Angie thinks about comics, but to no avail. She is just a dog.
I caved and bought a copy of Skim from Powell's--their last copy. I didn't want to like it, but... to tell you the truth, haha... I was really impressed. I'm thinking of ordering a second copy for my BFF in Thousand Oaks.
Specifically, I loved the naturalistic, well-observed gestures/body language/posture, environments, materials. Recently I read an essay that argued that all drawn panels in comics, no matter how beautiful or elaborate, turn into narrative information--and that's true to a point, but how well everything in the panel is observed (and then drawn) affects what kind of narrative and emotional information can be taken from it, what nuance and subtle connotation the panel has, etc. You could have a generic town in the background but it won't be as effective as Kevin Huizenga's perfectly-observed Midwestern suburbscapes.
Perfect how Tamaki observed and depicted hair flowing at that length (I have intimate knowledge of that! My hair used to be down to mid-thigh when I was in high shcool.) especially if it's a little ratty because you haven't trimmed it recently. It gives off a feeling of rightness and realness, more so than photorealism--the same feeling I got when I read "Curses".
And I love her frequent use of panels that focus on objects other than the characters, like in manga: closeups of their hands while they're talking, closeup of the faucet, closeup of a bird--to provide atmosphere/room to breathe/a beat/silence/distraction/sense of avoidance/scene-setting, etc. (At the same time, the pages are denser, meatier, slower.)
And this isn't specific to manga, but the panels where everyone else's faces are visible to the reader but Skim is turned so you only see the back of her head..! It's so striking and discomfiting to have a main character turn their face away from the viewer.
It makes me think of Masao Sangatsu, which--you know, it's hard finding a decent mangaka in the wasteland of weepy ukes and catboys (I haven't yet found the yaoi equivalent of Shimura Takako or Minami Q-Ta but maybe if I just keep looking...! Then again, I suppose they are their own yaoi equivalents since they do sometimes write yaoi.) I keep hoping for more from Masao Sangatsu's manga than I actually get--her stories are unambitious but not horrible as far as yaoi goes, but some of her pages are really striking. This is from Ashita mo Tanin:
(Ignore AF's wonky translation for the moment. And, uh, the wonky anatomy.) Quick backstory: our hero nurses secret unrequited love for longtime friend, refuses to confess his love out of guilt for secretly sabotaging longtime friend's relationship with a woman, etc, you know the kind of story this is.
Anyways, the rhythm is perfect, a one-two punch of our hero's unrequited love worked into an everyday interaction without turning into a long mushy monologue. This sequence is great, how it sets up the picture of the friend's turned back, casually, in a normal-sized panel and the beginning of an inner monologue. That starts the ball rolling gently towards its conclusion: a huge panel at the top of the next page placing the climax of his inner monologue over a closeup shot of his friend's turned-away face, oblivious to our hero's wistful love, etc, etc. (Okay, it works better in context, I swear.)
But then the emotional tension is defused on the same page (and the sizes of the panels get smaller or return to normal). It doesn't turn into melodrama--the artist defuses the immediate tension while leaving you with a lingering sense of wistfulness. It's actually one of the things I liked about Red Snow with the panel suggesting blood running down a white inner thigh. It's a punch to the gut, but it doesn't turn into sulking and moping--it moves on without saying too much. The wound opens and closes again in the space of three panels.
A similar dynamic in these two pages, also from Masao Sangatsu, but from a different manga. I like how it alternates panels with text and panels with images, and then it gets defused with a scene break:
I... don't know what he's talking about here, but look at the first panel of the second page! Thinking sadly about his unrequited love, etc, etc! ❀❀❀（*´▽`*）❀❀❀
Questions that don't have to do with anything: out of curiosity, is there a gay male version of Yamaji Ebine? Also, my god, are there any scanlation groups--any--other than Lililicious out there that scanlate smart, ambitious yuri? And I don't mean either moe-oriented or hentai yuri, I mean josei stuff like Minami Q-Ta or Shimura Takako's, or Kindaichi Renjuurou (Mermaid Line), Takeuchi Sachiko (Honey & Honey), Yamaji Ebine, etc. Or if you have a licensed yuri title to recommend to me besides Erica Sakurazawa (the only licensed one I know about; I'm surprised that Aoi Hana hasn't been picked up yet), I am desperate to hear it.
