Keep Me In Mind

Years of being a vinyl record addict have taught me a lot of hard lessons: Always put the white inner-sleeve away facing up so that the record doesn't simply drop to the floor when you get the album out next time. You'll never listen to a record set, even a double album is pushing it. Truly great records look like they were put together by a 1940s yearbook committee.  Maybe most importantly, the price of a record doesn't reflect on its quality.

Which brings me to the artist spotlighted in this article, because i'm about to do you a huge favor. I would conservatively estimate that 65% of the used record bins in the world, from high-end boutiques to Goodwills & garage sales, contain at least one Miriam Makeba album. I'm not really sure why this is. I don't know if the Columbia House record club simply mailed one to every household in America, or if the introduction of fluoride into our municipal water supplies sparked a national craze for world music. For whatever reason, there are a ton of Miriam Makeba albums out in the world, and the chances are that somebody would be willing to sell one to you for $1. Take them up on that offer.

Miriam Makeba was a singer from Johannesburg, South Africa, so beloved that she was nicknamed "Mama Africa." Her renown stems from both her powerful voice and her political activism, particularly as one of the resounding spokespeople against apartheid. She is credited with introducing African music to the worldwide stage when she performed in 1959 for 60 million viewers on the Steve Allen Show.

Armed with beauty, forthrightness, and stunning music, Miriam Makeba became a citizen of the world. Through a strong friendship with Harry Belafonte, she was signed with RCA Records in the United States and released her first solo album, Miriam Makeba, in 1960 featuring Belafonte's backing band. Her 2nd album, The World of Miriam Makeba, released in 1963 built on it's success and charted as high as number 86 on the Billboard Top 200.

Though she would say that she didn't sing political songs, that she simply sang the truth, Makeba was exiled from South Africa, and threatened with arrest should she return. This led Miriam Makeba to testify to the United Nations about the realities of apartheid, the government-codified racial segregation in South Africa, on three separate occassions in 1963, 1975, and 1976.

In 1964, Miriam Makeba was married to another of my favorite musicians, Hugh Masekela, whom she had first met in 1958 while performing in a South African musical of King Kong. Their marriage only lasted 2 years, but their influence on each other is readily apparent in all of their music.

Miriam Makeba led a long and storied career until her death in 2008. She left a legacy of amazing recordings, 28 albums, spanning 48 years. She toured endlessly, fighting through serious illnesses her whole life, passing away from a heart attack following a benefit concert in Italy. She remained an outspoken political advocate of the oppressed and marginalized. She was an unshakeable voice for freedom, love and harmony.

This article was once again written by good friend and World Music aficionado, Andrew Burger.  Aside from being a total dude when I ask for some help writing articles, Andrew also founded The Harmony Society record label and keeps his own blog, Stupid Scientifical, where you can keep up with all of his regular record-buying exploits.  Find him @DrScientifical on Twitter, and when you get the chance, stop into 720 Music, which he co-owns and operates in Pittsburgh, Pa.  Also, if you haven't read it already, check out his excellent article on Marcos Valle from (what feels like) way back in July.

A One And A Two.

Even though the summer is over (and it is, despite the unseasonably warm weather), I was browsing through my movies recently, and I was struck with the urge to finally shove off the lingering season by watching Edward Yang's sumptuous, slice-of-life/coming-of-age/delinquent youth epic masterpiece, A Brighter Summer Day (牯嶺街少年殺人事件 Gǔ lǐng jiē shàonián shārén shìjiàn), whose title was derived from the Elvis Presley song, Are You Lonesome Tonight?

I was first introduced to Yang via his most widely available (thanks to the Criterion Collection), and final film, Yi Yi.  Watching either film is a slight undertaking due to their length (Yi Yi is 3 hours long, and A Brighter Summer Day closes out at around 4), but the way in which Yang portrays his linear events in his pictures have an almost episodic feel to them, allowing the viewer's attention to continually refocus as the momentum keeps at a steady rhythm.  It's not all jump-cuts or high-kinetic pacing though; Yang lets the seemingly stable and everyday moments in his films speak for themselves, allowing them the attention they deserve, and in the process, keeps us fascinated by such seemingly mundane activities.  There is a natural tension to real life, and Yang recognizes that an afternoon in the principal's office can be as tense as a run from the police, and the real life alienation that the two feel are often times very similar.

