#nicomreads

[nicomrade]

this whole scene is awesomely drawn but im especially taken by this awesome speech bubble traversed by the rail

such awesome composition

[nicomrade]

twote this unaware of what the next page had in store for me

they think this is so fuckin funny im goin to laugh throw up and cry in this order can we please go back to the set point im pretty sure we were playing the set point rn i miss when this was a manga about volleyball. do you think this is a joke.

[nicomrade]

also it always pains me when i see people write about how like hurt akane would be to find out ryogas been P-chan in secret the whole time cuz its kind of the same thing as w detective conan to me. if u "resolve" this plot point u lose all the friction and interest in this dynamic. akane can NEVER know that ryoga is P-chan cause ud lose like half of the core dynamic. how would that make for better manga exactly ? yes its "not cool" to keep it a secret its also "the backbone of ryogas very existence within the story" so unless u write him out completely thats just not gonna happen

[nicomrade]

i said id maybe make a post about my faves i was rereading this year so here it is ^-^ the other ones i reread i already talked about in my 2022 reads post lmao... so heres 3 comedy high school mangas that i love so dearly. none r really niche i will admit but i dont read school life much

Skip To Loafer - Takamatsu Misaki (2018 - Present) a seinen romcom about this country girl moving to the big city and making friends :) its honestly so refreshing and a mature, nuanced look at interpersonal relationships and growing up. i love every character in this? i will not lie the romantic arc IS there but its also kind of not the point. or its equally the point as everything else?. relationship hierarchies are explicitely discussed in the manga actually which i wasnt expecting. uhm "rep-wise" mitsumis aunt is a trans woman and this is also treated seriously without being the only thing going on with her and i am getting lesbianbaited soooooo bad. read skip to loafer and remember that we are all the same people deep down

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - Tsubaki Izumi (2011 - Present) the thing about nozaki-kun is that it understands perfectly the 4koma format. every page is its own bit, with a punchline every single time. nothing happens in nozaki-kun if its not funny- which means that all the romance development that happens, happens because its funny. i really need to emphasize this 1. nozaki kun is really fucking funny 2. there ARE developments in the character relationships, it is not a static manga and 3. each page has a punchline. read some mediocre 4koma and then understand how fucking good nozaki-kun is. its about this guy who is a shoujo manga author and this girl who has a crush on him and all the weirdos who know (or dont know) that nozakis a shoujo mangaka. that manga panel with the guy saying "read some shoujo manga and develop some emotions"? from nozaki-kun. just read it and understand the strength of 4koma done well.

Yugami-kun has no friends - Sakura Jun (2012-2019) what if i told you this school life shonen about a friendless guy and the girl who befriends him is not a romance? what if i told you yugami is autistic and treated with respect? what if i told you yugamis special interest is in rakugo? and what if yugami-kun was also really fucking funny. do you understand why this is one of my faves. the point of the manga is that social norms are fucking stupid and half the time you think someones rude its cause u are trying to force them in a situation they dont wanna be in. its fundamentally about meeting people halfway- one of the subplots is literally about how horrifying it is to have to keep up polite text conversation w someone you only vaguely know and how much both sides wish they could just stop texting without being "rude". and it transmits its deep love for rakugo better than [title censored for privacy] just read yugami-kun ok?

[nicomrade]

anyone wants to guess what pisses me off enough in this page that i saved it to complain about

if i have to be reminded of this fucking flightless crows nickname one more time it has genuinely been once a chapter since vol5 started and doing it 3 times a page is making me downright murderous can we kill them please. i cant take it.

[nicomrade]

fuuuuuuuuckkkkkk hes just like me

also everyone look at eunyung being cutie

[nicomrade]

he gets it

[nicomrade]

this is a very good use of floor reflection to give a sense of depth. dont have much to comment just wanted to highlight it it makes the panel EXTREMELY readable

(slam dunk! chapter 235)

i also like how the pattern on the floor fades away at the top/in the distance due to the light reflection as well it also keeps the panel more readable (because less crowded)

and the movement of the ball is extremely clear despite 0 motion lines which only makes the pass feel even smoother and immediate

[nicomrade]

reposting cuz i dont wanna be a bitch in the ops notifs but this couldve easily been just 1 strip

i havent read this manga (heisei umare?) so maybe the pacing is very funny and works in the context of the manga but as it is OOC its something i kept seeing when reading 4koma recently (and garfield strips lol?) so im gonna use it as a jumping off point. no hate to it again i havent read it idk i might just adore it if i give it a try. but ok so look. (right strip 1st, left strip 2nd) the panels here go: setup blank blank punchline / punchline blank blank blank. now lets grab a page from azumanga diaoh and compare

it goes: setup development sensible-chuckle punchline / setup development sensible-chuckle awkward-silence-punchline. the "blank" does not have the same effect at all! you NEEEEEEED a punchline!!!! and you need the 3rd panel ("sensible chuckle") it preps the reader to laugh for real at the punchline, its warm-up!!!

poptepipi loves these mirror compositions- its repetition comedy!!!

this one reads more like setup / eh? / UH? / AHAH? (and also repetition comedy again yay!) i forgot what tezuka called the panels of a 4koma but thats the idea basically, each one has a function and youre free to do whatever you want with your jokes but then you have to find a rhythm thats also tailor-made for FOUR panels, not any less, not any more. a lot of garfie strips are just setup / blank / punchline or blank / blank / punchline and would work better as 2 panels or 1 panel gags like just get rid of the filler. this is the philosophy behind "2 panels ctrl alt del strips are funnier than the OG" too. but no matter what you do you still need a fucking punchline

w this in mind i reworked those first 2 strips like 3 different ways, u just swap the panels around and try to make them into setup development sensible-chuckle punchline. or whatever else pacing. its fun i encourage doing it i wont post mine here cuz its kind of disrespectful to the artist if i show em as a "heres how i fixed ur joke!!" but as an exercise in comedic timing its fun lol

