#Uderzo tell me your secrets

[cathleen-and-co]

Me: I am so back, Cathy is so back, Mel is so back I am better than ever baby!

*Has to draw characters on model*

Me: Oh no

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Andy on Asian Animation or SYAC: The Master Review 2

Let’s talk a bit about anime and Dobson’s work relation with it.

I think we can all agree, that starting from the late 90s and early 2000s on, anime and manga became extremely popular in the western world. Sure, Japanese animation was nothing completely new to us (Speed Racer, Nadia-Secret of Blue Water, Samurai Pizza Cats, Sailor Moon, Kimba and Akira e.g. come to my mind as properties already known in the west before 1995) but it really was around this time that thanks to “mainstream” stuff like Dragon Ball and Pokemon people became aware of how different Japanese animation was from western. Eventually resulting in the really good shit (like Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, Kenshin and Heat Guy J) coming over and enriching nerd culture for more than just a few people who knew of it as an obscurity at that point. Now, if you know anything about Dobson, you likely know that his relationship with anime is rather… complicated to say the least. Or, to let him explain it with his own words…

Dobson essentially likes silly and wacky 90s anime. But later on he hated anime in general, because it got too popular and a bad experience with an anime club in college soured his enjoyment of it. Furthermore, he put the blame on his lackluster art style and storytelling capabilities as seen in the likes of Formera, Patty and Alex ze Pirate, on anime in general, while also claiming that Disney pulling the plug on 2D animation is the result of the “anime inspired” Treasure Planet, meaning anime in a sense deprived him of his chance at working at his dream job and “ruining” western animation.

Which to me has always been ignorant as fuck. For starters, I can understand not liking certain stories or genres, either for objective or subjective reasons. But to hate on an entire nation’s form of entertainment (not just individual shows or genres), depriving yourself of the chance of potentially watching a lot of good stuff while also being rather insulting to these other works and people enjoying them? Especially when the stuff you can supposedly “stomach” has been rather simplistic compared to other things?

 Second, blaming Japan for “poisoning” your art style? What, did the ghost of Osamu Tezuka possess you and FORCE you to put sweatdrops on your characters forehead while also going for the rather simplistic character style of Rumiko Takahashi, as well as emulating the slapstick of the likes as Slayers and Ranma ½?

 Next, if he had emulated them successfully, I say he would have actually managed to tell decent enough stories worth to read online. Not create Uncle Peggy aka “Discount Happosai” or the bland proto-Isekai known as Formera.

I mean, let’s give some context here: There have been people who successfully managed to emulate certain anime and manga aesthetics into western animation and make it work. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten the likes of Avatar-The last Airbender, Samurai Jack, the Animatrix, Thundercats 2011, Super Robot Monkey Hyperforce Go, Kim Possible, W.I.T.C.H, Megas XLR and Wakfu. You know, shows that are actually awesome as hell.

Heck, Dobson’s favorite animated show of the last decade, Steven Universe, is heavily inspired by anime aesthetics to the point of being embarrassing.

 But Dobson… well, he emulated anime aesthetics in his work the same way as these crimes against animation did.

Combined with his general shortcomings as a storyteller it is no wonder his initial comics did not do well.

 Lastly, and sorry for digressing here a bit, but if the Wikipedia entry on Treasure Planet is something to go by, there was no real inspiration by anime involved in making this movie.

Supposedly the idea of making an animated Treasure Planet in outer space movie was already pitched by Ron Clements WAY BACK in 1985 but only came to be after Michael Eisner greenlighted stuff in the late 90s. Design wise the movie was supposed to look 70% traditional and 30% sci-fi inspired and people took inspiration for the art style by illustrators associated with the Brandywine School of Illustration. A western style of illustration established in the 19th century, that had a big impact on the illustration styles for many 19th and early 20th century adventure novels and short stories.

