Kaigai Manga Festa 2018

A month ago, I had the chance to visit the Kaigai Manga Festa comic exhibition for the first time. It was collocated with Comitia 126, a famous periodic manga convention held in different cities of Japan throughout the year.

The event took place at Tokyo Big Sight and the entrance fee, which included a catalogue book, was 1000 yen. For some reason, the entrance was free after around 13:00.

One of the main attractions was the live drawing event by Kim Jung Gi (@KimJungGiUS, @kimjunggi_jp). This was actually the second time I watched him drawing live, the first time being at Nakano Broadway. During his performance, Kim usually answers various questions from the audience and the commentators. It must be hard for him to concentrate!. Then, Risa Kageyama translates his words into Japanese.

This time the canvas was a bit hard to see, so the process was projected on a big screen. The way that Kim Jung Gi draws is mind-blowing. It looks like he has the whole composition inside his mind and he can start drawing from anywhere without any reference lines.

This was the final result. Kim is not really that good at drawing cute anime-like girls. His style is closer to the kind of artists that used to publish on the Heavy Metal magazine. I guess that was a character related to the sponsor of the event, the Fun's Project Channel, an excellent website with educational contents for artists and creators. There are more pictures and a video on Kim's Twitter account, make sure you check them out.

Apart from Kim, other notable artists such as Sean Phillips or Duncan Fegredo attended the convention. I also took the opportunity to walk by the booths in Comitia 126 and discover great artists such as:

• @pochi1989
• krenzartwork
• hunwaritoast
• kaitan0908
• dieselzombie
• ue_tateri
• naffy
• JohnHathway
• @taiwan_shurara

I also found interesting some commercial sites with booths in the event such as:

• haikeisouko (manga and anime backgrounds)
• fanza (digital adult manga shop)
• kindle indie mangas (lots of amateur manga for free!).

Finally, I learned about a tool in Blender called "grease pen" that I need to check.

24h de la bande dessinee 2016

This year I also participated in the "24h de la bande dessinee" event. The goal of this event is to make 24 pages of comic in 24 hours. The topic is decided every year when the event starts. These are the pages I made this year (translation to English here).

Naoki Urasawa's original comic art exhibition

Last March I visited Naoki Urasawa's "Draw, draw and draw" (描いて描いて描きまくる) exhibition at Setagaya Literary Museum (世田谷文学館).

I have been a fan of Urasawa-sensei since I imported the first 2 volumes of his comic Monster from Japan at the age of 17. At the time I couldn't read Japanese but I was lucky to get a translation to the Spanish language from a friend. A year later the series was finally published in Spain and I enjoyed every single page.



The exhibition was absolutely amazing and displayed lots of original comic art from Urasawa's masterpieces such as Monster, Pluto, Happy, Yawara, 20th century boys, Billy bat, or Master keaton. Pictures were not allowed, but you can see what it looked like from here, from here, from Urasawa's twitter account, from Setagaya literary museum's twitter account, or just by searching for 浦沢直樹展 on google images.



Urasawa recently became a TV star thanks to his wonderful program Manben (漫勉), a made up word that combines the first kanji for MANga (comic) and BENkyo (study). In each episode, Urasawa records and interviews a rather famous Japanese comic artist. You can watch Manben online.

The best comics of my youth (1998-2008)

Before I came to Japan, almost 6 years ago, I had to face a dilemma. After having been accumulating comics for nearly 10 years and reading them from time to time, I started feeling some intimate links with a few of them. What would you do with your collection of comics if you had to move faraway?.

For example, Las aguas de Mortelune (Les eaux de Mortelune). It was the first comic I've ever read, thanks to a friend from high school (thanks a lot Adrián!). I guess I could have got rid of the ones that I wasn't so intimate about, and just bring the rest to Japan. However, I was very much afraid of discarding comics that could lead me to regrets later on. That was really a nightmare, so I decided to postpone my decision and instead, I asked my father to keep them in his rental garage for a few years until I figured out what to do with them.
Every year I visited Spain I would also take a look at the state of my comics. The garage conditions weren't good for them and made me sad. But on the other hand it was hard for me to send them back to Japan since I didn't even know what my future would be like. Finally, two years ago I decided to take action. During a holiday in Spain I spent hours and hours classifying comics according to how bad would I feel if I threw them away. Really, it was a very bad experience. I can remember myself at night, a rainy night, taking the not-so-loved comics outside of their boxes and throwing them away. After coming back to Japan I felt gloomy. I started thinking I might had thrown more than I should have, including comics that I actually liked or used to, which was as important. To make things worse, it wasn't until last year that I sent them over to Japan. It was a bit of a hurdle since I had to pay more than the actual price of those comics, but it was well-paid money. Now I'm reunited with them and they are part of me. This is what I consider the core of my first 10 years of love for the art of comics.

