2016 round-up

Ahem. It's been a while.

In case you missed the “memo” (via my far more regular blog here), my new novel Small Change has just been published via Roundfire Fiction in the UK, and it features Roy Scherer and Suzie Miller from the Tales to Admonish series: think a mix of noir, horror, mirth, and homage.

One homage, clearly from the cover art and title alone, is to the great Tom Waits.

On January 14th I put the finishing touches to novel #6, and sent it off to a prospective publisher: 1970s crime-noir-pulp tipping 67,598 words, including the glossary at the back of the book, partially based on my current comic book series Trista & Holt.

Its title is Black Sails, Disco Inferno. Keep an eye on the novel’s Facebook page for updates. 

Otherwise? 

My collaborative comic book project with Australian artist Frantz Kantor – Magpie – is in full flight. 

We just finished Episode 2, but the first one, introducing our fledgling character Maggie, will hit newsstands in Australia in February 2016, inside Oi Oi Oi! #7. I think the fact that we both have strong, inspiring daughters (Frantz has three to my one!) accounts for some of the direction we’re pursuing here. This is hardly some wallflower, despite first impressions. As Frantz put it in an interview we just did, “What a pleasure to work on a smart female protagonist! Like Margo Channing said [in All About Eve]: ‘Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!’.” 

In this series we’re paying homage to, nodding, winking and piss-taking everything – from Roy Thomas to Ghost in the Shell, M.C. Escher wrestling Russ Manning’s Magnus, Robot Fighter, and on into mass-media current affair programs, even 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fantastic Voyage, and Lost in Space. 

Look out for the first installment of Magpie inside Oi Oi Oi! #7, at the beginning of February in newsagencies across Australia. 

Issue 1 has already scored some very nice feedback from Greg Hatcher @ Comic Book Resources (“Cute and funny and really quite gorgeous to look at – Frantz Kantor is evoking the Mad-era Wally Wood…”), Comics Alliance (“Magpie offers a humorous take on a superhero world, and Kantor’s art is nothing like what we’re used to in traditional superhero comics.”), Comic Crusaders (“The art looks fantastic!”), Sci-Fi Jubilee (“This new comic strip is great!”), and Jason Bennett @ PopCultHQ: “Stunning work… from these talented creators.” 

Also out next month, this time in the U.S., is my redux-version of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat – with me again doing art chores alongside the script. 

The comic’s currently being printed up by Project-Nerd Publishing in America, but you can pre-order both versions here. 

Aside from being over-excited about Magpie for 2016, I’m looking forward to seeing how the latest short film from Tokyo’s Production I.G (the creators of Ghost in the Shell) goes on the international festival circuit. It’s called Pigtails, directed by Yoshimi Itazu (character designer and chief animation director on Miss Hokusai), and I worked on the English subtitles — mostly naturalizing the translation and giving it a bit of zing. 

Finally, music-wise, I still do stuff as Little Nobody, even though I decided to quit the DJing side of things under this name in August last year. 

However, thanks to the very cool Nicolas Lutz, who runs My Own Jupiter in Europe, I’m about to release a double-vinyl LP of Little Nobody tracks made over the past 14 years here in Tokyo. It’s called, appropriately enough, This is Tokio — and you can tune in to the tracks HERE. 

I’ll let you know when it’s finished being pressed-up and is ready to drop — again in the new year. 

And here’s an interview I did with Tarita Weber @ Say What? magazine.

BULLET GAL: The Kickstarter. What is it, and why bother?

Hey, it's been a while between posts here — sorry 'bout that.

Like a zillion other people, their flying monkeys and the odd enterprising pet, I currently have a Kickstarter campaign running.

Verily, this is something everyone I know on social media like Facebook and Twitter would've realized by now — sorry, mates. I tend to harp a lot. Anyhow, disclaimers and apologies aside, here's a sneak-preview of the promo video thanks to the cool cats at Under Belly Comics in Canada, who're steering the fundraiser:



I overly harp, as I mentioned, because (a) this promo video is a knockout, and I want for this to be a success in order to repay the trust and support that Under Belly has thus far provided — as they do for a lot of other indie outsiders — and (b) I love this project.