In fact, it was those themes of alienation explored by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni that helped Yang find his place as a filmmaker himself.  Although he always had a fascination with film, Yang instead studied electronic engineering at National Chiao Tung University (sounding familiar to anyone else?) before giving it a try at UNC Film School after getting his Masters degree in electrical and computer engineering.  Yang found the curriculum and teaching at UNC too commercial-driven and limiting, and after leaving USC was accepted to the Harvard Graduate School Of Design, where he did not attend.  If all this is sounding a bit too convoluted, hang in there: While Yang was working on microcomputers in Seattle, Washington, he was struck by the film Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, by Werner Herzog, and later discovered the work of Antonioni before returning to Taiwan to pursue a career in film and TV.

I admittedly have not seen all of Yang's work (I'm certainly working on it, though), but the films of his I have seen are some of my absolute favorites.  Unfortunately, the director passed away from colon cancer in 2007, so we'll never get to see what heights his later films could have reached (2000's Yi Yi is considered his best film, by many).  He was reportedly working on a full length animated film with Jackie Chan (the fucking best) titled The Wind, and if you're like me, you can throw that film on the pile with Jodorowsky's Dune and anything else Satoshi Kon was going to do as the greatest sounding movies we'll never get to see (I know there is a Dune documentary coming out soon, and maybe The Dream Machine will get finished, but still...).  For all his hiccups towards his film career though, Edward Yang was able to create some of the most memorable moments I've had watching films, and in a way, with such a short career, much like Satoshi Kon, the audience was always on the upswing of his work; his films were only going to get better, and we can only imagine, in selfish elation, what would have come next.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Taiwanese New Wave, which Yang shared with fellow directors, Hou Hsiao-hsien (if you haven't watched Daughter Of The Nile, please do), Wu Nien-jen, and Tsai Ming-liang (among others).  It's interesting to note that not all directors in the Taiwanese New Wave were Taiwanese, and I think that says some interesting things not only about it's film industry, but about Taiwan itself.

Foreign Demon Now On Twitter!

Er, sort of.  I'm on Twitter, at least.  Even though I talk about all sorts of things, I will still be mentioning stuff pertaining to what I do here all the time.  If you can put up with some random shit now and again, follow me, why not!  Now that it's the future, you can check out any quick information about anything I wanna talk about!  Follow me @Arzachary

Lo Sai Vittorio?

What does Italy, electrical engineering, and the international comics scene have in common?  Can't guess?  Even with the title and/or opening image of this article?  Well, I'll tell you.  It's Italian comics creator, Vittorio Giardino, who, at 31, quit his job as an electrical engineer and devoted his life to comics, only to gain international acclaim with his series of WWII era espionage and intrigue comics starring Max Friedman, an obvious stand-in for the author himself.  Sound overly specific?  Well, it is, but that's okay, Vittorio Giardino is pretty specific, himself.

I first discovered Vittorio Giardino through his Max Friedman series; specifically the first volume of NBM's No Pasaran, found at my local comic book store in a discount box for like, five dollars.  I didn't know anything about it other than his name sounded Italian, and I loved the artwork.  It turned out that although there were two more volumes of that story, a couple preceding Max Friedman tales, and a few shorter collections, not a lot of his work has been published in English.  What was available, at the time I discovered the author, was sometimes hard to come by or a few dollars more than I was expecting.  To an extent, I can understand a more modern comics fan having trouble relating to his work; imagine your dad, who loves WWII, Robert Ludlum and John le Carré novels, and beautifully exotic-looking naked women, decided he was going to quit his job and use his meticulous drafting skills to draw comics that he also wrote.  Doesn't sound awesome?  Turns out it is!

