Where have we been?

<-- Click the picture to get to a page where you can download and listen to our show! So..Where have we been? Here, but not updating the blog! Today is a new day and I will be updating for this past show, episode #6. Honestly, the chances of Arzach or I ever updating about shows #2-#5 are small, but maybe it will happen someday. So, this week we talked about the Manga "Solanin" by Asano Inio. It is a great book about a couple who is coming of age in Tokyo. They have been out of college for a few years and are trying to navigate their new found adulthood selves in the big city, as well as deciding the future of their love and relationship. The book is great because it is a coming of age story but a different time frame: the delicate time between becoming an adult not only in age or because you are in college, but because you are actually done with college and by all standards, shouldn't one be adult after the hell of higher education? Inio does a beautiful job at making the relationship of the two main characters, Meiko & Taneda, the nucleus of the story, but does not allow this to overwhelm the reader. He doesn't allow the characters to be defined by the relationship and does a beautiful, precise job at illustrating and writing the experiencing each character deals with in also not letting themselves be defined by their relationships. The characters created are whole and I believe very well rounded...mostly because they deal with the big life questions and respond to them with action: they quit their jobs, they wander through the city, they bicker with their mother, and they fight with the people the love. I, Ruby Red, give this book 5 stars. Here are some links for you to check out! Look out for this story to gain more prominence as it is currently being made into a live-action movie! Yay!!!!!!! http://www.onemanga.com/Solanin/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inio_Asano

Arzach here, I just wanted to post some of the incredible images from Asano that we were talking about so you can see for yourself his amazing talents.

With this panel I just love the tight composition of the drawing. We have this point of view from the ground up that just draws you the reader in to it, and it features pretty much the entire cast in this shot, and the emotions that is shown in their faces is very well depicted. And look at the detail of everything, look at the mic and mic stand look at the way he draws those drums, even the strap of the bass is rendered so smooth and so well.

Another pic I want to share with everyone is one of the scenes where Asano illustrates landscape and the outdoors and the such. With this one in the first panel we have this very picturesque shot of the a Japanese city/lake scape. In this panel also you can see what me and Ruby Red were talking about with a photo realist look to it. The other panels on the page are more descriptive illustrations I was talking about before in the band scene, the level of detail here is really quite amazing.

I just wanted to throw in one more image to get a sense of a really awesomely intense scene in the book. To show an example of the amazing flow of the words and pictures that makes this book one of the best you could read.

First Show: 2/13/2010

Hola a todos!

Okay, so DJ Arzach and I (DJ Ruby Red) have completed our first show! We were late, we were confused, and it was awesome! As it was our introductory show, we hope this is a jumping off point to better shows to come.

Last night we talked about two artists and a specific title from each. The first was "Shortcomings" by Adrian Tomine.

In this story, there is an Asian-American couple who are going through the break up process, and the woman brings up her insecurity that her boyfriend is really attracted to white women. Poorly on the air, I was attempting to explain how I could identify with this character. I have been in a relationship where I have actively thought "god, he is much more attracted to white girls than to me!". Yes, in many circumstances this is unfounded, and I am not trying to discredit the power of personal preference, that love knows no boundaries, or that people of a certain race should only date within their own race or category. What I did hope to express, but feel I failed in doing, was expressing that despite these idea the ideal image of beauty in our society is a white woman and I could understand why the character was asking her boyfriend the questions she asked. Okay...maybe you do not agree with me...look at a magazine cover, go to a movie, or turn on the television! Most of the girls featured in these types of media are white, and to say that this does not have any affect (or is it effect...I don't know!) on peoples thinking is not possible! Maybe you are/feel you are not affected by these things, and love who you love. I don't know. It is also true that there is more diversity in print and commercial media than ever before, but to me, that does not change the predominance of this ideal. The only thing I can write with absolute certainty is that in being a woman of color there have been times where I feel I do not measure up to a white girl: not skinny enough, hair not straight enough, too big, too fat, etc. So, yeah...maybe DJ Arzach can write about this if he wants.

On a final note: beauty standards and ideals harm everyone: black, white, brown, purple, male, female...so I would like to end this on that note.

The second author we talked about was Osamu Tezuka: Godfather of Manga. (DJ Arzach) Ok I am going to take over on this one. On the air I gave a minor introduction of Tezuka, I don't want to say the exact same thing I did on air because you can just go listen to it if you want to know, plus we will probably do more on him for another show. Any who's, we talked about the very interesting character of Blackjack, after Astro Boy, Tezuka's second most recognizable character. Tezuka created him in 1973 as a way of dealing with social commentary about the workings of the hierarchies of the Japaneses hospital system and other problems found through out the country. Blackjack is a surgical Robin Hood if you will, he is available to all who call on him. With a reputation of an asshole who cares of no one but himself and charges outlandish prices for operations, he is anything but, he tries to show humility to those who deserve it, usually rich and powerful men who think they can do what they will because of the power and influence they have, or trying to prove wrong the heads of hospitals who's fat heads have ballooned up from being so high up in their position. Then on the other side of the spectrum he helps out the poor and meek anyway he can, he does have a soft heart after all, he is a doctor who saves lives and no matter what he has to do. That is the other device that Tezuka gives Blackjack, this almost superhuman penchant of doing the impossible in his surgeries. In one tale after a horrendous accident a young boy is trapped under a pile of iron pipes and the only conceivable way of moving the boy is to cut him into pieces, then to go right in and reattach them. And he is able too, all for the payment of a mere pinwheel. Many of his patients refer to Blackjack as a God of sorts, and it is true. He does what is necessary to save lives, he believes that every human, no matter who you are, is worth saving.

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Welcome to Graphically Yours! Saturdays 8-10pm on FreeRadioChukshon and 103.3 FM.

DJ Ruby Red and DJ _________ will deliver a funny filled evening each Saturday, including the History of Comics, Weekly Reading Recommendations, and talk about things we have read. ALSO--> great music.

Thanks,

Graphically Yours