But of course I should.

I'm biased as all hell, so don't listen to me. I hope you do listen to people like Shawn Vogt (who reviewed all 12 issues of the series at Weird and Wonderful Reads), or Steven Alloway at Fanboy Comics and Paul Bowler at Sci-Fi Jubilee, both of whom just reviewed Bullet Gal #6.



Plus the Australian Comics Journal and crime novel reviewer Elizabeth A. White makes (I think!) great cases. Ta, mates.

We now have 70% pledged funding, which equates to $3,502, thanks to 79 incredible individuals.
Even so, that leaves a somewhat giddy $1,498 that still needs to be bid before the Kickstarter campaign is successful, and we need to accumulate this within 13 days. The big, somewhat leading question here is why? — one reason I chucked the word in the title of this entry.

Well, there's the story: More nods and winks than you can poke a long stick at, an homage too many, and tongue kind of firmly in cheek — beneath other levels of hardboiled noir, crime, sci-fi, abstract expressionism, the surreal and a superhero romp gone wrong. And for those interested in my other work, this is a stand-alone link between the novels Depth Charging Ice Planet Goth and Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

The character herself, Mitzi, is obviously a special one for me and I'd dearly like to see her get beyond the limited-edition comic we're currently publishing monthly in Australia.

Feedback to the 12 issue run of Bullet Gal, which is being collected together in this trade paperback, has been nothing short of amazing, and I'm still awaiting the savage critiques. Aside from two pieces of such, the rest has sat exceptionally pretty so far as I'm concerned. The Cult Den referred to the series as "a warped masterpiece", Spartantown said there's "nothing like it in comics", while Sequart wrote it's "consistently impressive".


To further my cause, I've been able to write rambling pieces for Graphic Policy, Pulp Pusher, The Next Best Book Blog and Bleeding Cool.

I also did extensive interviews on Bullet Gal and the ideas behind the series with We The Nerdy, ComicBuzz, and 8th Wonder Press.

And you know what? There are so many artists working now or who've previously worked in comic books that I love. Five of the current crop are David Aja (Hawkeye), Mike Deodato (Original Sin), Walter Geovani (Red Sonja), Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night) and Steve Epting (Captain America/Velvet)... and all five of them this week supported the Bullet Gal Kickstarter on Twitter. Just wow. Thanks, lads, and hats off.


Finally? A further doff of the boater to the 76 people who have pledged financial support to the trade paperback, and the people who've helped spread the message of this silly project or ours. 

You all seriously rock. That's why.

Kmye Chan: Not Just a Flash in the Artistic Pan

Unless you’ve had your head buried in one very deep sandbox, you’d have noticed that Japanese art, film, music and fashion has had a huge impact on the stylings of its Western brethren. 

With this in mind I occasionally yack with foreign musicians and creative types about the influence of Japan on their own art, and this month I placed the spotlight on French artist Kmye Chan, with whom I’ve been liaising about a potential book cover (it's called Planet Goth and will be published in 2014 with Kmye's 'Dancing Puppet' painting, left, on the front).

The artist's name itself was a giveaway: Kmye CHAN.

Chan in Japanese is an honorific suffix originally used for babies, but these days employed to refer to anyone with an endearing quality, be the individual a super-cute grandmother or a zany seal (look up Tama-chan online for one example).

Kmye is an amazing painter, someone who has taken the obvious influence of manga and rendered it anew in a style also reminiscent to me of American comic book artist Steve Ditko. 

Who are your favourite manga artists, and which stories did you most enjoy as a fan?

“My favourite would easily be Yukito Kishiro — reading Gunnm [Battle Angel Alita] was a turning point in my drawing life. Both the artwork and plot were something completely new and out of this world, so far as my fifteen-year-old self was concerned!

