Scenes from the Tokyo Game Show

Full pictorial article: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/gallery-tgs-cosplay/

Negasonic_ultratokyo_popexplosion!! - Supermarket

One of my all-time faves off the IDW label - Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's Supermarket. A literal explosion of colour, culture and Generation Y angst mixed with some porn, yakuza and crass consumerism thrown in. An electro-pop fable for everyone of us who have visited Hong Kong or Tokyo (or want to), overdrawn our credit cards, measured the worth of a souped-up Japanese import versus a German piece of automotive engineering, and felt that illegal music downloads off our mobile is as good as life is gonna get.

The protagonist is Pella Suzuki, a hapa (half-Japanese) born of a Japanese dad and a Swedish mum. She goes to school in your typical Catholicized private institution and works in a convenient store, conveniently ripping off her customers by letting them donate credit card charges to her charity of the day, meaning herself. A bit spoiled and with values mirroring her upper middle-class suburban lifestyle created by her enigmatic parents, all of that gets whacked the day she finds her folks assassinated.

She is forced to flee from the suburbs to the Supermarket - the ultra-city: a fantastic mish-mash of Shinjuku, Roppongi and Akasaka districts of Tokyo, and Yau Ma Tei and Central districts of Hong Kong with a little Pudong of Shanghai thrown in. Bearing in mind that this is still supposed to be in California. 70-story hotels, Acuras, sushi, chicken tikka, Paul Smith, Prada, Gucci, public transit, wi-fi networks, and dog massage parlors make up the background for an essentially fast-paced chase story that ends all too quickly. Unfortunately, memorable dialogue that reads hip like a Joss Whedon teleplay is counterbalanced by a glaring problem. Much like a William Gibson or Neal Stephenson novel, it ends too abruptly and the reader is actually left wanting more.

But what makes up for defects in the story is the ART. OMG, talk about art for our new century. It captures the pace, the mood and the groove of our current Internet-savvy, denim and dim sum-fed, virtual fast food nation. I once commissioned Mr. Donaldson for some artwork several years ago trying to get him to re-create the magic of Supermarket. The colours are electric, creating a new style that goes beyond anime or normal comic book form. Each page is to be savoured and soaked up, and try to catch the pop culture references if you can.

Cosplay Model - Marie-Claude Bourbonnais

Call Name: Marry Bardot

Status: Cosplay Model/Pin-up

Real Name: Marie-Claude Bourbonnais

Profession: Glamour/Adult Model, Pin-up

Does: Mortal Kombat, Gen 13, Fetish, BDSM

Noble Savages - Brian Wood's Northlanders

I seem to have a thing for relishing topics and themes rather unpopular by current standards. Case in point, Northlanders - a very well-written series by Brian Wood (DMZ, Supermarket) which focuses on that most trendy of subjects - Vikings. Why, you would ask, would anyone be interested in reading about folks who slaughtered each other, wore fancy helmets adorned with horns and wings, and drank themselves silly before battle? Or did I just answer my own question? First off, that horns and wings thing was just a myth, they never wore fancy helmets. Intricate hair braids, yes - but never winged helms. Second off, well unlike other hack and slash tomes, this one gets into the culture and socio-politics of the Viking era. You see, too often has that period of time been glossed over as bad-smelling barbarians leaping off a boat, gutting some hapless monks, and then getting rippingly drunk over their spoils of war. It's been few and far between that Norsemen (classifying those of Jutland, Varangian, Normans, Danes, etc) are given some depth and 3-dimensional characteristics atypical of this age. Oh sure, there are dismemberments, skull-cleaving axes, monks getting torched and all that, but without that they wouldn't be Norsemen.

Take for example the first story-arc - "Sven the Returned" (which would make a great epic film). An outcast from childhood, Sven leaves the Orkney Isles to Constantinople where he makes his fortune as one of the Varangian Guard (mercenaries in service to the Byzantine Empire). Or does he? Nevertheless he returns home to the savage Orkneys of his birth, and is disgusted by the backwards, superstitious, simple people that he had originally left far behind. No longer defining himself as one of them, he is torn between his birthright and heritage and his desire to be out where he truly belongs, being the civilized and educated man he has become. But let no one think that he is a sissy just because he shaves his beard and cuts his hair, oh no. No one gets away with that shit, lemme tell you.