What, is anime supposed to be the only form of animation allowed to have sci fi elements or steampunk in it? Fucks sake, The Lion King and Atlantis, which came out one year earlier to Treasure Planet, were likely more inspired by anime. Don’t believe me? Watch Atlantis and then a certain anime by Studio Gainax called “Nadia-Secret of Blue Water”. Or read up on the controversy surrounding the two.

The truth is, it is not entirely clear what caused Disney to shut down 2D feature film animation in the early 2000s. In fact, if anything, most people put the blame on Michael Eisner and a certain change in the publics taste in movies in general, combined with Disney trying to turn almost every movie they had into a franchise via cheap follow up movies on video and DVD.

And even if Disney did not shut down, are we really supposed to believe that a certain guy with fedora would have made it big at Disney to the point Alex ze Pirate would have been made into a feature film?

But Dobson could never quite understand this and instead of “reinventing” himself properly, he would rant about anime and its fans in one form or another…

 And on the peak of his hissy fit create this little art piece he baptized Anime Sux. Alternatively “West vs East”. Or as I like to call it, slap a jap.

Now, the pic was done in 2008 and Dobson claimed sometimes in the last decade, that he no longer holds his old opinions. Unfortunately, by that point he would also more or less use the chance to vent in his webcomic about anime (or rather its fans), which brings us finally back to SYAC.

 While Dobson never outright thematized in more detail WHY he hates anime and manga in SYAC (likely cause if his comic reasoning was even slightly like his reasoning in his blogs, people would have torn him apart like a bag of paper) he did use the format to punch down on anime fans and their preferences.

 For example, for someone who has a 4chan story going around of having been rather arrogant towards others in college for not liking Ranma ½, Dobson has THIS little college related comic to show off, where he portrays an aspiring manga artist as a delusional jackass.

Then in this strip titled manga, his manga fan is essentially portrayed as a young woman dressing up like a very stereotypical high school anime girl, who is in the wrong for even just DARING to draw her comics in the direction manga are read.

On one hand, I get Dobson’s point. She could be at risk of alienating a market of readers as she is obviously drawing for a western audience. Then again, if she doesn’t draw a traditional western comic but a manga, why shouldn’t she? I mean, as long as she enjoys it, which I assume she does as she seems genuinely just happy when stating that she likes manga, why not let her? Plus, this comic was drawn in the late 2000s. I think by then most people kinda knew how to read from right to left, so Dobson’s claim she would alienate or confuse people is kinda redundant. If anything I find a) Dobson getting angry at her just very petty (just let her have fun) and b) portraying a western manga fan as someone who would be confused by the sheer idea of reading stuff from right to left is also in itself just really dumb and insulting. What is Dobson trying to imply? That anime fans are so stuck in the way they consume certain media, they can’t act according to “western standards” again?

Then there is this strip where yet another female anime fan is essentially portrayed as the embodiment of how “ignorant” manga fans are of the idea of different art styles...

Which becomes rather laughable once Dobson describes his style as a mixture of European, American and  Japanese. Why? Because he is the one oversimplifying things, rather than the anime fan.

You see while anime and manga of all sorts do share certain aesthetics (like the black and white art style, emphasize on the eyes of characters, the way hair is drawn, recurring tropes within certain genres and so on) style wise (both in art and storytelling) there can be severe differences, depending on the artist alone. Akira Toriyama’s style differentiates significantly from the likes of Eichiro Oda, Rumiko Takahashi, Kentaro Miura, Tezuka, Kaori Yuki and so forth.

The same also goes for many western artists. Herge had a significantly different style from Uderzo and Goscinny. Don Rosa has a different style in which he drew Scrooge McDuck than Carl Barks did. Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee draw mainstream superheroes differently compared to how Jack Kirby, George Perez and others did. Heck, Ethan Van Sciver and Jim Lee were closely associated with Green Lantern in the 2000s and look how they differentiate.

