Tom Speelman
Comics Alliance GIft Guide: Western Comics For Manga And Anime Fans
Western comics have been drawing inspiration from manga and anime for a generation now, both artistically and narratively, and a whole bunch of today's bestselling comics creators owe a debt to their lifelong love of Japanese pop culture. If you know a fan of anime and manga who wants to make the jump to North American comics, we've put together this gift guide full of great suggestions.
Comics Alliance Gift Guide: Manga and Anime For Western Comics Fans
From its days as unfamiliar black-and-white single comics discovered as if by chance in Western comics shops, manga has become the biggest-selling sector of the comics industry, and an influence on dozens of creators in the North American industry.
Much like Western comics, manga is for everyone, so if you know someone who loves comics but has never got into manga, we've put together a gift guide with great ideas for books and movies that you can buy them this holiday season.
Comics Alliance Gift Guide: Wordy Books For Comics Nerds
Anyone who identifies as a comics nerd (and we use that word in the most celebratory sense) must love reading. And even beyond reading comics, there are plenty of books about comics that they could be reading.
So dive in to this gift guide and find a book or two for the history buff, nerdy academic relative, or bookworm kid in your life!
Screen & Page: Grab The Sword In Your Soul In ‘The Boy And The Beast’
The Boy And The Beast is the latest film from Mamoru Hosoda, Hayao Miyazaki's heir apparent. It's a poignant fable about growing up and parenthood, as well as a stunning, fun adventure film. Screen & Page looks at the appeal of the movie, and its adaptation as a manga by Renji Asai.
Screen & Page: Unlock the Secrets Of ‘Higurashi: When They Cry’
Most anime is adapted from manga, often produced by the manga publisher to raise awareness and sell it overseas. But what about the anime shows or films that go the other way, adapted from the screen to the page? How do those works hold up, and what changes or stays the same? That’s what Screen & Page aims to explore.
Today, we're looking at a video game adaptation that stands effectively as a horror tale in its own right, while retaining its originators' sense of mystery and unease: Higurashi: When They Cry!
If He Be Worthy: Does Walt Simonson’s ‘Thor’ Live Up To Its Reputation? [Fantasy Week]
While it may be overstating the case to describe superhero comics as our modern myths in a post-religious age, there are certainly some stories that have taken on a near-mythic quality as "the stories you have to read": Watchmen; The Dark Knight Returns; All-Star Superman; The Death of Captain Marvel; "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." These stories are held in high esteem, often for a generation or more.
For Fantasy Week here at ComicsAlliance, I wanted I'd dive into a run that's not only held up as one of the defining Marvel stories of the 1980s, but also the high point of its particular character's history. I wanted to know: is Walter Simonson's legendary four-year run on Thor, and the stories related to it, really that good, or just fondly remembered by the people who read it as kids?
My Favorite Monster: The Short But Terrifying Reign Of The King of the Vampires [Fantasy Week]
John Constantine has fought many a monster. He's faced everyone, from the First of the Fallen to renegade demons causing football riots and beyond. But of all the villains he's fought, probably my favorite is one who only ever appeared in three stories: the King of the Vampires.
Screen & Page: Honor The Covenant With ‘Blood-C’ [Fantasy Week]
It's Fantasy Week here at ComicsAlliance, and it's also one week until Halloween, so what better way to celebrate both than with a look at an anime and manga about a young shrine maiden waging a war on monsters. This is Blood-C, a spinoff of a spinoff of a movie that got its own movie!
Splitting The Atom: How Urasawa’s ‘Pluto’ Reinvents Tezuka’s ‘Astro Boy’
Without the massive popularity of Osamu Tezuka's trademark creation Astro Boy, the manga and anime industries might look very different today. By taking the hot topic of the time --- nuclear power --- and marrying it with a heroic child character and the influence of the Walt Disney cartoons that were flooding into postwar Japan, Tezuka not only secured his reputation as "the father of manga," but created an enduring icon of action and adventure.
The book also had a very specific influence on one of the greatest mangaka of the 21st century, Naoki Urasawa, who retold one of the classic Astro Boy tales in Pluto, but succeeded in making it very much his own.
If You Love ‘Luke Cage’ On Netflix, Try These Comics Next
Odds are, you're one of the millions worldwide who binged all of Luke Cage when it premiered on Netflix last weekend. With its sterling cast, gripping story & standout score, Marvel's newest original TV series for the streaming giant is the best one they've made yet.
If you loved the NYC authenticity & hip-hop/R&B-infused aesthetic of the series --- and you've read all the Luke Cage comics you can get your hands on --- we've got five of the best creator-owned comics that capture that same feeling. Love that? Try this!