Talking about manga in NY, UK and Kumamoto!

LATEST: Bristol expo 2008 seemed a great success, with as much as 20% more people coming this year than last - a big increase! Good for me too as I got a new contract, to be revealled in time... Akiko Shimojima came over with me from Japan for it, her first time in UK, and had a great experience she says. As did the Swedish comic book people invited by myself - Fredrik Stromberg, who is a very knowledgeable and stylish fellow... and the YokaJ studio, who are loveliest bunch ever. The charming lad above with the IRAQ book is Andy Wolff, who helped me greatly at this festival and in other work in the UK while im away in Japan - honti ni arigato Andy, ichiban ski tomodachi!

The big NY comic convention in April was also great - I had good meetings with publishers (that has sinced developed in a deal - yatta!), also distributors (hi John and Jenny!), fans and fellow creators... and my talk on alternative manga in Japan went well. Look out for the planned GEKIGA manga book that I am working on now with a very knowledgeable editor in Tokyo. My first time in the USA and much to my surprise i liked NY. Even found my very own 'Wilson Street' in Brooklyn on my way to the convention. To my amazement NY people are polite, much more than Londoners anyway. Plus i met some interesting 'artistic' people and some with warmingly left wing or radical viewpoints, check out this lovely Greek-American lady, Julia, and her performances: www.ladylovely.net

Previous: I recently did a lecture talk at the Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto (CAMK) here in Japan about my Lafcadio Hearn manga. I discussed WHY i chose to do a book on this gentleman from Meiji era Japan. HOW we went about making the manga, and therefore discussed the very process of how to make comic books in general. Then we looked at individual pages, and considered how they were done. It went very well, thankfully, with intelligent questions from the audience afterwards. I have done this kind of talk about 6 times now, or it it 7? My training as a college teacher helps out. Or does it? Maybe all that NLP training helped more...

Now I have to prepare for the talks i will give in the New York Comics Convention in April (18th), and the Bristol Comic Expo in May (10th) - both on the alternative/indie manga scene in Japan. Called 'Manga Alternatives' - Gambaru! On the New York Comic Convention website (click on link title to go) it has me up as a guest. Thats a wee thrill, as its on the same page as Grant Morrison, who is a big influence on me (and is also Scottish, into Magick and 1960's music - good taste he has!). See ya there Grant.
http://www.nycomiccon.com/App/homepage.cfm?appname=100453&moduleID=2920&LinkID=28544&campaignid=42919&iUserCampaignID=34133038