 Which btw is the kind of skill level Dobson would have needed to have, to make it in the mainstream industry

So when Dobson says “I draw in a combination of American, Western and Japanese” all I can think is the following: THAT DOESN’T NARROW IT DOWN! WHAT THE HECK HAVE YOU LEARNT IN COLLEGE ABOUT COMICS? WHICH ARTISTS, WORKS AND STORYTELLERS DO YOU TRY TO EITHER EMULATE OR HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY?

Then there is this little thing…

Where do I even begin? How about the fact that Dobson’s hand in the last panel looks like he has lost a thumb? The fact that the little boy, anime fan or not, is aware of Sae Sawanoguchi, a character from a short lived OVA and anime series from the 90s, which considering his age, I kinda doubt he would be aware off. Unlike Dobson, who got into anime in the 90s and admits in fact within the posts I loaded up earlier, that he had watched the anime in particular, known in the west as Magic User Club.

Then there is the implication by Dobson, that anime is so “corruptive” as a medium, little kids don’t even know the most basic characters in western animation because of it. I expect in a next panel, that all of sudden some 50s PSA guy comes along and lectures me that if I want this kind of thing not to happen at MY convention, I need to teach little kids more about the GOOD western animation, instead of the BAD eastern one. Then there is this rather unflattering portrayal of a shonen ai/shojou ai fangirl…

 Which makes me laugh cause honestly, even some of the worst shonen ai and shojou ai can do better in portraying a “realistic” gay relationship than Patty if you ask me.

Also, as much as I think fangirls can be extremely thirsty (I have read my fair share of extremely stupid yaoi and yuri fanfics) I think that in hindsight Dobson is really not anyone to complain about shipping obsession and sex when he himself has KorraSami, the Ladybug fandom and a certain rat pirate under his floppy belt.

As you can imagine, Dobson would get heat for those comics, considering how he himself has been greatly inspired by anime and manga for his major comics. And while I don’t have any explicit deviantart posts of him reacting to criticism in that regard, I do have this comic which addresses it directly.

 And yeah, if I were schoolgirl number 4, I would just sigh and walk away after telling Dobson that his mistakes and shortcomings are not related to having consumed anime, but rather by what sort of anime (and other stories) he had consumed and the amount of effort he had put in creating his stories instead of emulating just something more popular. Plus, if you really want people to draw more from life, how about drawing more from life yourself down the line? And no, tracing Star Wars movie frames does not count.

Finally, Dobson, considering how very little most people think of your work, I say mission accomplished: People have learnt from your mistakes and know not to be a Dobson.

And at last, there is this comic, which kinda wraps up Dobson’s “vendetta” with anime and manga fans within the pages of SYAC.

By trying to mock anime fans and make them look just as shallow as he is. I at least suppose. Honestly, the message of this comic is rather muddled. On one hand, I would say the strawman accusing Dobson hates anime just because it is popular is very simplified. After all, Dobson has made his reasons for not liking anime clear in a few more details. It’s just that the details in and on themselves in real life are still rather shallow and boil down to a lot of personal bias rather than an objective criticism of actual flaws. Which I think is worth pointing out.

But frankly, what is Dobson trying to say or point out here? That the strawman is not so different or even dumber than him, because he hates Justin Bieber for “shallow” and superficial reasons too?

Okay, this doesn’t quite work as well as Dobson wants. First, the argument Dobson’s strawman makes is in huge parts based on some verified statements Dobson made for not liking anime. Second, he just says a name and that triggers the guy to express his hatred for Bieber. We don’t know why the guy hates Bieber and you could make in fact the case, that he hates him not because he is popular, but because he has a genuine issue with the artist, his work or his behavior as a human being. Third, if you want to make yourself look like the better person Dobson, try to argue with the guy and make solid arguments why you don’t like anime. Instead you just deflect the criticism by changing the subject and then try to make yourself look like the “smarter” person in the room by mocking your critic in the most condescending manner.

Which as I think about it, sounds like your modus operandi on twitter and tumblr.

