comics – joezone

I’m at the “watching hour long videos of nerds touring their manga collection” phase of isolation.

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

I moved a bunch of manga down into my office (I got another table so my workspace quadrupled and now I have so much more space to do activities!) so that I would see them every day until I felt shamed into reading them all. I’m being stared at currently by the first 6 20TH CENTURY BOYS omnibus editions by Naoki Urasawa, the first 5 URUSEI YATSURA omnibus’ by Rumiko Takahashi (I’ve read the first one and I loved it), a big collection of the complete DORORO by Osamu Tezuka (given to me by my friend Sho for my birthday! What a guy.), Junji Ito’s adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s NO LONGER HUMAN and a bunch of other stuff. (Gotta save some for the next time I can’t think of what to blog about on a friday).

Here’s hoping this strategy of piling stuff I want to read beside me all day will prompt me to read some of it.

Speaking of reading! I suck at it again… My reading rate has plummeted of late and I only finished one thing this week so I’m not going to bother with a full Read Icculus entry. I’ll just mention it here:

I read Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running (and really, about writing) WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING. I loved it. Maybe I should start running? Why not me?!

Currently Playing: Makeup and Vanity Set – “Roy”

Currently Reading: That same stupid light novel about meeting girls in dungeons, it’s TRASH, but it is a fun diversion from the apocalypse.

Brain not spinning up today. No energy drinks left in office fridge. Diet Dew can only do so much. In lieu of the insightful commentary you’ve come to expect here at the joezone here is the first comic I ever did. The art is by a terrific artist named Matthew McGuigan whose stuff you can find HERE.

It was for a horror anthology called “Midnight Feature” in the style of an old Tales From the Crypt or CREEPY. The horror host who introduces the story was named the Projectionist and the premise behind the book was that each comic was a horror short the Projectionist was showing to a theatre full of monsters and ghouls etc.

Years later a horror anthology film came out called “Nightmare Cinema” wherein a horror host named The Projectionist showed horror shorts in a decrepit, spooky theatre. Did Mick Garris steal this idea from a tiny comics anthology with upwards of 150 copies in circulation? No, no he did not… but it still bummed me out when I saw the DVD of “Nightmare Cinema” at walmart. I’ve never watched the movie, but I bet there’s no homicidal walruses in it. ADVANTAGE: MIDNIGHT FEATURE