 Born in Bologna in 1946, and premiering in 1981 with his private eye character, Sam Pezzo, it's not hard to imagine that Giardino was inspired by other notable Italian comic creators such as Hugo Pratt and Milo Manara (both of which I have mentioned before), though I would compare Max Friedman more to Pratt's Corto Maltese than Manara's freewheelin' Giuseppe Bergman (both are, as discussed elsewhere, also stand-ins for their respective authors).  Though Giardino also took express inspiration elsewhere, this being my blog and all, I feel free to speculate that the aforementioned authors must have had some impact on our subject, especially given his penchant for historical fiction and eroticism (if you are even mildly interested in either, spend less time looking for weird shit on the internet and pick up whatever you can by Pratt and/or Manara, you won't be disappointed).  Though only one volume of Sam Pezzo P.I. was released in English (that I'm aware of, at least), what is available is nonetheless entertaining, and really wonderful to see as a starting point for Giardino.  Collected in the first (I imagine sales fell short of projection, leading to the cancellation of the translation project before volume two could be produced) volume are The Jockey Rides, and the appropriately hard-boiled-sounding Shit City, through both of which you can see the artist's graphic storytelling skills improving.  As early as these first stories, it seems apparent that Giardino knew the kind of stories he wanted to tell.  While still not the startling quality of his later works, his thoughtful, intelligent style of writing, paired with his blend of precision draftsmanship and cartoonish black lines are all present, waiting to be refined, as his later works would certainly prove to be.

 No Pasaran is the third English Max Friedman story to appear in English, following Orient Gateway,which was itself preceded by Hungarian Rhapsody (I'm listing them as such because, unfortunately, that was the order in which I read them).  Hungarian Rhapsody expertly introduces the character as "...someone who doesn't burn up so easily, someone unknown... In short, someone skillful but an amateur."  He plays the part of an unwilling participant in a life that is alluded to be behind him after the First World War.  As you learn later in his life story (No Pasaran), Friedman was part of the International Brigades, and although each book works as a stand alone subject, there is definitely a sense of linearity to them.  I have a feeling, from illustrations that I have come across in art books and collections of his work that there are more Max Friedman stories out there, but I haven't found any hard information on where they might be; in his Glamour Book, there are several pages of illustrations and story involving the character, but I have yet to find specific titles or years that any missing stories may be attributed to (in fact, it took Giardino several years to complete No Pasaran, with the three NBM volumes released in 2000, 2002, and 2008, respectively).

After making my way through all the Max Friedman I could find, I immediately scoured any outlets I could to get my hands on more work in English, which brought me of course, firstly, to Little Ego.  Inspired by Winsor McCay's Little Nemo, Little Ego is an adventure in sexuality, in which the titular protagonist, a twenty-something heroine, continuously finds herself in the middle of one erotic dream after another.  Like Nemo, she soon wakes, only to declare her need to tell her therapist all about it (in McCay's Nemo, the young boy would wake from his very vivid dreams only to tell his mother all about them).  Though seemingly a simple exploitative adventure (Little Ego was, after all, reprinted in Penthouse Magazine in the mid-nineties, after a successful initial serialization in Glamour International in 1984, Comic Art in 1985, Epix in 1986, and Heavy Metal in 1993), Giardino fills his strip with all the psychological trappings that McCay did himself; in one installment, Ego is confronted and seduced by a crocodile in her bathtub (the crocodile a symbol of duplicity and hypocrisy in dreams), before finding pleasure in literal mirror images of herself in the next episode.  The sheer beauty of the linework and brilliance of paneling again, brings to mind Winsor McCay's obvious influence; though decades later, Giardino was keeping the linge claire style as relevant as McCay and Hergé had done in the early part of the twentieth century (though the "clear line" style origins are attributed mostly to the early Franco-Belgian comic movement, reaching  the height of it's popularity in the 1950s, the style was initially inspired by the work of American cartoonists like McCay and Gluyas Williams).  Little Ego eventually abandons it's initial series of unrelated psycho-sexual misadventures to give way to a more installment-based continuous dream in which our protagonista jumps from one thrilling moment to another, at some moments making the reader forget the trouble that led her to where she is at any given moment.  It's all very dream-like and disorienting, even if each separate installment feels lucid and makes sense within itself.  Ego is not to be trod lightly upon, though as a casual read it can be pure escapist entertainment as well.

