ended.  I was in Kansas City with friends reading through a collection of new comics and zines and the Tamaki cousins just came out with this new release.  I knew more of Jillian's illustration work than anything else but I was still very excited.  It's take one childhood is from a perspective I have never seen explored in such a candid fashion of pre-teen drama and internal conflict.  Usually girls in comics are not nearly as developed as compared to Rose and Wendy.  Smart but impressionable girls that are faced with real issues of how women are viewed in their lives by their own.  I feel like this was potentially one of the best comics of the year.

Anime & Manga

I recall being into anime way before I ever picked up a manga book, mainly due to all the animes coming to America through Toonami.  One of the first ones I read was a Shonen Jump mangas that were multiple action boy adventure comics that were very different in story arc compared to the American comics I read at the time.  I didn't know about the original Astro Boy's story until very recently.  When looking back at the timeline of when Astro Boy came out I'm actually really surprised at where modern anime has taken itself in regards to the shift in drawing.  Tezuka's style reminiscent to Fleischer's Betty Boop is something that's not as emulated aside from reproductions of Astro Boy, which remains still very respected for being the first popular anime.  I feel later successors ended up leaving a larger impact on the American anime public at least.  It's interesting relooking through old anime now and seeing a time where that kind of style was frequently used.  There's a softness in the faces of Rumiko Takahashi that's similar to Astro Boy, along with Usagi Yojimbo being more focused on soft round shapes as well.  Modern anime has taken into more of a focused on angle and sharp features with a variety of styles within one scene.  In manga you can have a shift between a logo/symbol usage of a character to a dramatic rendering with accurate lighting.  The diversity in styles is very inspiring to see and explore, despite certain cliches of Anime & Manga being heavily used at times.