Monday, December 17, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Friday, October 5, 2018
Sand Land (review)
In an industry where the most
popular manga series span dozens of volumes—where the telling is measured not
just in page count but in years—it
can feel like a minor miracle when a well-told story comes along that doesn’t require a lifelong commitment or
exorbitant financial investment. Because as much as we may love One Piece, those eighty-plus volumes don’t
come cheap, and it still has a long way to go to reach the end.
So when a short, well-told story
comes along…and it’s written and
drawn by one of the most legendary and influential manga creators of all time?
Well, if that doesn’t pique your interest, you’re just not paying attention.
Enter Sand Land—a short-but-sweet manga
created by the one-and-only Akira Toriyama.
You may have heard of him.
Featuring Toriyama’s continued
fascination with hodgepodge demonology and Red Ribbon-style paramilitary
antics, Sand Land tells the story of
the feisty young Prince of Demons, Beelzebub, and his journey—along with a
couple of old men whom you’ll learn to know and love—as they brave the dangers
of a drought-plagued desert in search of a mysterious water source known as the
Phantom Lake. Plenty of obstacles stand in their way, of course, and by the end
you can bet some bonds are forged and lessons learned.
While the commercial
benefits of short, one-and-done manga such as this are self-evident, there are some genuine artistic merits as well. Because of the limited
page count, Toriyama wastes no time getting right into the meat of the
story—and without taking any shortcuts, he manages to tell a compelling tale
inside a fully-realized world, all in the span of a mere fourteen chapters.
Ironically enough for a story set in
a barren wasteland, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Sand Land is the lush detail Toriyama puts into the artwork. Every
page and every panel is packed with delicate but intensely-detailed line art,
and while the story moves at a brisk enough pace, you can’t help but feel
compelled to slow down and take in the scenery.
Further cementing Toriyama’s
artistic triumph is the A-plus
character design of the protagonist, Beelzebub. This little demon is an
archetypal Toriyama hero to a T—stout, young, and powerful, with a heart
of gold—but there’s just something special about this particular design that
really makes you feel compelled to turn the page and see what the little demon does next,
whether he’s bouncing around in one of the many fight scenes, or emoting in
those quiet character moments.
Maybe it’s the horns.
Tonally, Sand Land can be surprisingly serious at times. It’s not the
out-and-out comedic farce you might expect from Toriyama, but rather an
emotionally resonant adventure that—while certainly containing its fair share
of silliness—never descends into outright Dr. Slump-style absurdity.
As the front cover of the volume
implies, the main mode of transportation for Beelzebub and the gang is a
good-old-fashioned tank, which at
times during the story almost feels like a character unto itself. Perhaps the tank exists solely to give Toriyama
an excuse to draw plenty of crowd-pleasing explosions. Unfortunately, the tank
battles are just not as dynamic as you might expect, and at certain points
they’re even a bit hard to follow. Only the occasional “full-speed ahead!”
close-up helps to orient the reader as to what exactly is going on during those
tense sequences.
And while the vehicular warfare is nonetheless entertaining,
it’s the one-on-one fisticuffs starring Beelzebub that really give this manga
its action-packed credentials.
In Toriyama’s brief commentary on Sand Land, which is the first thing
you’ll see when you open the front cover, he talks about how difficult a
project it was to create—specifically due to the tedious artistic demands of
drawing that highly-detailed tank over and over again. He even goes as far as
to say he “went through hell drawing the whole thing.” It’s a rather negative
and even ominous statement to make to your readers right before they dive
headfirst into what is ultimately a high-spirited romp, but the truth is, none
of the difficulty Toriyama references is evident in the art: the quality never
dips, and the story itself never loses its sense of momentum or fun. Perhaps it’s fitting that Toriyama went through hell creating this magnificent
work of art...
Because just as Beelzebub and his
friends end up learning the hard way: if you want to reach the oasis, you must
first cross the desert.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Process Pool #2 "Step by Step"
In lieu of a new chapter of MILLENNIALS this week (because I may or may not have missed my deadline, ahem) I decided to combined this week's chapter with my ongoing behind-the-scenes series Process Pool. Here you'll get to see the step-by-step process that goes into a chapter of my humble webcomic.