Another classic story-arc that also hits its mark is the short and concise "Lindisfarne", an amazing tale of the old ways of the Norse Gods vis a vis a newfangled, slightly hypocritical and pretty impractical belief system called Christianity. Lindisfarne marks the start of the Viking Age and sets up the conflict between the Norsemen vs. the Celts and Saxons, or the Pagans versus the God-fearing. This religious conflict takes places again in "The Shield Maidens" and "The Cross + The Hammer". But Lindisfarne offers a snapshot of that special age, a Dark Ages childhood, and a unique situation when a boy has the choice between supplicating himself between Our Father The Lord, or The Gods of War and Thunder. Let's just say that he choose the practical over the pious.

In Case of Vampire

Paul Dini's Fetish

Paul Dini is probably most famous for being one of the original producers and writers for Batman The Animated Series, and for having helped launched the DC Animated Universe, itself having the nickname of "Diniverse". Today he is still active in the comic world for being the current writer for Gotham City Sirens and Batman: Streets of Gotham. He just penned the script for the game Batman: Arkham Asylum (although the original concept was done over a decade ago by Grant Morrison in the now classic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth). His writing style can best be described as solid, compelling, and knows when to take light and serious steps in his writing, anchored by strong characterizations in his dramatis personae. IMHO, the only other writer of similar ability is James Robinson.

What he is not as known for is his eternal appreciation for sexy, garter belt-armed magician women. Being himself a bit of an amateur illusionist, no doubt being in the circles of performing magicians led to a relatively healthy fascination with said type of fine women. Starting with an infatuation with DC Comics' homo magi character Zatanna Zatara, he no-doubt coincidentally eventually married a magician by the name of Misty Lee, who then took on some of the trappings of Zatanna (or vice versa, well Zatanna was chronologically around longer). He then wrote his own creator-owned comic series called Madame Mirage on Top Cow Comics, about a vengeance-fueled illusionist superheroine which coincidentally and admittedly was based on his wife.

I include pictures, in order, of: 1) DC's Zatanna, 2) Zatanna as portrayed by the actress/model Serinda Swan in Smallville, 3) Misty Lee, Paul Dini's wife, and 4) Paul Dini's Madame Mirage. See the resemblance?

Masters of Horror - Pt. 3, Junji Ito

According to Google Analytics, I notice that traffic increases every time that I post scantily-clad women on these blogs, whether they are comic/anime women - such as Bomb Queen, or real-life bodacious women - such as Yaya Han or the ladies from the cosplay photo shoot. So with that knowledge in mind, I thus completely and intentionally ignore sexy women for this outing. In fact, I am going to post the exact opposite and continue on my series of The Masters of Horror. This time around concerns the all-time grand champion Mister Disturbo gross-out king Junji Ito. Most of his works have now been converted into television shows (one starring Miho Kanno) and movies in Japan but in truth, it's his manga that stands apart for just how completely sadistic and balls-out creepy they turn out to be. It would be of no surprise that Ito-san is probably the most normal looking bloke in Japan and favors cheesecake while listening to The Carpenters. Those people have dark dark secrets, let me tell you.

In his collection of short stories - Flesh Coloured Horror, I would guess that he rather dislikes cute girls, especially the cutesy-kawaiiiii! Japanese schoolgirls that are the fetish of many a salariman. When girls kill each other simply because one of them *thinks* killing each other would work to stem off their own deaths by disease, I would guess there is some little neuroses at work. In fact I would guess that he hates society as is, enough to show how it decays from some abstract and nameless horror that only by cannibalizing each other is there some form of escape. Another particular favorite has a girl's long black hair come to life and with a homicidal will of its own, go to extreme prejudice in order to maintain its own survival from say, a much-needed trim at the hair salon.

In his opus, Uzumaki, there is no escape from the doom of the Spiral, as each issue shows how a little village slowly descends into ultra-disgusting horror and madness. One week, people are turning into snail creatures, the next week, people are now eating those snail creatures, cuz... well, they're yummy, I guess. The next week, people who ate those snail creatures are being contorted into the spiraling shapes of those snail shells and on it goes. There is no way out, no redemption, no shelter from some rather barf-inducing concepts.

Bloody Heathens! - Definitely Not for Sunday School

After recently reading how American distributors are not going to be allowing any showings of the new movie Creation due to its "controversial" topic - that of Charles Darwin and the lead-up to The Origin of Species, it got me into a fairly combative mood. Using reverse psychology: if a Gallup poll shows that 39% of Americans don't believe in evolution then it underscores how the Christian faith is obviously under attack from belief systems not in line with its own. To wit - getting defensive about someone else's POV is a sure sign of insecurity and ham-fisted judgement.