Giardino's other long-form collected work, Jonas Fink: A Jew In Communist Prague, stars Jonas Fink, a, uh, Jew in communist Prague.  It takes place during Joseph Stalin's regime in the 1950s and focuses on the persecution of Jonas and his mother following the arrest of his father.  The art and writing are again superb, as one would come to expect from his other work.  Jonas is obviously more youthful than his counterparts in Giardino's other tales, but he remains generally very similar in tone as Max Friedman.  The third volume, Rebellion, even went on to win a Harvey Award for best foreign material in 1999, so that's something!

 As I mentioned before, I had a little more trouble, at the time, finding too much more of his work for a little while.  I ended up finding a few of his books in either French, Italian, or German, though I did end up finding a copy of Deadly Dalliance, an English language Catalan Communications edition of Vacance Fatales, a French language hardback published by Casterman, which I had founds a few months prior.  Unfortunately, as is most often the case with foreign imports of the time (Catalan's edition is dated January of 1991), the printing quality and general presentation is much lower in the English language edition, with printing being offset to the point of blurriness on many of the pages, and even the cover seemingly a low-resolution scan.  Dalliance is also missing about half of it's counterpart's chapters; and while the short stories are generally, in no way related to one another, it's still sorry to see that the full work was not translated in full, for whatever reason that may have been.

Though many of his works remain untranslated (not to mention his bevy of illustration work for magazines, advertisements, and any other number of graphic related productions), I encourage any reader interested to keep their eyes open for anything they come across; translating Latin based languages has become easier with the inception of the internet, if one has time to pursue such a task, and the art honestly stands on it's own enough to warrant such purchases, granted the fee is not too steep.  I would still love to see more translations of his work, if only to find more of it available without hours of searching or paying import shipping costs, but for now we will have to be content with what is available; and while most if not all of his translated work is out of print, it's definitely still out there if one is interested in looking.  Vittorio Giardino has become one of my personal favorites in European comics throughout the past decade, and I again encourage any reader to explore and discover his work for themselves; highest recommendation.

As a quick post script, I want to point out that I have attempted to, upon request, provide more hyperlinks within the text of my articles.  I often forget that some readers may not know many of the references made here, and when it comes to comparing the work of other creators or forerunners in whichever medium I am speaking about, I think that that bit of constructive criticism is appropriate, as I hope to encourage readers to explore beyond my modest-yet-well-meaning articles.  To that point, though many of the links provided throughout this blog often redirect to Wikipedia, I in no way mean for that to be the end of any inquisitive mind's journey.  While I appreciate the ease with which Wikipedia delivers certain information, it is rarely if ever complete, instead providing a very good bouncing off point for those interested in pursuing any information further.  Just saying.

A Lazy End To A Busy Summer

 Now that summer is coming to a close (I know we still have a little bit left, but late August has always felt like it's own season for me), I wanted to look back at all of the stuff I have consumed over the season.  Though the summer is usually (and still was!) populated with an overabundance of summer blockbusters and general fluff, I managed to keep up with what I wanted to see; both with new-ish releases and some older fare that I only recently got around to absorbing.

To be completely straightforward, I have been incredibly lazy this summer.  I mean, I have had some very busy moments and have been working all summer, but I really didn't do anything outdoorsy or get to travel anywhere.  On my off moments, I spent most of it indoors either working, reading, or watching movies; all of which I am a fan of, but it was still pretty lazy of me, and though I got some great experiences out of it, I can't endorse that kind of lifestyle for anyone generally interested in a great summer experience.