“I love Ai Yazawa (Paradise Kiss, Nana) for her bittersweet shōjo characters and quirky linework. Graphically, I am also always amazed by Kaori Yuki’s art... When I started drawing, her work was my ultimate reference since I collected her manga and art books! And last, but not least, in my teenage years I was a massive Rurouni Kenshin fan [by Nobuhiro Watsuki] — this series still occupies a sweet spot in my heart and I happily read it over and over again.”

So you obviously would you say you’re more influenced by shōjo (girls) than mecha (giant robot) manga. Are the two compatible?

“That being said, I have read and loved my share of mecha/kaiju manga: Neon Genesis Evangelion has been a staple in my manga collection. Of course, both are compatible — they are different but both equally enjoyable. I would actually love to see a mecha manga storyline drawn with a typical shōjo manga style. That would be an interesting twist!”

“My artwork is undeniably more influenced by shōjo manga — you can see this in the flowing clothing and hair, the highly detailed, decorative style that is typical of shōjo has always been something I have been fascinated with. There is something inherently beautiful about it, where shōnen manga style [aimed at teenage boys] in general is more focused on reflecting action and movement.


READ MORE OF THIS INTERVIEW @ FORCES OF GEEK.

A Battle Royal バトル・ロワイアル

You've likely already heard the rumours — forget what you think you know about The Hunger Games franchise since it's pretty darned blatantly sourced from better film Battle Royale (2000).

Thing is, that's in turn based on Kōshun Takami's 1999 novel, and there's a manga series of Battle Royale that was published from 2000 to 2005, illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi.

But let's get back to the cinematic outing.

This violent, often wildly hilarious — and disturbing — gem is p'raps not quite so obscure now, thirteen years on, as when it was first released in Japan.

Battle Royale would've made a far more fitting obituary for its director Kinji Fukasaku rather than its lesser sequel three years later — which in fact his son Kenta polished off after the director's death at age 72.

You certainly couldn’t take style, content and inspiration any further a field from Fukasaku, Sr.'s earlier adventure schlock-romp Legend Of 8 Samurai.

So clear your frazzled Hunger Games brain.

It’s a not-too-distant future.

Japan is again a fascist state. An arbitrarily-chosen bus full of high school kids are knocked out with sleeping gas, kidnapped, then shipped on to an isolated island — where they’re informed by their embittered former teacher Kitano ('Beat' Takeshi Kitano) that the only way they will leave said island is by killing all their classmates — or by ending up in a body-bag themselves. 

In order to enforce this mandate, each student is shackled with an exploding collar, à la Wedlock, and Kitano punctuates the students’ plight with a well-aimed penknife to one of the girl’s foreheads, thereby launching a battle for self-preservation.


READ MORE @ FORCES OF GEEK.
 

All Roads Lead to Nihonbashi (日本橋)

 It's funny how you can live in a place for a decade and miss a lot of what's right there nearby.

It's autumn, the weather's been glorious here in Tokyo (here read cool that the scorching summer we just went through), and the leaves are starting to turn colour-wise.

A couple of days ago I was on tight writing deadlines, but it was superb weather again so I decided to skip out and finally go explore the area in central Tokyo around the Nihonbashi, literally Japan Bridge — which was built a century ago in 2011, but rests on what has been a vital conduit spot for this city since the 17th century.

And I'd never even seen it before now except in ukiyo-e woodcuts by Hiroshige.

Japan Bridge is also the setting and title for a 1956 movie — Nihonbashi — by the great Japanese director Kon Ichikawa.

Ichikawa's first film in colour tells a riveting yarn of two geisha fighting for control of the Nihonbashi area, along the way brushing kimono with ghosts, murder, infanticide and flying daggers.



Read more of this piece and glimpse a swag of additional images @ Forces Of Geek.

Production I.G: The Little Details

A long time ago, while conjuring up some superbly detailed artwork, my friend intimated that God resided in the details.