So I might as well feed a bit more tinder into the fire and show how some titles really take the piss out of misinterpreted dogma, particularly that represented by the Big Bad Institutionalized Cross. I'll sidestep Preacher by Garth Ennis, perhaps the grand-daddy of "vs-Christian" (rather than anti-Christian) comics as that deserves its own blog one of these days. Instead I'll touch on:

BLOODY MARY:

By who else? Garth Ennis. Mary Malone is a former special forces soldier who also happens to be a nun. She is literally invulnerable for part of the series, having ingested a creature that makes her immune to.... well, death, as she takes her share of bullets and even tank shells penetrating her torso. Blowing up the Vatican, killing Christian cults, bringing down fascist dictatorships - all in the name of whatever Garth Ennis believes in. The style is irreverant, as to be expected of the writer, but not so much as The Adventures of the Rifle Brigade but actually on par with say, Preacher. Ultra-violence is balanced against *some* degree of empathy for the characters but it doesn't take itself as seriously as Battlefields.

FAITH:

You either love the art by story-teller Ted McKeever or you hate it. But this series concerns itself with a concept of purgatory called Murr where the dead are sent, whether they were saints or devils. Robbed of identity and purpose, they come to realize they have a common enemy - the forces of God himself who is a corrupt landlord out to clear out Murr for unknown reasons. If you have a New Testament/Lifetime Channel concept of angels as harp-playing, blonde cherubs, this may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you are inclined to think of angels as God's mercenaries: eyeless, soulless, and unthinking as per Christopher Walken's Prophecy movies, you might get a kick out of the portrayal of brutally horrific angelic warfare. Takes all kinds. Cameos by an uber-pissed Joan D'Arc and Lucifer in a bad toupee.

BTW - this blog is NOT meant to be a Garth Ennis fan-page, just so you know.

World Class Cosplayer: Yaya Han

Call Name: Yaya Han

Status: Cosplay superstar

Real Name: Yaya Han

Profession: Costume Designer, Model

Does: Resident Evil, Macross Plus, Clover, Blue Girl, X-Men, Dead or Alive, Final Fantasy, Ranma 1/2, Death Note, Darkstalkers, Urusei Yatsura, Chobits, Parasite Eve, Dirty Pair, Blue Submarine 6 and more

Possible movie plot lines - Alita

As most of you know, James Cameron took a stab at two CG-heavy sci-fi narratives at the same time - Avatar and Yukito Kishiro' Battle Angel Alita. Avatar won out as the first to come out as the script came along faster. This isn't exactly surprising considering the density of the Alita story. The main problem with scripting a 2 to 3 hour movie about her is that the origin story doesn't take a full 2 hours to plough through, so in other words there will have to be one or two extra story lines to fill it out. While this would be a fairly large departure from the actual manga, it's probably acceptable due to the fact that someone like Cameron actually cares about things like telling a story and that there is a good chance that Yukito Kishiro will have some input as to the actual story.

I would guess that the Motorball derby saga isn't going to be part of it as although it has the most spectacle (and admittedly, I would LOVE to see that on film), the whole saga was a diversion in her life to "get away from it all". I think Makaku the Sewer-Orphan is a likelihood as it leads into the Desty Nova/Tipharean plotline, and Zapan's Revenge is a continuation of it and possibly the climax. All of it takes place in the Scrapyard and contains the same characters from the beginning.

If there is a second movie, I would guess it would combine the Barjack/Den road warrior-ish plotline combined with the Secret of Tiphares. This is a lot to combine into one 3 hour flick, but very possible. The problem with all of this is that it leaves out the Motorball story which *barely* fits into the larger Tiphares plot, but has some of the coolest and exciting visuals ever committed to print. Realistically, it could set a new standard for science fiction hyper action. It would pale the highway chase of Matrix Reloaded, Speed Racer's headache inducing races, and any race car flick like Driven and Days of Thunder by light years. A possibility is that Motorball is a second movie and Barjack/Tiphares is the third to finish off a trilogy .