Weirdly enough, that more or less marks the “end” of Dobson tackling anime fans and the beef he has with them within the pages of SYAC. Despite how much Dobson’s negative reputation especially in early years was build around him hating on anime and belittling its fans, he didn’t really do more afterwards in the Dobson focused pages of SYAC. And mind you, those strips were also separated by other strips in-between, focused on Dobson just being at conventions.

Unfortunately for him, the strips didn’t really help in any way to diminish that negative reputation and instead just confirmed for many, that Dobson can’t handle criticism about his flawed opinion on anime. If anything, it just made people think even less of Dobson, as the strips just painted him as someone who would rather portray his critics as strawman he can be “rightfully” annoyed at, instead of fellow humans with slightly different tastes in entertainment, who are still worth listening to.

So, now that we have the anime fan related “annoyances” out of the way, what other sort of silly problems in making webcomics would Dobson cover in his strips and are “relatable” to everyone?

Lets see some of these examples in the next part.

[porlockstompf]

READING DE NACHT READING 2017

                                                            my favourite books of the year

my overall favourite book of the year:

     david keenan “this is memorial device” [faber & faber] (2017)

POST-CYBERPUNKSTOMPF:

01 nick harkaway "gnomon" (2017) 02 kim stanley robinson "new york 2140" (2017) 03 m john harrison "you should come with me" (2017) 04 gardner dozois (ed) "the year's best science fiction: thirty-fourth annual collection" (2017) 05 james morrow "the asylum of dr. caligari" (2017)

06 annalee newitz "autonomous" (2017) 07 cory doctorow "walkaway" (2017) 08 dave hutchinson "acadia" (2017)   + dave hutchinson "slow companions" (2017) 09 ed finn (ed) visions, ventures, escape velocities: a collection of space futures" (2017) 10 bryan thomas schmidt (ed) "infinite stars" (2017)

11 allan kaster "the year's top hard science fiction stories" (2017) 12 nina allen "the rift" (2017) 13 charles stross "the delirium brief" (2017) 14 simon morden "at the speed of light" (2017) 15 ada palmer "seven surrenders" (2017) & "the will to battle" (2017)

16 yoon ha lee "raven stratagem" (2017) 17 john joseph adams (ed) "cosmic powers" (2017) 18 mur lafferty "six wakes" (2017) 19 taiyo fujii "orbital cloud" (2017) 20 andrew bannister "creation machine" (2016)     + andrew bannister "iron gods" (2017)

21 gareth l powell "entropic angel & other stories" (2017) 22 ann leckie "provenance" (2017) 23 monica louzon (ed) "catalysts, explorers & secret keepers: women of sf" 24 ian mconald "wolf moon" (2017) 25 neal stephenson & nicole galland "the rise & fall of d.o.d.o." (2017)

26 adam roberts "the real-town murders" (2017) 27 tim pratt "the wrong stars" (2017) 28 jim c. hines "terminal alliance" (2017) 29 charles stross "the empire games" (2017) 30 james s.a. corey "persepolis rising" (2017)     + james s.a. corey "strange dogs" (2017)

31 allen steele "avengers of the moon (captain future)" (2017) 32 neal asher "infinity engine [transformation III]" (2017) 33 jason m. hough "injection burn" (2017)   + jason m. hough "escape velocity" (2017) 34 donna scott (ed) "best of british science fiction 2016"/una mccormack "star of the sea" (2016) 35 david marusek "upon this rock"/john scalzi "collapsing empire" (2017)

& a couple of re-readings: richard k. morgan "takeshi kovacs trilogy" in view of the coming netflix series and colin harvey "damage time" (2010) ... no further reason needed!

