The ChinaJoy Cosplay Carnival illustrates the growth of Cosplay in China. 99.9% of people born after 1990 like comics and animation, which fuel Cosplay, whereas only 21% born in the 1970s like the media.

Read more about the China Cosplay scene on China Daily

Technorati Tags: anime, China, cosplay, culture, entertainment, fashion, manga, ChinaJoy Cosplay Carnival

Liquid City is a Sonny Liew comics-anthology, presenting an edgy vision of city life in the past, present and future.

It’s due out in November 2008 and looks like an interesting visual trip into the work of artists and writers of South East Asia.

“Aside from hopefully providing a platform for some of the creators to be read by a wider audience, I thought just having a collection of stories might be one step in the long road of creating a comics community here in South-east Asia” Sonny explains.

Find out more info on Liquid City

Via Culturepush

Technorati Tags: comics, Liquid City, Sonny Liew

If you can read Vietnamese, you can truly appreciate this old bootleg comic of Batman and the Boy Wonder. This is from Saigon, 1966 and you can click through and view a 32 page comic online.

Batman comic in Vietnamese

Via BoingBoing

Technorati Tags: Batman and the Boy Wonder, Batman in Vietnamese, comics, entertainment, Saigon, retro, Vietnam

My Darling is a Foreigner (Darling wa Gaikokujin) is a funny manga that came out in 2002 about what it’s like to be married to a foreigner in Japan.

It’s apparently a hilarious account of the quirks of Japanese culture and how they are perceived by others, and of co-habitation in general.

It is written as an autobiographical comedy based on the lives of author Saori Oguri and her white husband Tony Laszlo, a Hungarian-American journalist.

Tony is a mellow but hard-working guy who isn’t afraid to complain to the waiter about bad-tasting wine and likes to sneak to the fridge to get chocolate ice cream when Saori’s not looking.

Saori, the manga artist, is sometimes embarrassed by him and often annoyed at little things, like how he doesn’t do dishes right away or how he stacks them in the dish rack the wrong way – but mostly she finds his quirks endearing and his insights on the culture fascinating – fascinating enough that they’re the subject of her best-selling manga.

It looks like its only in Japanese, but it would be interesting to read an English language copy of this. Would anything be lost in translation?

From TokyoMango

Technorati Tags: comics, Darling wa Gaikokujin, Japan, manga, My Darling is a Foreigner, Saori Oguri

I’ve just heard about Manga : The Complete Guide which is a new book (set to be released in October 07) written by former Viz editor Jason Thompson. I haven’t flicked through it, but it sounds like a fantastic resource for both newcomers and seasoned readers on the genre.

The book will contain:

• Reviews of more than 900 manga series
• Ratings from 0 to 4 stars
• Incisive, full-length reviews of stories and artwork
• Guidelines for age-appropriateness–from strictly mature to kid-friendly
• Number of series volumes
• Background info on series and artists
• Profiles of the biggest names in manga, including CLAMP, Osamu Tezuka, Rumiko Takahashi, and many others
• The facts on the many kinds of manga–know your shôjo from your shônen
• An overview of the manga industry and its history
• A detailed bibliography and a glossary of manga terms

Jason Thompson has over ten years’ experience as a manga editor, working at SHOHEN JUMP magazine and other publications. His writing has appeared in Animerica and The Comics Journal.

Read an interview with Jason Thompson here

Get Manga: The Complete Guide at Amazon…

Technorati Tags: book, comics, culture, Japanese, Jason Thompson, manga, Manga : The Complete Guide

Fans of Storm Riders will love these two icons sets from The Icon Factory’s Talos Tsui.

Download Storm Rider Characters Icon set from The Icon Factory
(Mac and PC)

Download Storm Rider Swords Icon set from The Icon Factory
(Mac and PC)

Technorati Tags: comics, Hong Kong, icons, Storm Riders, Talos Tsui, The Icon Factory

I just came across the frank, witty and more importantly, damn funny, Asian American comic strip “Secret Asian Man” by Tak Toyoshima.

It’s a cult comic strip, which will launch on 16th July in US newspapers nationwide under syndication service United Media:

“A brilliant artist and wonderfully succinct writer, Tak Toyoshima opens a window on topics that the comics have ignored until now. Most importantly, you don’t have to be Asian to love ‘Secret Asian Man!’ ”

You also don’t have to be based in the USA. I found the strip very clever and as Fallout Central put it, “politically incorrect in a way that doesn’t demean.”

Below are a few of my favourite strips from Tak’s archive. More on his site…

Technorati Tags: Asian American, comics, Secret Asian Man, Tak Toyoshima

Secret Asian Man via Fallout Central

Sweatdrop Studios are a group of over twenty UK-based artists working to create manga-styled comics. In the four years they’ve been around, they’ve produced over one-hundred titles and several anthologies, aiming to produce completely original stories with their own characters and ideas.

Nice to see UK-bred manga flourishing! Buy from Sweatdrop online, or if you live in the UK and create your own comics, join them!

Sweatdrop Studios

Technorati Tags: comics, manga, United Kingdom

Virgin Comics (Virgin of Richard Branson fame) was launched last year and based in India, they bring together creative talent from around the world, tapping into the vast library of mythology to re-invent the rich indigenous narratives of Asia. I wish I had discovered this earlier so that I can catch the complete issues to date of Asian-mythology titles like “Devi” and “Snake Woman“.

However, Virgin Comics has a “Director’s Cut” series where they’ve approached film makers to collaborate with a team of artists and writers, in order to develop an idea, a story, into a comic book and beyond. Their fantastic debut is with John Woo on a tale called “7 Brothers“. If you’re quick, you can still pick up issues one and two, as issue three (cover below) is now in the shops. In the UK, try Forbidden Planet.

Technorati Tags: art, comics, culture, entertainment, John Woo, Virgin Comics

7 brothers…

Six hundred years ago, a mighty treasure fleet set out to sail the oceans of the world. They reached every continent, discovered every land long before history’s great explorers stole the credit for their feats. Now, in modern day Los Angeles, seven men with nothing in common but their destinies are drawn together in the service of a mysterious young woman. An ancient prophecy must be fulfilled. Something terrible is reaching out across the centuries. There’s a world to be saved…and the only hope for us all is a motley crew of so-called brothers and a power too terrifying to be used.