Another thing is that someone else read it to him.
| Publisher’s Word is the opinion column Pedro F Medina (@Studio_Kat), Editor in Chief, responsible for licenses and social networks of fandogamy and journalist with a not hidden facet of showman in comic and manga events |
I have returned to this pulpit shortly before the close of the year, like the one who gets a foot in the door before it is closed in his face. I should excuse my absence during these months, but my only justification is the lack of time and I should take advantage of the little I have to get down to business, so let’s leave it at that. I will only say that my purpose for 2023 is to resume my activity in these parts (and thus I will take advantage of the seven texts that I have half written) and show more teeth, which is what bothers them.
I come with a reply to my list of Comics to Keep in Mind for 2021. In that one I highlighted some of the best-selling comics and others that months later would receive a few awards (including National ones), so not too bad. I save myself from telling you that it is not right to publish lists before the end of the year, especially when there are editors as misguided as me, who have SIX new items in distribution for December 29. I’ll tell you another day, because it wasn’t of my own free will. I say all this so that no one feels singled out individually: you can do it together, because all your lists are shit and WRONG.
With that being said, here’s mine. Ten comics to highlight from 2022, for better or worse. Here we go.
1. Geek Dreamsbetter known as “the last album of Superlópez” (Jan). This year has been the moment in which Jan has decided to shelve a long stage with his best-known character and start publishing whatever he wants. And I tell you: olé you, bravo, let’s see what you come up with, because he has said that he is not going to draw more Superlópez but that he has ink left for a while. These lines they are a botched tribute compared to his professional career and his list of awards, but here they are.
2. Kowloon Generic Romance (Jun Mayuzuki). That this year more manga has come out than ever is one thing. That if they had only published this one it would also be worth it is another. When you finish the first volume, your ass is broken. It has a magnificent setting, some characters that you like at first glance, an intoxicating story of those that slowly reveal the details, and a futuristic structure hanging there in the sky, perpetual, that seems to be watching you all the time. weather. I’m deep into this shit.
3. chan-prin (Xian Nu Studio). Because it’s over. Because it is one of my beloved Espudio Shampoos. Because it’s a book-game, which is no small feat. Because it has concluded after six volumes with a trapped audience. Then we cry because universes are not developed, there is no commitment to Spanish comics… Here they have been building a slap in your face for years and you are not seeing it. Do they have to put up an 80 square meter stand with canvases hanging from the ceiling and give you a calendar so that you think that something is being done for the talent here? You’ve had it under your nose for a long time.
Four. Sweet Paprika/Hot Paprika (Mirka Andolfo). Mirka’s illustrations are distressing. The color explodes in your retinas. The Moztros edition above is well done, at a good price for a hard cover. And here comes what really fascinates me: they published two versions, one for €18 (Sweet) and another for €24 (Hot) that includes a black and white booklet with magenta details, and which is the Same comic but tiny and with the characters naked when there are torrid scenes. And the one that sells is the HOT edition, but well above the other. I don’t know if this was the plan from the beginning, but that’s how finance works: people are willing to pay more for the extras. They want extras. To the confession made to me in the office by Inma S. Andreu, Giant Days translator, I refer myself: “what I want are little postcards”. Then no one should be surprised if additional issues of a thousand comics come out that include staff-satisfying nonsense. It is the modern alternative to variant covers. It’s what the audience wants. It’s already happening (godzilla vs power rangers ahem) and guess what works is the expensive version with little gifts that cost 20 cents to print. POS TO IT. FOOL THE LAST.
5. The Mortadelo and Filemón soccer World Cup comic (F. Ibanez). I don’t need to read it. Just with the cover I already have everything I need: new samples of stereotyped racism and a crazy, nonsensical illustration composition, where the “joke” prevails over everything else. The problem is that it’s the same joke for more than five years. If you insist on hitting Ibáñez with a Princess of Asturias, it’s to make you look at it.
6. Grass (Keum Suk Gendry-Kim). It’s going to take a bunch of well-deserved prizes. The theme is a manual TRIGGER WARNING: the sexual slaves subjected by the Japanese army during the Korean occupation in World War II. Tremendous. Nauseating. The thing is that I have sewn half. Is it because of the narrative formula? Is it because I’m not able to follow an alarmingly high percentage of modern comics? AM I GETTING OLD? ME, WHO READ ONE PIECE EVERY WEEK? IS THAT ONE PIECE IS OLD?? (answer: yes)
7. The magazine Thursday, a bit overall, because it has completed 45 years of sustained publication, always hitting the nail on the head, creating characters that are part of the popular imagination, although sometimes they proclaim more progressivism than they are truly capable of practicing. And despite the paper crisis and the rise in prices. For now. *cross your fingers*
8. Tomorrow’s Joe (Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba). A great classic, one of those sleeves that set a chair. The bad thing is that it is not signed by Tezuka nor has it been published before in Spain, because it seems that the only classic manga that sells strongly are the reissued ones, the ones that appeal to nostalgia, like that Gunsmith Cats that has given us eyes even if it costs 25 napos . The rest… just enough. I hope I’m wrong. Now Hajime no Ippo is coming, in double volumes, because there is no other way to smoke the 135 tankoubones he carries in Japan (and it’s still open!). The biggest parallel between him and Tomorrow’s Joe is that he goes boxing. The biggest difference from him is that it will be published by Planeta, which Ippo is going to stick down our throats until we throw in the towel. And that they are going to air the series on Netflix, which gets you all the promotion you need in this life. So the real key is the same as always: that the comic sounds to people before having to open it.
9. keep drawing (Coconut), reflections and processions of one of the survivors of the massacre in the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in 2015 after publishing images of Muhammad. I do not have anything more to add.
10. Hit ’em! (DAC). There are two aspects to assess here: on the one hand, the publication of a compilation volume with the ¡DALES CAÑA! of DAC, which is the illustrated version of what I do in these columns, except that he started ten years before. In this sense, I am a mere imitator. On the other, that said volume focuses on talking about manga publishers and their barbarasadas, putting whoever faces reading every two pages in a historical context. An awful lot of work, for which I award Alegría Jiménez, layout artist, the Cruz de Papel for acting beyond the call of duty (fortunately, it was not posthumously).
And with this I say goodbye to the year. The drawback of the lists is that when you reach a certain number you have to close them, and it’s maddening because I’ve left a few controversies to name, although some of them today would be real teabags and you could blame me for it. I do not want to make firewood from the fallen tree, so I leave you with a few recommendations in discount time: Madman (Mike and Laura Allred), The word that begins with A (Elizabeth Casillas), Sheets (Brenna Thummler), Thief (Lucie Bryon ), Nocturnal cry (Borja González), A journey through letters (Pedro Cifuentes), The little genius and the game of shatranj (Álvaro Órtiz). My only criterion, for a change, is that I would have published any of them quite comfortably. Anyone would be a gift of three pairs, and that I have not even pulled from my own publisher. Someday I will have to take a photo with the institutional representative on duty with my comics in hand.
Until then, peace and cartoons to the people of good will. We read each other from page to page.