BIG ON JAPAN: A Fistful of International Artists Croon The Country's Cultural Praises

Recently, I've been doing my best to mimic a literary ostrich since I've had my head buried deep inside assembly of the next novel.

Trouble is I have trouble picturing a big bird with a hardback and a pair of spectacles, wrapped in Harris tweed.

And I say assembly, because this brute not only deconstructs 1930s detective noir/pulp and 1960s Marvel comic book lore, but renovates them together as a conjoined tome over 100,000 words in length — stitched together by 35 images from 28 artists. 

It's the way comic books, after all, work in the real world.

Bryan Hitch's perception of Captain America in 2009 was far different from Jim Steranko's in 1969. Then compare and contrast John Buscema's chunky-thug idea of Conan the Barbarian in 1980 with the lithe, laddish figure originally put out by Barry (Windsor) Smith a decade earlier in 1970.

But now I'm geeky nitpicking. If I haven't lost you already, I swear I'll try harder, there are some pretty pictures still to come, and a bunch of other people take the verbal reins.

For now, suffice to say, this train of thought (the wayward one about comic book art) inspired me to ask artists from Australia (Paul Mason), the UK (Harvey Finch and Andrew Chiu — see picture at right), Italy (Giovanni Ballati), Russia (Saint Yak), Spain (Javier 'JG' Miranda and Carlos Gomez), Canada (Fred Rambaud), Mexico (Rodolfo Reyes), Chile (Juan Andres Saavedra — see picture above), the Philippines (Hannah Buena) and Argentina (Maan House), amongst others in Japan and America, to get involved drawing characters and events from the book — and then let their hair down for a rambunctious tête-à-tête together here.

All in all?

Putting together the novel has been like taking Lego and Meccano and making the pieces function together as a futuristic-retro superhero romp that mixes and matches 1930s Art Deco architectural lines with the gung-ho Soviet formalist propaganda style, twisted into '60s pop art sentiment and the huge influence of Jack Kirby. 

Anyway, Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? will be published via Perfect Edge Books some time around September, but what I'd like to share with you over the next couple of months of this column are the insights and opinions of some of the fascinating, talented and truly cool visual artists I've had the opportunity to touch base with — while attempting to keep the bulk of these within Flash in Japan's obvious perimeters: focused on, well, the Japanese archipelago.


If interested, you can read Part 1 of this interview @ FORCES OF GEEK.

Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

Other news — namely re: writing.

I just signed the contract with Perfect Edge Books for my anthology The Condimental Op, and it’s now in production.

This baby should be published in 4-5 months.

We're cobbling together noir, surrealism, comicbook asides and dystopian, hardboiled moments colliding with snapshots of contemporary culture. Think 1989 right through to 2013.

You will even find some of the articles about Japan that have appeared on this blog, in Geek and Impact magazines, or at Forces Of Geek.

Incidentally, on the subject of novels, I just got a great review for my last one One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, with big thanks to Dan Wright @ Pandragon Reviews.

And I’ve received some more fantastic artwork for Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? (my upcoming dual homage to 1930s-40s noir and 1960s comicbooks chiefly produced by Marvel) from Canadian artist Fred Rambaud (see above, with Southern Cross on the motorbike) while Mexican artist Rodolpho Reyes is putting together still more.

If you’re curious, you can stay abreast of things here.

You can also read about some of the early '60s comicbook influences at my other blog.

6:00 am in Tokyo

I’m spending most of my waking hours, and the ones during which time I should be sleeping, waylaid by Japan’s lovely August humidity – and also on novel #3 – Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? The current pitch is this:

Heropa: a vast, homogenized city patrolled by superheroes and populated by the adoring masses. A perfect place a lifetime away from the rain-drenched, dystopic metropolis of Melbourne. So, who is killing the great capes of Heropa?

Yep, as you can figure out, the Capes are superheroes. Kind of. It’s set in the future Melbourne dystopia of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat (without being a sequel) where the only escapism is a computer game wherein people play out the role of superhero/villain. All fun and games until someone starts knocking off these superheroes… hence the mystery.

Thing is I’m just past the half-way mark of writing the thing, so I’m sure there’ll be more twists and turns to come that I have no idea about at this stage. I just today changed my mind regarding tone – I had a dramatic segment set for the finale, which worked (I thought) as author, but detracted from the over all tone of the project. The simple fun of the comic.

While it’s shaping up as a wink, aesthetically speaking, to the Golden Age of comics in the 1930s/40s (one of my favourite periods for the noir, pulp, movies and cars) this is definitely more of an homage to the classic 1960s work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at Marvel – and still gets to poke fun at the auspices of the Comics Code Authority.

There's also a sequence of a murder that reminded me of the death of Marat (and in particular that famous painting by Jacques-Louis David, so my wife Yoko sketched up this image above.

I waffled on a bit more about the writing stuff here.

Anyway, enough rambling. I need to get stuck back into the manuscript, if I can only ignore the fiendish cicada outside the window that sounds like a malfunctioning dentist’s drill.

Kiichi Nakai

If we had a “Most Underrated Japanese Actor” category here at JapaneseCultureGoNow!, 48-year-old Kiichi Nakai would easily qualify—although the guy has been nominated for and in fact won a swag of Japanese Academy Awards, including best actor.

He also happens to be the son of the late Keiji Sada, one of Japan’s more venerated stars of the silver screen before his untimely demise in 1964, at just 37 years of age.

As an actor himself, son Nakai blossomed as the sensational focal-point of Fukuro no Shiro (Owl’s Castle, 1999), possibly Japan’s most underrated must-see silly ninja movie. While he was nominated for that role, Nakai had previously won the Japan Academy Best Supporting Actor award in 1994 for the drama Shijushichinin no Shikaku (47 Ronin), directed by the late, great Kon Ichikawa, who died just last year.

Two years ago, Nakai sparkled in his supporting role in the high-profile Takuya Kimura (SMAP) vehicle, Hero, for director Masayuki Suzuki.

Incidentally that movie's playing on the telly here in Tokyo tonight - which is the reason I (somehow) remembered to write here about Nakai-san, by extension.

The actor earlier worked with Suzuki on the hilarious 'Samurai Cellular' episode of Tales of the Unusual (2000) in which Nakai played Oishi Kuranosuke, the leader of those 47 Ronin mentioned above - and touted a mobile phone instead of a katana blade.

Ditching such comic antics and going instead for a meatier role, Nakai conveyed a knowing sense of the dramatic in Mibu Gishi Den (When the Last Sword is Drawn, 2003) for which he won the Japan Academy Best Actor trophy, and narrated the tale in director Zhang Yimou’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005).

He was also the standout in last year’s patchy comedy-drama Jirochô Sangokushi (Samurai Gangsters) and shone even in the lackluster, rather disappointing live-action version of Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo (2007) - playing the mean dad who sells 48 of our hero Hyakkimaru’s body-parts (to demons no less).

These days Nakaii is often seen on the telly hawking Visa card brands and drinks, but I live in hope that he'll return to fine acting fettle shortly.