Masters of Horror - Pt. 2, Mike Mignola

Well of course you figure that if you're going to have a column on horror that Mike Mignola would figure somewhere in there. Most famous for being the creator of Hellboy/BPRD, and unlike other writers, still plays an active role in the film-making. An interesting item of note: he was the original designer of Mr. Freeze in the Batman Animated series. Although he seems to be a fairly normal type of guy, his knowledge of demonology, old folktales, myths and legends puts him up there in the high levels of nerd-dom with Gary Gygax, but not quite J.R.R. Tolkien-levels of nerd-godhead. To qualify, you must memorize the entire tome of The Lesser Key of Solomon. Something I'm still working on. Anyways, not disparaging the Hellboy stories (which I love) but he's at his best when he gets all Victorian on us, mixing in cults, Lovecraftian Old Gods and Utilitarianism. I guess he figures Jeremy Bentham to be as evil as Cthulu himself.

SIR EDWARD GREY, WITCHFINDER IN THE SERVICE OF THE ANGELS: This is actually set in the same universe as Hellboy and the BPRD, but about one and a half centuries previous, at the height of the Victorian period. There is some character crossover, not least is Sir Edward Grey himself, who is a Thomas Carnacki/Johann Kraus-type of psychic, spirit-seeing crusading demon-hunter. Officially sanctioned by the Queen but still no less feared or despised by God-fearing Christians, he confronts the same type of baddies as Hellboy would do but without the resources of the BPRD, modern technology and in an environment setting MEANT for demons, ghosts and evil doers. The city streets of an industrializing Jack The Ripper London is itself an evil character and since you know everyone dies anyways due to time, you know that any and all characters are potential corpses waiting to happen.

JENNY FINN, DOOM MESSIAH: Yeah now THERE'S a cheerful title, innit? Drawn by Troy Nixey, this is a horror story through and through. Inspired by Lovecraft, London is beset by a disease that is infecting its inhabitants with some truly gross-looking skin conditions. Not eczema or acne of course, but rather tubes, fins, extra eyes, gills and claws type of hideous-ness. There is no heroic character here, just victims and bystanders of a fate for which there is no reason or understanding. This grotesque story is not watered-down by the near caricature black and white artistry and is on par with some of H.P. Lovecraft's most compelling and disturbing stories.

Our photo shoot - the results

Ain't they sweet?

World Class Cosplayer: Omi Gibson

Call Name: Omi Gibson

Status: Cosplay superstar

Real Name: Unknown

Profession: OL in Japan

Most seen as: Metal Gear characters

Also does: Black Lagoon, Justice League, Silent Hill, Transporter, Kill Bill, G.I. Joe, Darkstalkers, Mirrors Edge, Candy Fruit, Mezzo Forte, Death Note, Rumble Roses, Snatcher, Resident Evil, Underworld, Blood+, Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, Tekken, and it goes on and on

Masters of Horror - Pt. 1, Strange Embrace

It's a full two months til Halloween but why not start early? This will be part one of a series of the best of horror manga and comics that have come my way over the years and it's a pleasure to bring some of the most mind-fucking things to ever see print. So far, I can only confirm Junji Ito, H.P. Lovecraft and Mike Mignola, but who knows what else will pop out of the woodwork over the next two months.

I commence with David Hine's Strange Embrace - originally written and drawn in 1993 as a black and white but re-published as a full color compilation in 2007. This is what put Mr. Hine on the map, and prepped him from avant garde writing towards more mainstream titles such as Brave and The Bold and X-Men. I'm sure that if Marvel or DC had asked him to tap into the visceral horror and psychological dementia that he mustered with Strange Embrace into their own titles, I think he held it in check. He has never done anything close since.

Strange Embrace is a tale within a tale. An innocent boy is lured by a sociopathic spirit medium who himself weaves a tale involving obsession, insanity, self-abuse, suicide and manipulation. Focusing on an antiques dealer who succumbs to the worship of heathen African totems, the story pans out to the immediate family around him and shows how far the rabbit hole falls. It seems that with each issue, the macabre is scaled up a notch and all the pieces start to fit into the puzzle of why and how 1) the boy was pulled in, 2) the interest the crazy spirit medium has in the antiques dealer, and 3) the final fate of the antiques dealer and his family. I have to say, I love horror - and it pleases me immensely when a comic series, that medium that would have the most pacing and editing problems inherent in a horror narrative, can leave a sickly feeling upon finishing a story. There is no redemption here, no happy ending, just a very disturbing 3-dimensional tale.