Manifest: I’m going to be at Manifest from 23rd-25th September!

David of Love Manga pointed out (from Pata) that the cover of the soon-to-be published “Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels #6” by ICV2 has a plug of “The Dreaming” on it!! So exciting!! Check out the image:

 

 

Come to think of it, I need to take lessons in drawing and colouring hands. My hands are often woefully painted in colour pictures.

 

Flipped Column: I’ve spent a few posts at The Engine in the past week or so whinging about how Planetes hasn’t been properly appreciated by the bulk of manga readers. To give it my all: Planetes is a great, atmospheric story – which for once takes a realistic look at life in space rather than from the perspective of ray gun blasters and intergalactic wars. Not that there’s anything wrong with these things – but it’s nice to see a different approach, and one that doesn’t rely on speedlines and action. Perhaps that’s why Planetes didn’t fly off the shelves.

But David Welsh has a Flipped Column Up has a different perspective – and it’s a good one. His column is more of a review on Planetes than an analysis, and on the basis of that I can see why Planetes didn’t quite live up to its expectations. I was originally attracted to Planetes v1 by the lack of hyperkinetic goings-on, so perhaps I should have scrutinised the series a bit more – but now I want to re-read it because of what he said about the characters.