So (clap!), let's get down to it.  What wasted my summer, you ask?  Well, let's start with France, shall we?  Few things took up my time this year like France managed to do, and whether it was a slew of movies I parked myself in front of, or the great experiences I had with some really wonderful comics, it was this stuff that unintentionally dominated my palate for the past few months.  For the longest time I had always been more familiar with Japanese cinema than any other, and even in what I feel is a reasonable knowledge of some Hong Kong and European film, France, though my favorite of what I knew, still didn't occupy a very large room in the stupid warehouse in my brain that stores all the garbage I pick up on a regular basis.  That isn't to say I didn't love French film (I still know more about their comics than anything else that country ever produced), I just didn't know all that much about it.  Outside of a few directors I know particularly well, I still didn't explore their cinema as randomly as I do with Japanese film up until the past few years or so; this summer though, I got a little stuck and just wanted to see more.

I try my best, on this blog, to stay positive about the material I write about.  For every article I write on something I love, there are at least ten more in my head written about stuff I generally didn't enjoy or thought was straight-up awful.  Many of the films on this list, while not terrible, just didn't exactly warrant posts of their own; a few of them did, and there are some drafts of articles about them, and I really meant to finish them, but for some reason or another they fell out of focus, or the context of the original articles didn't apply anymore as time would go by and they sat in my drafts folder.  Some of it might still see some life beyond this post (some revisited works did!), but some of these works have been shoved to another room in my brain full of shit I love but don't have time or the proper context to talk about (I'll post a diagram of this thing sometime, I promise).

Criminal Lovers, In The House, A Curtain Raiser, A Summer Dress, Under The Sand, Water Drops On Burning Rocks; I pretty much really really enjoyed all of these.  I don't want to get into too much detail, as I plan on giving François Ozon his very own article, especially in anticipation of his newest film, Young & Beautiful (Jeune & Jolie), but suffice to say, he has become one of my favorite directors over this past season. 

 Lila Says, Ultimate Heist, and The Blonde With Bare Breasts, all starring actress, Vahina Giocante; I liked Lila Says a lot.  It wasn't incredible, but I enjoyed the intimate feel of the setting and the sensuality of the actors.  The film did a great job of portraying affected, perhaps abused youth, while still keeping the sexuality and building relationship beautiful and intimate.  Ultimate Heist was kinda dumb.  It was pretty much just a French blockbuster, and as such, was kind of mindless.  There was a plot, but even after watching it pretty recently, I can't for the life of me even remember what it was; none of which I would really say is any fault of the actors involved (Jean Reno, baby!), but rather just a very lukewarm plot; I don't know what would have made this film any better though, honestly.  The Blonde With The Bare Breasts was not at all interesting to me; I feel like it played more on the sensuality and appearance of actress Vahina Giocante, and less on any actual string of events.  Sure, things happen, and maybe they happen for a reason, but the dialogue, coupled with the insane sequence of events/character developement really made this one hard to get through, despite the aforementioned actress.

 
Read My Lips, by director, Jacques Audiard; I admit that I missed last year's Rust & Bone, but if Read My Lips is any indication of Audiard's work, I am pretty pleased with that and am willing to take my familiarity a step or two further and check out what else his modest-ish body of work has to offer.  It stars Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Devos (the latter I am not too familiar with, though the former is a personal favorite) in a sort-of crime, sort-of maybe romantic film.  It's all played out very well, with believable performances from both actors, and although the story was a little bit of a stretch, I still enjoyed it once I was in.  Some of the problems were of a scripting nature, as I said before, it all felt well acted, but I would call it a solid B.

