Women Manga Symposium in Sydney

Happening this week at University of Sydney and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Organized by friends who did the Women Manga conferences in Singapore (2011) and Hanoi (2012). FSc will be there too.

So if you are in Sydney, do go.

http://www.chikushi-u.ac.jp/womenandmanga/english/poster1.pdf

http://www.chikushi-u.ac.jp/womenandmanga/english/Women'SMangaInAsiaSchedule2012.12.27.xlsx.pdf

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/women-manga-artists/

Women manga artists

Symposium

While manga began as an art form specific to Japan, today a global boom in these Japanese style comics is underway. Ever increasing numbers of girls and women are participating as creators and consumers worldwide. In fact, women now dominate the realm of fan-created works, and non-Japanese comics for girls and women contribute significantly to the exploration of gender and sexuality. This program forms Day 3 of an international conference organised by the Women and Manga Project and hosted by the University of Sydney.

Program

12pm Welcome
Dr Rebecca Suter, University of Sydney, Professor Fusami Ogi, Chikushi Jogakuen University, Japan

12.15 Lecture: Girl Power! Exhibiting girls manga
Professor Masami Toku, California State University
A presentation of the work of key authors of girls comics from the 1960s and 1970s as seen in the 2005–08 North American touring exhibition Girl Power! Girls comics from Japan

1pm Break

2pm Artist talks and discussion
Madeline Rosca (Australia), FSc (Singapore), Mika Ikeda (Japan), Queenie Chan (Australia)

4.30pm Close

Image: Queenie Chan, Cover illustration depicting main characters Gold and Jade, Kylie Chan, Small Shen, Harper Collins Voyager 2012 (detail)

Friday 25 January 2013, 12pm – 4.30pm

Free, bookings required

Bookings and enquiries: 02 9225 1740

Social Realism in Comics

Social Realism in Comics - Reflecting Singapore and Japan in the 1970s
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013
Time: 5.30 pm
Place: Programme Zone, Bishan Public Library
Calling all comic book lovers, join in this session organized by SingaporeComics.com, the same people who brought you 24 Hour Comics Day in 2012! We will discuss two newly launched books – Ten Sticks And One Rice (Epigram Books), a local graphic novel on Singapore’s transformation from kampong to cosmopolitan city, by Oh Yong Hwee and Koh Hong Teng, and Midnight Fishermen: Gekiga of the 1970s (Landmark Books) by award-winning Japanese manga artist, Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

The creators of Ten Sticks and One Rice, Oh Yong Hwee and Koh Hong Teng, and comics critic, Lim Cheng Tju, will be part of the dialogue.c

Sandy

There was a big concert in NYC to raise funds for victims and the damage done by Hurricane Sandy.

Reading Ultimate X reminds me of Ultimatum. NYC was flooded by Magneto. That finally happened this year. Marvel was 4 years ahead of its time. Maybe the writer Loeb was thinking of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Once upon a time in China...

On my last day in Manila, I met up with Harvey Tolibao for lunch. He gave me a copy Green Arrow #12. Excellent art as usual. It's unfortunate that DC decided to take a different direction and replaced Tolibao with another artist. Hope they give a good book for him to handle soon. Tolibao has ideas for Oliver Queen. Maybe we will get to see them one day.

Now, the story is something else. Written by Ann Nocenti, an editor of The Uncanny X-Men in the 1980s, she created Longshot with Art Adams and later had a long run with Daredevil, following hot on the heels of Frank Miller, a tough act to follow by all counts.

Flashforward to 2012, she has returned from journalism to write for DC comics. Maybe the years in journalism gave her exposure to China, which she portrays as one of the most dangerous places on Earth. You wouldn't want to visit after reading this.

This is still a very caricatured image of the Middle Kingdom. According to Nocenti, you can get snatched from the streets and get thrown into prison. But the guards are stupid enough to get distracted by hologram images of strippers.

This reminds me of the fight between Gail Simone and Derek Teo back in 2007 when she visited Singapore as a guest for the writers' festival. She set a Birds of Prey story in Singapore in 2005 which Derek criticized.

http://textfiend.net/zerohero/?p=529

http://textfiend.net/zerohero/?p=258

http://textfiend.net/zerohero/?p=541

Simone still pissed in 2009.

http://www.preshigh.edu.sg/teachers/laick/Singapore/Literally%20Singapore/In%20a%20faraway%20land%20called%20Singapore.aspx

To see how Nocenti looks like.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/06/chris-claremont-on-the-red-headed-red-herring-madelyne-pryor/#more-118381

Manila Madness

Was in Manila for this.

http://blush-con.org/

BL is getting big in SEA.

Took the occasion to visit the famed Comic Odyssey and met the boss, Sandy. Here are some field reports from Mark Cerbo, a cool blogger we met.

http://geekmatic.blogspot.sg/2012/12/panel-by-panel-guests-at-comic-odyssey.html

Oh yeah, Otto Fong was with me too. We gave a talk at the Ateneo de Manila University.

We definitely want to visit Manila again and check out Komikon. The president, Ariel Atienza, invited us back. Maybe next April.

Ken Foo and Adrian Teo are back!

The Date King returns.

Ken Foo is THE alternative artist in Singapore. I said it in Hanoi in March this year and I say it now.

http://kenfoo.wordpress.com/

http://dateking.blogspot.sg/

Teaching Japanese Popular Culture Conference, Manga Talk at JCC, AFA and Hong Teng's exhibition at Mulan

Quite a few things in Nov.

Conference:

http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/jps/research/jps2012.htm

Talk:

There is also a talk on manga at the Japan Creative Center on Friday Nov. 9 at 7 pm.
http://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/jcc/japanmonth_november2012.html

AFA is happening next week.

This week, you can see some of Hong Teng's original pages and paintings at Mulan Gallery.