Imaginario (by Horacio Altuna) was my second comic after Les eaux de Mortelune, and I borrowed it again from my friend at high school. I was instantly a new absolute fan of Horacio Altuna. I read Imaginario several times and simply loved it. The more I read it, the more I paid attention to the details. A few years later, I would have the honor of talking to maestro Altuna and showing him some my early drawings for advice after a talk that he gave in Santander.

On the same high school, the author Alfonso Font came once to teach us how comics were created. I remember his talk very well. Alfonso Font is a great author and I really love his short science-fiction stories.

I lived in a small village so I didn't even know there could be shops that sold comics (this is quite unthinkable here in Japan). But by suggestion from my high school friend I got subscribed to an excellent mail-based comics catalog (at the time I didn't even thought about buying on-line since I didn't even have a computer). One of the first comics I bought was 'Museum' by Fernando de Felipe and I really loved it.

Next, I became a fan of Juan Giménez's drawings and stories. His spaceships and futuristic battles are still some of the best I know. I had the honor to talk to him during a visit to the Barcelona comics festival.

Again, my friend from high school (seen it in retrospective he was a great influence for me) suggested me to try reading a comic called 'Torpedo'. I did as he said, and then I couldn't stop loving Abuli and Bernet, the authors of Torpedo. I also had the luck to talk to them when I visited the Barcelona comics festival and got a small drawing from Bernet. Thanks.

As I read comics, I also practiced my drawing abilities. It was then when I discovered Milo Manara with his perfect women and anatomy. I enjoyed some Manara's comics more than others, but in general there was always a minimum level of quality that was already worth the read. I think my favourite manga by Manara was 'El rey mono' and 'Camino oculto' on which I have a small drawing by him, thanks.

Then, I was about to start University when I found some amazing comic covers in an audio magazine. I had never seen anything like that before, the drawing was different and it was a very clear style I could distinguish from any other comic I had read so far. I placed an order from that magazine and that's how I got my first comic made by the great master Carlos Giménez. Soon after that, I was awarded with the honor to spend one month in Barcelona as a learner in an animation studio called Dibutoonz. During that time, I was able to get hold of quite a few of Carlos Giménez works at Mercat de Sant Antoni, such as Los profesionales or Sabor a menta. Reading all those comics about Barcelona in the 80's while I was actually living in Barcelona was an amazing experience that I will never forget. Years later, new editions of Carlos Giménez works were sold again and I could get some of the comics I hadn't found before such as Paracuellos or España grande y libre. I have read many comics from many different countries, and I believe that Carlos Giménez is one of the top comic artists of all history.

Finally, I'd like to mention Miguelaxo Prado. An artist with an exquisite delicacy in the way he uses colour. I'm glad I could see him drawing during the comics festival at Avilés.
Adamov, Altuna, Font, de Felipe, Bernet, Manara, Juan Giménez, Carlos Giménez, Miguelanxo.. I was really very lucky for having such great masters to lead me in the world of comic. They represent a reference for me and constitute my greatest influence to day.

When I started University, I had to leave my small village everyday for the small city of Santander. It was then when I discovered that comic shops actually existed!. For most people reading this blog it might seem stupid but I was living in a small village and I hadn't had a computer until then. The city of Santander has had at least 3 comic shops that I know of. That's quite more than I would have expected. It was like a dream for me, entering into a shop and seeing thousands of comics around. Comic shops in Spain are usually divided in 3 main parts: European, American and Japanese. Or that's what it looked like the first time I entered to one. Since my background was in European (and south-american) comics, I started buying comics from there. The ones above are some of my favourites, though there are many others I love that I didn't show.

After sometime, I noticed that European comics were quite more expensive than American ones so I gave them a try. I have to admit that I didn't really enjoy most superheroe-related comics (with some exceptions such as Watchmen). In contrast, I started to love the comics that had the brand 'vertigo' stamped on them. Among them, the ones above are some of my favourites. I had the chance to show my drawings to Michael Lark, the artist from The scene of crime, in the festival of comics at Avilés. He told me: try to simplify your lines. I think that's one of the best advice I've ever received.