Not being Christian per se, and without a religious millimetre illuminating anywhere on my body, I didn’t have a clue what this guy was on about, or which dippy deity he referred to. The only thing similar I’d heard was that Old Nick (you know, the Devil) was in those same details.

Which rendered me somewhat confused.

That is, I until around 16 years ago — when I first watched Mamoru Oshii’s enthralling anime feature Ghost in the Shell (1995).

While the original manga pages — titled Kōkaku Kidōtai in Japanese, written and illustrated by Shirow Masamune — pushed quirky as much as cerebral, light-hearted and a trifle perverted, this animated movie interpretation by Oshii, of Patlabor fame, was dark, a tad more intelligent, and the most innovative cyberpunk romp since Akira (1988).

It also led to an obvious Wachowski siblings’ homage with The Matrix in 1999.

Truth is, Ghost in the Shell knocked off my cotton socks to hammer home the studio behind the film — Production I.G — as my favourite Japanese anime company. It’s a lofty perch that I.G retains nearly two decades later.

Here’s where I get to lob in some silly puns relating to the introductory ‘theme’: God knows I.G deserves it, and by Heaven above they go for the jugular of those little details, glean ‘em, tweak ‘em, and quite often leave you gob-smacked, gasping for more with each successive experiment in style, form and technology. Halle-bloody-lujah.

To start with, there’s so much damned depth to I.G productions.

Not just the background animation or those aforementioned little details; it goes beyond the superlative character designs, the tight direction and slick production values; the depth lingers somewhere beyond this production company’s penchant for risk-taking along with clever marketing panache.

They’ve got to be doing something right to have established themselves at the forefront of the severely stiff competition that is the Japanese animation industry, and further to have maintained that position.

Likely this has to do with the talent involved at the studio.

READ THE REST OF THIS 2-PART PRODUCTION I.G OVERVIEW — PLUS A BRAND NEW INTERVIEW WITH KENJI KAMAYAMA — @ MADMAN.

...with thanks to Francesco Prandoni @ I.G and Ben Pollock @ Madman.

Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? is now published

Over the past year I've been working on this new book, novel #3, Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? — which brings together such disparate elements as 1940s and '60s comic books, a sci-fi/dystopia, pulp influences, and hardboiled noir trying desperately to skulk somewhere beneath the coattails of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Anyway, it was supposed to be published via Perfect Edge Books in the UK on September 27th this year, but has sneaked out of the blocks early and is now available from Amazon UK and Amazon USA — in paperback form at least (the eBook will probably come out late in September). 

I still can't believe it's out there, and of course I can't resist hawking it here!

There are Japanese elements to the book, after all. Key character Midori, a.k.a. Prima Ballerina, is of Japanese descent. Lead character Pretty Amazonia (pictured here, conjured up by artist Juan Saavedra), is a hybrid of super-powered girls' anime characters from things like Sailor Moon and PreCure. She spends free time kicking round a manga volume of Candy Candy.

And she gets around in a ship named the Magnetic Rose (check out Katsuhiro Otomo's 1995 anime Memories).

There's also a cameo by another character that plays on the Fuchikoma 1-man tanks used by members of Section 9 in Ghost in the Shell.

So, Japanese refs and hawking aside, I'm pretty buzzed about this one and hope you get the time at least to check it out.

While the price (for the paperback) may seem a little steep, just remember it's 473 pages, with 35 illustrations. And it makes a great door-stopper.

BREAKING CAMP: Running School Camps in Japan is Weird

Last week, after twelve years in this country, I did something for the first time that's apparently quite the lure for English teachers in Japan, mostly because of the bonus-extra cash — going on a school camp during summer vacation.

In this case it was a three-day affair, attempting to teach a bunch of junior high school girls I'd never before met, without any idea of their English language level and no access to a PC, whiteboards, textbooks or a photocopier.