Little White Lies, Park Benches, The Players, and The Lookout; this is the part where we start getting into large casts or well known actor territory.  Little White Lies, by Guillaume Canet, was pretty much both of those concepts; a summer movie in and of itself, Canet's third full-length directorial outing focused on a group all of friends, all played by currently famous French actors, still going on vacation after one of them gets in a very serious, drug and alcohol influenced auto accident that leaves him mostly paralyzed and disfigured in a hospital bed.  This wasn't a bad movie at all, and for all of it's star power, something that generally doesn't do anything for me, the cast worked very well together, and I bought was the story was trying to sell me.  Park Benches, on the other hand, bored the shit out of me.  It wasn't terrible, but it dragged like a bag carrying all of the actors in that movie.  There is a gag-laden, extended third (or fourth?  I couldn't keep track) act in a hardware store that I thought was never going to end, and the payoff wasn't as such that I cared too terribly what happened.  The Players, starring Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche (reunited after Little White Lies) was an omnibus film from several of France's lofty directors pool, all focused on the concept of infidelity.  Quite a few of these were funny, a couple were not, but as a whole experience, I would have preferred these were all individual shorts (and maybe they were somewhere) that I could have seen on a weekly, serialized basis, rather than all in one go.  The Lookout was, meh, a movie.  It starred Mathiew Kassovitz, who I am still pissed at for never making anything as good as La Haine ever again.  It's a blockbuster, and it was okay as that, but it didn't stick with me; like Ultimate Heist, I really can't even remember what happened.

Elles, Sweet Evil, and Q; It took me quite a while to see Elles, but I think that I really liked it.  Juliette Binoche was fantastic, and Anaïs Demoustier, did a pretty believable job as a chic, twenty-something, student prostitute, and I liked her performance more in Elles than I did in Sweet Evil, which was a much sillier movie, despite it's serious intent and general lack of humor.  Q is something else, though.  If I had to make one of those stupid this-movie-is-a-cross-between descriptions, this movie feels like a cross between Lila Says and a Tinto Brass film.  Like Lila Says, the film explored troubled youth and sexuality, but it managed to be much more explicit, and even had unsimulated sex, which can usually go either way in a film.  For the most part, I actually liked it, despite it's Cinemax-in-the-90s style plot description.

Lastly (honestly there are some more I know I watched, but I can't even remember them), I finally got to see The Bride Wore Black, from François Truffaut, circa 1968.  I have been wanting to catch this gem for quite some time now, and I finally got around to it a couple weeks ago.  Without getting too into Truffaut's career, I love his Antoine Doinel series, and I loved this.  When it came out, Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill got more press as a take on martial arts and action films, but there are some sequences in this movie that were straight-up lifted and used in that film.  Watch twenty minutes of The Bride Wore Black and tell me that I'm reaching, please.  This was a wonderful cap to the season's long list of movies for me, and though there were plenty of great domestic and other-foreign films I saw in the past few months, this film, especially lumped in with everything listed here, was one of my favorites.  This summer felt very very long, but at the same time I feel like it blazed right by me.  Hopefully whoever is reading this had a great summer experience, and be happy I watched all these things so you didn't have to.

P.S.  Quit doing stupid shit outside and watch more movies.

An Endless Song

 Sooooooo, I apologize for the distance between posts recently.  Late in the summer has proven itself to be much busier for me in terms of projects and workload, and I have yet to balance that with also keeping up a consistent blog, so again, I apologize.  One such issue I have been dealing with is the matter of a beat automobile; it's not that it's an all encompassing matter, as I've been walking everywhere this season, but, in picking the right day to finally deal with the issue, there was the inevitable bit of revisiting the previous season's shit built up in the back seat of said automobile.  There was no greater gift to myself than finding my equally as beat CD copy of The Blue Hearts' self titled album from 1987 (I haven't had the album that long, I just wanted to put their work in some perspective), and as I pulled out of the repair shop parking lot, nothing made the annoying task feel more worthwile than the first few bars of the album's high-energy opener, Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka (未来は僕等の手の中 The Future is in Our Hands).

 

The Blue Hearts certainly aren't an unknown or niche band by any means, and I wondered whether or not an article on here would even be necessary, but I gotta think there are still some people out there unfamiliar with the legendary Japanese punk band, out of either being unfamiliar with punk rock in general, or just it's countless foreign interpretations, though I can think of very few as prolific as The Blue Hearts (there is a successful movie named after and built their most famous single, for shit's sake!).  Also, I just can't stop listening to them right now, and I like talking about things I like.