Once I had read lots of European and American comics, I started getting interested in Japanese Mangas. At the time, it was really hard to find Japanese mangas, it wasn't quite a boom like now. But in retrospective that was again a lucky thing. The reason being that I was able to witness how the Japanese manga boom invaded the comics market and that was very exciting. Some early fans started selling magazines such as the ones above with a rather professional look. I learned a lot from them, thanks!. Then, they started putting modern anime in TV such as Marmalade boy. You could feel that Anime and Manga were the cool thing at that time.

Soon after, the best mangas started arriving in Spain, like the ones by the great Japanese master Taniguchi Jiro (mostly unknown by his own comrades). Taniguchi's mangas were delicate, sophisticated and very human. Another manga that I loved was this one called Tetsujin Gamma (Yasuhito Yamamoto). Unfortunately, it wasn't that popular in Spain and got cancelled (now I can read in Japanese!). Some other mangas I loved were Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo), I''S (Masakazu Katsura), Monster (Urasawa Naoki), Detective Conan (Gosho Aoyama), Maison Ikoku (Rumiko Takahashi), and anything by Wataru Yoshizumi.

I think this post summarizes quite well what my collection of comics looked like during my first 10 years. At some point in the future, I'd like to talk about what types of comics I have read since I came to Japan 6 years ago. Until then!!

Super Comic City - Osaka

The 30th of October of 1998 (Friday) was an important day in my life. La noche temática, a program from the Spanish public TV, emitted a documentary called "La noche de los manga".


Thema Manga, Mangaka - 01/21 - Intro et Sommaire - 1998
アップロード者 Alexkiddmw. - クリエィティブ動画をもっと見る。

The documentary, a co-production between TSR2 and Arte France, had a total duration of 187 minutes and covered in detail the world of Japanese animation and Manga. I was moved by the images, the music and the idea of discovering a new hidden world (am I, after all, another Spanish conqueror? :P). The documentary explained the process of creating manga and animation in Japan. In particular, I recall one scene where thousands of manga amateurs were gathering around in a huge event to sell their self-published material. Back then, attending such an event was a mere dream for me.

Back to reality, a few weeks ago, I was hanging around in Toranoana manga shop when I spotted an interesting book at one of the floors dedicated to dōjinshi 同人誌 (self-publishing) mangas. It was a book about one of those events that I dreamed about a decade ago!! I thought it was time to make those old-good dreams come true!!

And there I was, a few weeks later, in Osaka ready to participate for the first time in a dōjinshi event: the Super Comic City - Kansai 16. The event took place in Intex Osaka, a huge building complex that had plenty of room for the 14.000 stands where Japanese manga amateurs were passionately selling their work. It was organized by Akaboo, a company that prepares similar events during the whole year. It was completely full of people, much more than what I had imagined. Amateur (and not so amateur) artists were selling their own mangas, illustrations, hand-made postcards, badges and even dolls!! Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures inside the building to illustrate it.

Although this time I attended just as a visitor, I would love to attend someday with my own comics. In order to participate as an author you need to fill a form. I found a free magazine called Piggy in Toranoana which includes the forms to apply to many of these events but you can apply directly from Akaboo website. An interesting detail on the application form is that small rectangle on the down-right corner reserved for you to show a catchy cut of your art.

That cut will appear eventually in the event's guide book, which can be bought in advance at the manga shop or directly on the day when the event takes place (the book qualifies as entrance ticket). This is very useful for the attendants to think in advance which stands they want to visit first.

Many of those amateur artists dream of becoming professional manga artists (mangaka) someday. One way to accomplish their goal is to take part in one of the numerous manga contests that are held in Japan. Some of them feature prizes that simply make my jaws drop. For instance, the picture above (extracted from the event's guide book) advertises the Shinjin comic contest, sponsored by Shogakukan, whose biggest prize is 5000000 yen (46572 Eur at 29/Aug/2010).

There are many people that love drawing manga. And many more who love reading them. And of course, "a lot of people" stands for an opportunity for business in a free market society. There exist a plethora of companies to help the artists achieve their goals. From printing companies specialized in amateur mangas to transportation services that can bring your boxes full of manga directly to the building. Inside the building, you can buy all kinds of tools for drawing such as tracing tables, color pens, manga patterns, etc. There is even a service to send home the mangas that you bought.

12 years after watching that documentary, I still feel as if I was discovering a new hidden world...