Azn Sensations: Reflections on 3 comics that make me plotz

These comics blow my fucking mind. I just realized they are all by Asian, or in the case of Seth Fisher, Asian-influenced creators.


Pluto by Naoki Urasawa with Takashi Nagasaki
The book is billed as being by "Urasawa/Tezuka", which is misleading. Pluto is a story by cartoonist Urasawa with co-plotter Nagasaki based on the Astro Boy story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" by a guy you may have heard of, Osamu Tezuka. Sean got me a big double set of Astro Boy and this Pluto book in Japan, but... I couldn't read the thing. I fell in love with the art, and the great beak noses on all the characters, so when I found out that it had been translated, I resolved to eventually get ahold of it. I read and loved a library copy of book 1 of Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, but even though that was mostly about a bunch of schoolboys and this is a futuristic noir story about robots, Pluto comes off as more human and subtle. Urasawa masters the nuances of body language, as well as drawing every. little. fucking. thing in the environments. The perfecty-perfect nature of the buildings and technology makes me wonder what work is being done by his assistants, like Tezuka and Hergé before him. This book has ratcheted Urasawa to being one of my favorite cartoonists.
I just picked up vol. 1 of the much-loved (and Sean's girlfriend Mako's favorite... full circle) Tezuka story Black Jack, so reading the new take on the "God of Manga"'s work is influencing me to go back, too.

Jin & Jam #1 by Hellen Jo I just received this in the mail today, along with ish #9 of the long-running Papercutter anthology, as a trade I requested from Hellen. I had been somewhat aware of her work for awhile, but her entry in the Johnny Ryan-edited (!! and no, it doesn't reflect his disgustingly hilarious personal work) Vice Magazine mini Where the Wild Things Are book stopped my eye. I am crazy about her vision of clothes, people's bodies, and colors. Her watercolor work particularly knocks me out. So I was at first disappointed when I learned that her solo comic Jin & Jam is black & white, but upon devouring it, I have no such reservations. It's a thrill ride of acutely observed high school bitchiness, laziness, and fights. Jo says in this interview that "My comics are... influenced by the Asian girlfights I saw in school... they’d grab a hold of whatever (hair, skin, clothes, face) and scratch and pull and generally beat the crap out of each other. I was terrified but also completely entranced by the spectacle."
An exhilarating giddiness for the form drives Jo's drawing and storytelling. There are a few beats that are visually confusing for a moment, but it's such a fun ride that you barely notice. Jo smacks down each image and line with supreme confidence and joy. The characters act and speak with intense regard for the supreme importance of their petty bullshit. I love it.

This wraparound cover image doesn't convey the appeal very well, but I couldn't find any good scans of interiors on the net.

Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan by Zeb Wells and Seth Fisher with Chris Chuckray and Joe Caramagna
On winter break from school one year, I looked in the NJ comic shop Steve's Comic Relief, looking with a faint hope for something special in my hometown comic store... and it's no Big Brain, Forbidden Planet, or Quimby's, let me tell you. They also don't sell any creator comics on consignment which is almost enough for me to selfishly take my business elsewhere... I'd rather support places that support me.
I saw a candle light in a dim room. I picked up issues #1 and #4 of FF/Iron Man: Big in Japan, which floated off the shelf with visions of intricately imagined monsters, formal playfulness, and balls-to-the-wall fun... Fun is supposed to drive superhero comics, but since Kirby and Ditko left the sandbox the genre's pickins have been getting slimmer with each decade. Enter writer Zeb Wells and artist Seth Fisher, who was living in Japan at the time. When I showed the comics to my friends Brad and Toby in my sophomore year of college, when I slept on the futon in my cluttered living room/bedroom like a bum, they went gaga for it too and we looked Fisher up.
Google told us that Fisher had died by falling off a roof in Osaka on January 30 of that year (2006). Toby later made this little comic portrait of Fisher in response to a bio comic assignment from Terry Beatty at MCAD.
I just recently picked up the trade paperback collection and was finally able to read the story in full. It is a wonderful web of ideas bouncing back and forth from Wells and Fisher. Best of all, Marvel included an appendix of Fisher's cover sketches and story notes on the pages. The notes illuminate the process of how ideas shaped from Wells's word processor to Fisher's pencil and back. I found this especially valuable since I am working on a collaboration with Renny, and the notes made clear how well Wells wrote to Fisher's strengths, and how Fisher improved upon his ideas in his visual translation. Hopefully we can follow their shining examples. It's a real shame for comics fans that Fisher died at only 34. His work was growing stronger, more playful, more wonderfully observed with each project. Given many more years of working time, he could have established himself as an artist with a Mazzuchelli-like ability to change the way readers think about comics and their possibilities. As it stands, only a few volumes of his work are available. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Seth Fisher, 1972-2006