[nicomrade]

i didnt read nearly as much this year (2023) compared to last, i mostly re-read my faves that ill maybe post about one day and i read non-fiction from libraries. I am a Communist by Park Kun-Woong and Ichi-F by Kazuto Tatsuta are the two that id say stood out the most in that regard, but i kinda wanna keep these retrospective posts to fiction only so lets go for my actual 6 picks naow

Poison City - Tetsuya Tsutsui (2014-2015) opening with my favorite author, poison city is about art censorship- specifically of mangas in japanese libraries- how it happens, why, by and for whom, who it affects, how it shapes the publishing industry and so on. it was written after tsutsui found out his own work (manhole) had been banned in a prefecture, without him ever being notified. its only 2 volumes but the most nuanced discussion of the topic ive seen. like all tsutsui work it is in my brain forever like a worm and if i see it IRL i get an urge to reread it right there right now. which happens often cuz french libraries (justifiably!) love it

Gekiga-Yose: Fallen Words - Tatsumi Yoshihiro (2009) i got into a little gekiga rabbithole sometime last spring that segued really nicely into a rakugo moment for me. Fallen Words is neatly at the junction of the two and maybe the best way to experience rakugo stories if you cant watch performances? its not rakugo but it tries really hard to make the original jokes work in a new medium. fascinating project that i really enjoyed and laughed outloud at while reading. it also helps other rakugo-based fiction have more context and depth for a non-rakugo liker audience

Blood on the Tracks / Chi no Wadachi - Oshimi Shuzo (2017-2023) "this is not a work that wants to teach you how to heal, how to cope, or give you catharsis, or tragedy." chi no wadachi is about parental abuse and keeps to following the protagonist for as long as his mom has influence over his life, in all of the ways that she does, and nothing more. its heavy, its hard, and its something you need to meet halfway. not the oshimi shuzo work id necessarily start with but its the one i read fully this year and also the one i got into comment fights on mangadex about lol

Billy Bat - Naoki Urasawa & Nagasaki Takashi (2008-2016) billy bat is about art and its about making art and its about what if there was a bat on the moon that gave you catharsis. its got historical fiction its got protagonist changes its got walt disney its got an insane amount of historical research put in. its got two bats. its art as an universal language, as something its artist owns but that also belongs to everyone who's ever connected with it, art as the root of humanity, as the lense through which people view and shape the world. and its about a japanese-american artist named kevin.

Bokurano: Ours - Kitoh Mohiro (2003-2009) bokurano is about kids who are roped into a mecha war for earth's survival. it questions whether you can live without harming others, the nature of remorse, childhood trauma, and so on. its dubiously a death game- i count it as one but its also explicitely interested in this very question- "is this a game?". is bullying a game? Is csa a game? Is parental abuse a game? Neglect? Sibling violence? War? Is that what a game is? anything that children do?

Undercurrent - Toyoda Tetsuya (2004-2005) its easy to say reading undercurrent feels like youre drowning because the water motif is already omnipresent but this really is a piece where the story and the artistic motif are just in symbiose. undercurrent explores one woman's life managing her bathhouse almost on her own at the same time as she's dealing with more personal issues, and my first instinct upon seeing the cover is always to hold my breath. cannot say anymore just read it

+ bonus mention to Gantz - Hiroya Oku (2000 - 2013) for ruining my whole life. i didnt start it in 2023 but i was overcome by some sort of fever in january that made me finish this fucking manga and it hasn't left me since. don't read gantz. you can watch the live action movies they cut out 95% of the manga and make it actually good also akagi's actor (kanata hongo) plays my fave character in them. but whatever you do, don't read gantz.

[nicomrade]

ok enough jokes enough fun time enough praise lets get back to my original point here so lets all play a game together ok theres treats at the exit if u join me in my game show.

can you guess what distance white shirt is from the basket?

is it in dunking distance? shooting distance? how long of a shot is it? what is your guess here- where on the key did he jump from? did he jump forward at all? again- is this a dunk? or not a dunk?

did u think about it do u have a mind estimate a mind feel for this distance? if not make one up rn.

was this the distance u guessed?

if yes pick a treat: 🧊🥛🧄🫚🍯🦗🫙

if u got it wrong im pouring ur drink down the sink 🫗

[nicomrade]

highschooler riffing is one thing but u cannot just immediately criticize ur own design right literally very next panel after introducing it this is deeply self-conscious writing and u should IF INCLUDE IT AT ALL include it as one of those end of chapter gags like dont show me a design n then tell me it looks stupid now i think it looks stupid. i didnt think so before. like never undermine ur own art is a common rule isnt it?

[nicomrade]

ill admit these 2 pages r awesome

[nicomrade]

this is kind of yaoiful ill give it this much at least. its competent interpersonal drama now the basket fucking sucks but the romcom antics r fine

[nicomrade]

its v interesting to me that when nozaki strips get shared on here almost always the 1st panel is cropped out. just a neutral observation. its revealing of the role of the 1st panel that its necessary in-context but not out of context and also how strong the 2nd panel is that it doesnt ALSO get cropped out. the 2nd panel is also vital to the punchline. its interesting

[nicomrade]

HE SAID THE LINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

literally was gasping reading the leadup to this its such a jewel of tension building and only gets better w how iconic this one page is