Laputa - Castle in the Sky Complete Storyboards / 天空の城ラピュタ スタジオジブリ絵コンテ全集

With a full run already out on DVD, it’s now the turn of Blu-Ray to work its way through the Ghibli library. Hi-def masters have been slowly emerging from Japan, and gradually making their way to western territories. The films are as good as ever and the picture quality is amazing, in fact I’d be surprised if you weren’t considering buying them if you didn’t own them already.

One particular item that got my attention on these releases was the storyboards that are found in most of the extras menus. They are small sketches made in preparation of making the film dictating motion, camera angle and overall flow of the work. The DVDs provided an alternate angle option to view the storyboards in real time over the actual film, while the Blu-Rays generally have a ‘picture-in-picture’ method where a corner given over to them and both run in tandem. In both cases a quick-fire use of a pause button is required otherwise it’s a case of blink and you’ll miss it for many of the drawings. The Blu-Ray release of My Neighbours the Yamadas runs things a little differently as the storyboards are scanned in separately for a 300+ page browsing trawl. But there is an alternative to staring at the screen all day…

For those crazy or hardcore enough to want to check out the storyboards properly, Ghibli has printed virtually their entire output over in Japan. All of the Ghibli films and a good chunk of both Hayo Miyazaki’s and Isao Takahata’s older output are also available. They’re a little pricy, but considering these are normally between 400-600 pages, with Laputa here weighing in at a particularly shelf-busting 700 pages, you get an insane amount of content per book. Drawn by Miyazaki in the planning stages, each page contains five panels which are fully annotated depicting motion, camera movement and staging. Naturally as the books remain untranslated some of the nitty gritty film-making details are lost, but the pictures are clear and instantly recognisable from the final product and give a good sense of how the scenes are developed.

I really enjoy browsing this book as it’s remarkable to see a complex composition or mannerism being portrayed in just a few scant lines. It just proves to me that a good artist doesn’t need to be superbly detailed in their work, or even necessarily all that neat, just the ability to depict your idea with clarity in quite inspiring in a world of relentless pixel-perfect CG.

If you have a particular favourite Ghibli film where you absolutely love to pore over every detail that you can find, then it’s definitely worth treating yourself to one of these books. For hardened Ghibli obsessives then, but so worth it…

Leek & Sushi II - Manga Cupcakes

For the last few years the Japanese Embassy have been holding a comic drawing competition entitled ‘Manga Jiman’ where they ask entrants to take a set theme and then make a short comic about it. Style and content is up to the artist, with many winners adopting atypical/non-manga styles as well as the expected super-shiny artists. It’s an exciting prospect for anyone interested in fresh talent with lots of previously unseen artists making their first steps into comic-making. The competition allowed lots of new stories to be made, but aside from the winners’ exhibiton there was no real place to read them. It only made sense for them to be put into a book…

Enter Itch Publishing who recruited as many of these comics as possible and printed the highlights for the world to read. The second anthology in the Leek & Sushi series, the year’s theme of the competition was ‘The Sun’ and boasts 20 comics. That's a hell of a lot of content.

There may be those of you rolling your eyes yet again at the idea of non-Japanese making ‘manga’, but to be honest the world’s become a smaller place with many modern styles becoming a cocktail of influences from many areas. We’re talking Scott Pilgrim, the recent X-Men anime, Stan Lee’s manga series Ultimo and a generation of fans who simply don’t give a crap where something’s come from so long as it’s good. As a massive manga fan I understand that there are pros and cons to both sides of the argument and while I admittedly still bear a strong bias towards works from Japan, there's so a lot of good material out there that doesn't deserve the turning up of noses.

Basically the point is that there are comics being made in this country that sit outside of the typical sci-fi/superhero or the kids-only crowds. I’m not telling you what to like, but you might be missing out on something cool you wouldn’t normally consider. Leek & Sushi is a pretty good place to start as you get a nifty cross-section of artists for a taste of what’s out there. In case you weren’t aware the London Expo is at the end of the month, an event with a bustling Comic Village packed with comic creators of all types and styles. I recommended visiting and having a dig around, you just might find something worth your time…