Jason Thompson

Designer Jason Thompson is currently running a Kickstarter for his tabletop game Mangaka: The Fast & Furious Game of Drawing Comics, where players draw a comic through the course of the game. It's a fascinating idea that combines two interests that often overlap; comics and tabletop gaming. The description makes it seem like the game moves at a breakneck pace, and is more about creative storytelling based on the cards you pull than on displaying impressive art skills, which means I might actually be able to play.

Unless you've been living under a rock, it's hard to ignore the immense amount of manga that's been translated into English over the past couple of years. While comics from Japan have been published in English for some time before then, the boom of material in the 21st century has bordered on the level of staggering ...