 

Formed in 1985 and officially debuting in 1987, The Blue Hearts, over their ten year career, managed to do what few punk bands were able to do; they were able to achieve both critical success and high album sales while still remaining relevant and credible within the punk scene in their native Japan.  In fact, their 1988 single, Chernobyl, a criticism of nuclear power, found the band in trouble with their label, Meldac Records, which was formed with funding from several large companies, one of which being Mitsubishi, who was also involved in the nuclear power industry.  Instead of dropping the song around the time of their third studio album, Train Train, the band instead decided to ditch Meldac records and released the single independently (along with it's A side accompanying track, Blue Hearts Theme, a personal favorite of mine) before eventually signing to East West Japan.

 

The Blue Hearts release eight studio albums and a ton of singles before breaking up in 1995, but soon after, members Hiroto Kōmoto, Masatoshi Mashima, and Mikio Shirai would continue playing music together as The High-Lows.  Similar in sound to The Blue Hearts, The High-Lows would last for another ten years before Kōmoto and Mashima would go on to form The Cro-Magnons (no, not the Japanese jazz-infused-funk band Cro-Magnon, but nice try) in 2006.  Former bass player Junnosuke Kawaguchi would even go on to be a record producer and studio bass player; more importantly though, he became a deputy propaganda director for the Happiness Realization Party in 2009.  I would suggest checking out that last hyperlink and then looking into the current state of politics in Japan before totally throwing that guy onto the crazy boat, though I will add that that doesn't diminish The Blue Hearts first album to me in any way.

 Lastly, I think it's also worthwhile to mention that 2005's Linda Linda Linda, by Nobuhiro Tamashita, is an excellent film.  Named after one of The Blue Hearts most famous songs, the film centers on a group of high school girls forming a band to play Blue Hearts cover songs for their school festival.  While that might not sound all too interesting to some, the payoff in that film far surpasses an easy explanation; and if anyone reading this blog has even been in a band or played music with friends, the central momentum in Linda Linda Linda is apparent from some of the earliest moments in it's still rather lighthearted plot.  It's also cool to mention that the girls in this movie even learned how to play all these songs together, and while no one really slouches in this film, it is of course Bae Doona (whos is actually Korean, and I'm pretty sure learned Japanese for this movie), who's performance as South Korean exchange student, Son, really shines and elevates a meager storyline into something both wonderfully heartfelt and hilarious.

Also, check out this awesome live performance by The Blue Hearts from 1987; they were pretty fucking rad.

Terra Form

With a recent run at the Kyoto International Manga Museum in, uh, Kyoto, I thought this would be a pretty decent time to talk about Katsuya Terada; an artist I have long admired, and whose most recent book, Katsuya Terada 10 TEN-Ten Year Retrospective, just showed up on my doorstep.  As a companion to his recent exhibit (that unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to), the book acts as a kind of omnibus of his work in the past, let's say ten years.  Though not as expansive as the still-fresh feeling Genga artbook from Katsuhiro Otomo (you really need to hold that book in your hands to grasp it's weight; no pun intended), this book is still a wonderful introduction to Terada's work for the uninitiated, especially for the price and availability (though not accounting for import prices once this book is gone, TEN is still much easier to find overseas than many of his previous works).

Born in Okayama, Japan, Katuya Terada's first work recognizable to foreign audiences would probably be his illustrations for Nintendo Power Magazine.  Though I'm not sure if he was ever properly credited in the magazine, fans of his work now can easily go through so many of the back-issues (well, as easily as you can get your hands on 80s-era back-issues of Nintendo Power) and recognize his work immediately.  He employed many of the same techniques then as he often does now, using minimal line work and color to illustrate scenes that the games could only imply, and his domination of space and anatomy imbues such simple and effortless looking drawings with a weight and depth as unique and unmistakable as anything he has done in even the past ten years.  That isn't to say that he doesn't have a diverse body of work; in fact, though instantly recognizable as any of his work is, his range as an illustrator is surprising.  He is just as comfortable, it seems, crafting intricately detailed, digitally-painted fantasy illustrations as he is with clean-line or hatched, black and white ink drawings.