1) Playin' with Paint
I've written a broad outline of the entire series, so I have a general idea of what's supposed to happen in each chapter, but apart from snippets of dialogue and basic point A to point B plot movement, the specific content of each chapter is something I more or less make up on the spot. Now considering the fact that a good percentage of my day job is spent in front of a computer, I've learned developed an ingenious (dare I say) method of breaking things down while on the clock--Microsoft Paint! Turns out this old dog's still got some new tricks. Eat your heart out, Photoshop.
2) Scriptin' my Scribbles
Using the extremely crude outline I threw together in Paint, I next fire up the inimitable Microsoft Word to type up a script. Some scripts are looser than others, but it's usually at this point that dialogue gets finalized and any remaining gaps are filled in. I'm a writer who prefers to use a word processor rather than writing things by hand, mainly because my penmanship is terrible and my hand has trouble keeping up with my thoughts when the ideas start flowing.
3) Nailin' them Thumbnails
This is where the page layouts get decided. I like to think that, despite what I lack in artistic ability, I make up for with the smooth, easy-to-read flow of my panels. (At least that's what I tell myself...)
4) Pencilin' like a Pro (not really)
11x17 Bristol board? Check. Non-photo blue pencil? Check. Well? What are you waiting for?! Get to work! Part of me thinks the art would paradoxically be better served if I just skipped this step and opted for the crude energy of straight ink to page.
5) Inkin' It
And after all the blood sweat and tears of the previous steps comes the fun part: inks! This is the step where I can shut off my brain, turn on one of my favorite podcasts or YouTube channels, and just draw. I ink the panel borders first, then hand letter the dialogue balloons (while doing my best to combat the aforementioned terrible penmanship) and finally ink the panels themselves. Then I head to my local library, scan them bad boys, resize the pages in Paint, upload 'em to my blog, and voila! Another chapter complete.
So there you have it--a (mostly) complete, step-by-step look at how I compose a chapter of MILLENNIALS.
Tune in next week to see the finished product!
1) Playin' with Paint
I've written a broad outline of the entire series, so I have a general idea of what's supposed to happen in each chapter, but apart from snippets of dialogue and basic point A to point B plot movement, the specific content of each chapter is something I more or less make up on the spot. Now considering the fact that a good percentage of my day job is spent in front of a computer, I've learned developed an ingenious (dare I say) method of breaking things down while on the clock--Microsoft Paint! Turns out this old dog's still got some new tricks. Eat your heart out, Photoshop.
2) Scriptin' my Scribbles
Using the extremely crude outline I threw together in Paint, I next fire up the inimitable Microsoft Word to type up a script. Some scripts are looser than others, but it's usually at this point that dialogue gets finalized and any remaining gaps are filled in. I'm a writer who prefers to use a word processor rather than writing things by hand, mainly because my penmanship is terrible and my hand has trouble keeping up with my thoughts when the ideas start flowing.
3) Nailin' them Thumbnails
This is where the page layouts get decided. I like to think that, despite what I lack in artistic ability, I make up for with the smooth, easy-to-read flow of my panels. (At least that's what I tell myself...)
4) Pencilin' like a Pro (not really)
11x17 Bristol board? Check. Non-photo blue pencil? Check. Well? What are you waiting for?! Get to work! Part of me thinks the art would paradoxically be better served if I just skipped this step and opted for the crude energy of straight ink to page.
5) Inkin' It
And after all the blood sweat and tears of the previous steps comes the fun part: inks! This is the step where I can shut off my brain, turn on one of my favorite podcasts or YouTube channels, and just draw. I ink the panel borders first, then hand letter the dialogue balloons (while doing my best to combat the aforementioned terrible penmanship) and finally ink the panels themselves. Then I head to my local library, scan them bad boys, resize the pages in Paint, upload 'em to my blog, and voila! Another chapter complete.
So there you have it--a (mostly) complete, step-by-step look at how I compose a chapter of MILLENNIALS.
Tune in next week to see the finished product!
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