Specifically, I loved the naturalistic, well-observed gestures/body language/posture, environments, materials. Recently I read an essay that argued that all drawn panels in comics, no matter how beautiful or elaborate, turn into narrative information--and that's true to a point, but how well everything in the panel is observed (and then drawn) affects what kind of narrative and emotional information can be taken from it, what nuance and subtle connotation the panel has, etc. You could have a generic town in the background but it won't be as effective as Kevin Huizenga's perfectly-observed Midwestern suburbscapes.
Perfect how Tamaki observed and depicted hair flowing at that length (I have intimate knowledge of that! My hair used to be down to mid-thigh when I was in high shcool.) especially if it's a little ratty because you haven't trimmed it recently. It gives off a feeling of rightness and realness, more so than photorealism--the same feeling I got when I read "Curses".
And I love her frequent use of panels that focus on objects other than the characters, like in manga: closeups of their hands while they're talking, closeup of the faucet, closeup of a bird--to provide atmosphere/room to breathe/a beat/silence/distraction/sense of avoidance/scene-setting, etc. (At the same time, the pages are denser, meatier, slower.)
And this isn't specific to manga, but the panels where everyone else's faces are visible to the reader but Skim is turned so you only see the back of her head..! It's so striking and discomfiting to have a main character turn their face away from the viewer.
It makes me think of Masao Sangatsu, which--you know, it's hard finding a decent mangaka in the wasteland of weepy ukes and catboys (I haven't yet found the yaoi equivalent of Shimura Takako or Minami Q-Ta but maybe if I just keep looking...! Then again, I suppose they are their own yaoi equivalents since they do sometimes write yaoi.) I keep hoping for more from Masao Sangatsu's manga than I actually get--her stories are unambitious but not horrible as far as yaoi goes, but some of her pages are really striking. This is from Ashita mo Tanin:
(Ignore AF's wonky translation for the moment. And, uh, the wonky anatomy.) Quick backstory: our hero nurses secret unrequited love for longtime friend, refuses to confess his love out of guilt for secretly sabotaging longtime friend's relationship with a woman, etc, you know the kind of story this is.
Anyways, the rhythm is perfect, a one-two punch of our hero's unrequited love worked into an everyday interaction without turning into a long mushy monologue. This sequence is great, how it sets up the picture of the friend's turned back, casually, in a normal-sized panel and the beginning of an inner monologue. That starts the ball rolling gently towards its conclusion: a huge panel at the top of the next page placing the climax of his inner monologue over a closeup shot of his friend's turned-away face, oblivious to our hero's wistful love, etc, etc. (Okay, it works better in context, I swear.)
But then the emotional tension is defused on the same page (and the sizes of the panels get smaller or return to normal). It doesn't turn into melodrama--the artist defuses the immediate tension while leaving you with a lingering sense of wistfulness. It's actually one of the things I liked about Red Snow with the panel suggesting blood running down a white inner thigh. It's a punch to the gut, but it doesn't turn into sulking and moping--it moves on without saying too much. The wound opens and closes again in the space of three panels.
A similar dynamic in these two pages, also from Masao Sangatsu, but from a different manga. I like how it alternates panels with text and panels with images, and then it gets defused with a scene break:
I... don't know what he's talking about here, but look at the first panel of the second page! Thinking sadly about his unrequited love, etc, etc! ❀❀❀（*´▽`*）❀❀❀
Questions that don't have to do with anything: out of curiosity, is there a gay male version of Yamaji Ebine? Also, my god, are there any scanlation groups--any--other than Lililicious out there that scanlate smart, ambitious yuri? And I don't mean either moe-oriented or hentai yuri, I mean josei stuff like Minami Q-Ta or Shimura Takako's, or Kindaichi Renjuurou (Mermaid Line), Takeuchi Sachiko (Honey & Honey), Yamaji Ebine, etc. Or if you have a licensed yuri title to recommend to me besides Erica Sakurazawa (the only licensed one I know about; I'm surprised that Aoi Hana hasn't been picked up yet), I am desperate to hear it.