STOMPF KLASSIK:

01 matthew mcintosh "the mystery.doc" (2017)

02 sébastien roger "les désordres du monde. walter benjamin à port-bou" (2017) 03 laurent binet "hhhh" (2012) 04 + laurent binet "the 7th function of language" (2017) 05 jean echenoz "special envoy" (2017)

06 paul stanbridge "forbidden line" (2016) 07 ryu murakami "tokyo decadence (2016) 08 aifric campbell "the semantics of murder" (2008) 09 mark vernon "darker with the day" (2017) 10 magnus mills "the forensic records society" (2017)

GEDÄCHTNISSTOMPF:

01 mckenzie wark "general intellects: 25 thinkers for the 21st century" (2017) 02 claude lefort "wat is politiek?" (2016) 03 ger groot & sam ijsseling "dankbaar en aandachtig" (2013) 04 martin heidegger "beiträge zur philosophie (vom ereignis)" (2003) 05 hannah arendt "totalitarisme" (2014)

06 daniel birnbaum & kim west "life on sirius: the situationist international & the exhibition of art" (2016) 07 ger groot "de geest is uit de fles" (2017) 08 sean gaston "the impossible mourning of jacques derrida" (2006) 09 bas heijne "onbehagen: nieuw licht op de beschaafde mens" (2016) 10 giorgio colli "ecrits sur nietzsche" (2017)

11 frédéric neyrat "échapper à l'horreur" (2017) 12 slavoj zizek "against the double blackmail, refugees, terror & other troubles with the neighbours" (2017) 13 henning mankell "quicksand" (2016) 14 jacques rancière "en quel temps vivons-nous? conversations avec eric hazan" (2017) 15 alain badiou "je vous sais si nombreux... " (2017)

16 alain badou & jean-luc nancy "la tradition allemande dans la philosophie" (2017) 17 tom mccarthy "typewriters bombs jellyfish [essays]" (2017) 18 valeria luiselli "tell me how it ends: an essay in 40 questions" (2017) 19 fredric jameson "raymond chandler: the detections of totality" (2016) 20 umberto eco "chronicles of a liquid society" (2017)

POLARSTOMPF:

01 chris petit "pale horse riding" (2017)   + chris petit "the butchers of berlin" (2016)   + chris petit "the human pool" (2002)   + chris petit "the psalm killer" (1996)

02 john le carré "a legacy of spies" (2017) 03 david hewson "sleep baby sleep" (2017) 04 mick herron "slow horses" (2010)   + mick herron "dead lions" (2013)   + mick herron "the list" (2015)   + mick herron "real tigers" (2016)   + mick herron "spook street" (2017) 05 jussi adler-olsen "the scarred woman" (2017)

06 jo nesbo "the thirst" (2017) 07 ben fergusson "the spring of kasper meier" (2014) 08 e.o. chirovici "the book of mirrors" (2017) 09 toni coppers "de zaak magritte" (2017) 10 james r. tuck "mama tried (crime fiction inspired by outlaw country music)" (2016)

YOUNGADULTSTOMPF:

01 philip pullman "la belle sauvage" (2017)

PLATTERSTOMPF:

01 cosey fanni tutti "art sex music" (2017) 02 david keenan "this is memorial device" (2017) 03 joanne demers "drone and apocalypse" (2015) 04 + joanne demers "listening through the noise" (2010) 05 robert barry "the music of the future" (2017)

06 richard cabut & andrew gallix (eds) "punk is dead: modernity killed every night" (2017) 07 butt gavin, kodwo eshun, & mark fisher (eds) "post punk then and now" (2016)" 08 sandra garrido "why are we attracted to sad music" (2016) 09 tomas serrien "klank: een filsofie van de muzikale ervaring" (2017) 10 marlies de munck "waarom chopin de regen niet wilde horen" (2017)

11 daniel warner "live wires" (2017) 12 will carruthers "playing the bass with three left hands" (2016) 13 steve hanley "the big midweek-life inside the fall (2016) 14 tex perkins "tex" (2017) 15 mark lanegan "i am the wolf" (2017)

17 simon reynolds "shock & awe" (2016) 18 andrew o'neill "a history of heavy metal" (2017) 19 bryan ray turcotte "the fucked up reader" (2007) 10 bob batchelor (ed) "literary cash" (2017) 20 simon webb "a 1970s teenager. from bell-bottoms to disco dancing" (2013)

         both bell-bottoms and disco dancing can be had @ muntpunt !