In addition to his Nintendo Power contributions, Terada has also contributed designs for several other videogames and anime productions, including a special edition strategy guide for Dragon Warrior and promotional materials for the Detective Saburo Jinguji series.  Most famously, Terra contributed character designs and promo illustrations for Blade: The Last Vampire, an excellent anime production from 2000 directed by industry veteran, Hiroyuki Kitakubo (not to be confused with the series, Blood + and Blood-C, or the 2009 live-action remake).

Even his sketchbooks delight, and it is no wonder that he has also given himself the alias, Rakugakingu (ラクガキング), meaning graffiti, sketch, or doodle king; Rakugakingu is also the name of an artbook he released in 2002, totaling 1000 pages taken from his sketchbooks.  The pages of Rakugakingu are thin and translucent, and being able to see through them gives this voluminous tome the feel of a real life sketchbook, and it's great to see the design of the book reflect the contents within.  In a recent interview, Terra commented on the book, saying, "Even when I did Rakugakingu, I thought, well it's just scribbles so it need to be 1000 pages.  We're charging money so it needs to feel worth it".  His attitude towards what he feels comfortable charging money for is reflected in his output of work, and his books often exhibit some kind of interesting design or value to them; whether it's a collectable, durable cardboard sleeve and packaging justifying it's sum, or just keeping the book price low through smaller size and multiple printing techniques, his printed material is always as much of value as it is entertaining (again, it would have been nice for TEN to have been a larger production, a la Genga, but for the price this book was released at, making it available to a wider audience that may have missed some of his previous artbooks was obviously the key issue going to print).



One of my favorite releases of his so far was 2008's Viva Il Ciclissimo, a two volume, joint project between Terada and Katsuhiro Otomo (who has to be mentioned on this blog at least once per post, apparently), centered on the Giro d’Italia cycling tour.  The first (hardback) book is centered around the tour itself, filled with beautiful illustrations from both artists, chronicling not only the tour itself, but some really wonderful moments of imaginative daydreaming that only the two of them could create.  Both artists being avid cycling enthusiasts, the second (softcover) book is full of sketches and ideas, and the looseness of the presentation is fun and exciting to look through, and it keeps the reader pouring over each single drawing, eagerly in anticipation of what awaits them on the next page; and while the first volume is split in two, giving each auteur equal measure (as well as their own opposing covers), the second is a mishmash of ideas, even including Hiroyuki Kitakubo, properly illustrating the enthusiasm many Japanese illustrators have for professional cycling (who knew?).  There was even a neat little cycling bag featuring an illustration by Terada thrown in with the early limited edition printings of this book.

Though I'm not really as much of a fan of his comic works than I am of his illustrations, I would be remiss if I didn't mention his Monkey King series, published by Dark Horse in the US.  While I don't realy dislike it, what I enjoy in illustrations is not always what I enjoy in comics, and his ultra-detailed digital illustrations don't work for me as much; my feelings are much the same for guys like Alex Ross, who, although are great painters and draftsmen, just use too many colors on a page and it always appears as if they worked on a painting, and then made it fit onto a page with other paintings; they lose the sense of flow a page should have, and while each individual painting is great, they have only managed to fit more than one on a page and I find it incredibly difficult to focus on any real action (basically, one has to readjust what their looking at in each panel).

I know this article seems a little fragmented or less focused than some previous posts, but to be honest, that is kind of Katsuya Terada.  The man has managed to be incredibly prolific while also being in so many different illustration fields.  I wish, in a way, that this article was purely images, but even then, it is hard to grasp the full picture of what Terra is capable of.  The most I can recommend is that if you are interested in his work, or you find anything of his striking, find his work.  He has more out there than even I am aware of, and he always surprises me with something I never knew existed.  He has a wide range of interests, and he does a wonderful job of taking advantage of his position to include those interests in his work, so I find it hard to believe that there is someone out there that can't appreciate his work on some level.