The lessons were conducted on the tatami-matted floors of their shared rooms at an inn near Yamanaka Lake, and my particular group of nine included the rowdiest and more stubborn members of the entire camp. I had one kid constantly questioning everything we did—sadly in Japanese rather than the language we were supposed to be practicing—along with a grumpy scowler, a girl who thought she was a bird, rivalries, and mood swings galore.

There were tears almost as often as there was laughter.

To top things off, one of the Canadian teachers had a meltdown, locked herself in her room, and refused to teach—meaning the other four instructors inherited that class as well.

Joy.

Being stuck teaching 13-year-olds from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm every day had me climbing the walls—and fired up to do something creative. Like drink a lot of beer from the convenience store located a kilometre away down a road in the middle of a tiny village with no streetlights.

READ MORE @ FORCES OF GEEK

12 Years in Tokyo

Yep, I'm still a bit stunned—today is my twelfth anniversary of living in this country, so I've been away from Melbourne (my old stomping ground-cum-home town) for well over a decade now.

The plan was originally six months.

When I arrived on July 26th, 2001 the world was, cliché as it might sound, a different place.

It was the year Stanley Kubrick's and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was supposed to take place, but didn't.

That July the World Trade Center attack in New York was still over six weeks away, Junichiro Koizumi had just become prime minister of this country while George W. Bush had been kicking back in office in the U.S. for seven months. John Howard (shudder) had run Australia into the ground for six years already.

Wikipedia had been online for just six months, the first Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films were released and Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed Amélie. In 2001 Japanese cinema was also on a roll: the great Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) delivered up live-action deep-thinker Avalon, while anime-wise we were blessed with two brilliant films by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) and Satoshi Kon (Millennium Actress).

Personally? I was still running my record label IF? and doing odd tracks as Little Nobody, but became more focused on local food, saké, travel and journalism. I found myself living in Shin-Koiwa here in Tokyo, in a place called "Hikari Mansion"—named, perhaps with perverted jocularity, in line with
the Japanese concept of a ‘mansion’: myriad apartments thrown together in the single building, with each separate flat containing one or two tiny rooms and a more compact bathroom. 

I worked for the rather evil Nova franchise teaching English to pay the bigger bills, and did articles on the side for The Daily Yomiuri, an English language off-shoot of right-leaning Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

Twelve years later I'm married and I have a gorgeous daughter in Grade 2 at elementary school—who recently did the bloody brilliant cover art for my latest book.

Some things have stayed the same, like the sticky late-July humidity that assails Tokyo every year, like now, but I'm today not going to whine. It is, after all, part of the charm of the place.

Big (Screened) in Japan

While here in Japan we're often forced to wait an absolute eternity for blockbuster movies from abroad to hit the screens — just as an example Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't arrive until 23 August, making this the last country listed on imdb.com to screen the sequel, three months after even Iceland — there are some home-baked goodies to keep us entertained.

It helps, of course, if you're into anime and manga, which I most certainly am, and 2013 is bubbling with big-screen versions of some titles you may've heard of before.
 
For starters there's something out later this month (July) courtesy of the great Katsuhiro Otomo, the genius behind both the Akira (1989) movie and manga, and one of my favourite Japanese comic book short-story books in English: Memories.

If you've never picked up this weighty tome, you should, since it's a 250-page compendium of shortstories veer wildly from surprising twists verging on Twilight Zone to silly slapstick, but it’s the title-tale ‘Memories’ that always grabs me.

A space salvage vessel with a cranky crew finds a drifting Marie Céleste with plush carpets, chandeliers, empty books and homicidal robot watchdogs — not to mention a mummified cadaver reaching out from beyond the grave.

With his new film Short Peace, Otomo has negotiated with Shuhei Morita, Hiroaki Ando, Hajime Katoki and Kōji Morimoto to produce a four-part short story omnibus, apparently based at least partially on Otomo's 1979 manga of the same name.


READ MORE @ FORCES OF GEEK