POESISSTOMPF:

01 jonty tiplady "zam bonk dip" (2010) 02 murray lachlan young "how freakin' zeitgeist are you?" (2017)

BILDERSTOMPF:

01 peter-andré bloch "sils-maria - "l'île bienheureuse" pour nietzsche" (2017)

02 willem vanhuyse "atlas van de imaginaire verklaringen: het complete handboek vor de 'patafysicus'" (2017) 03 reinhard kleist "nick cave: mercy on me" (2017) 04 william gibson "archangel (a graphic novel)" (2017) 05 a. uderzo, didier conrad & jean-yves ferri "astérix et la transitalique" (2017)

WISSENSCHAFTSTOMPF:

01 thibault damour & mathieu burniat "mysteries of the quantum universe" (2017) 02 brian cox & jeff forshaw "universal: a journey through the cosmos" (2017)

HUMOURSTOMPF:

01 james acaster "james acaster's classic scrapes" (2017)

02 chris wade “the story of derek and clive” (2017)

CYCLOSTOMPF:

01 frederik bakelandt "grinta! de bergen: 10 legendarsche wielercols" (2017)

02 lucien van impe & filip osselaer "de dag dat ik de tour verloor" (2017) 03 jonas heyerick & jelle vermeersch "bahamontes #17-#20" (2017) 04 frank strack "the hardmen: legends of the cycling gods" (2017) 05 matthias m. r. declercq "de val" (2017)

… tsundoku !

may your home be safe from tigers, leroy, x HNY!

the TBR pile grew with...

lászló krasznahorkai "the world goes on" (2017) samanta schweblin "fever dream" (2017)

peter mark, peter helman & penny snyder (eds) "the mountains in art history" (2017)

alvin lucier (ed) "eight lectures on experimental music" (2017) rhian e jones & eli davies "under my thumb: songs that hate women and the women who love them" (2017)

arne dahl "watching you" (2017) philip kerr "prussian blue" (2017) antti tuomainen "the man who died" (2017) jon michelet "the frozen women" (2017) nicolás obregón "blue light yokohama" (2017)

alex lamb "exodus" (2017) c robert cargill "sea of rust" (2017) chris brookmyre "places in the darkness" (2017) d nolan clark "forgotten worlds" & "forbidden suns" (2017) dan moren "the caledonian gambit" (2017) elizabeth moon "cold welcome" (2017) ferrett steinmetz "the uploaded" (2017) greg egan "dichronauts" (2017) ian whates "the ion raider" (2017) jaine fenn "the martian job" (2017) jamie sawyer "pariah" (2017)

jeff noon "a man of shadows" (2017) joe m mcdermott "the fortress at the end of time" (2017) joe zieja "communication failure" (2017) john kessel "the moon and the other" (2017) john meaney "destructor function" (2017) jonathan strahan (ed) "best sf &f of the year vol 11" & "infinity wars" (2017) kameron hurley "the stars are legion" (2017) kay kenyon "at the table of wolves" (2017) malka older "null states" (2017) marina j. lostetter "noumenon" (2017)

martha wells "all systems red" (2017) neil clark (ed) "galactic empires" & "more human than human" (2017) paul mcauley "austral" (2017) r.e. stearns "barbary station" (2017) robert kroese "last iota" (2017) sage walker "the man in a tree" (2017) stephen baxter "obelisk" (2017) + stephen baxter "the massacre of mankind" (2017) sulari gentill "crossing the lines" (2017) the justified ancients of mu mu “2023 a trilogy” (2017) wendy n. wagner "an oath of dogs" (2017)