0:45: For those just joining us, Joe is making fun of the poor Internet connection and not making fun of Matt. We love Matt to pieces, honest.
3:25: I think this might be Matsumoto's official website. If so, it's nice to know he's a Geoff Darrow fan. Oh, and Chris Butcher also has a nice essay/interview about Matsumoto over here.
4:46: From Labiek's entry on Matsumoto: "He gained his first success through the Comic Open contest, held by the magazine Comic Morning, which allowed him to make his professional debut. He started out with 'Straight', a comic about basketball players. Sports remain his main influence in his next comic, 'Zéro', a story about a boxer."
6:58: The actual full title is Firefighter! Daigo of Fire Company M by Masahito Soda. Viz published the full 20 volumes in the U.S. Used copies are going for pretty reasonable prices on Amazon if you're curious. Shaenon Garrity raves about it here.
7:28: LOOKIT, I MADE A PUN.
8:13: For more on Toren Smith and Studio Proteus, check out this Comics Alliance remembrance as well as this remembrance by Jonathan Clements.
10:47: This site makes a case for 1997 as the official "year of the crash" although I think the shit started hitting the fan around 1994 with Marvel buying Heroes world and the subsequent distributor contraction.
11:39: According to his wikipedia page, Wagner currently co-hosts a public access show called The Atheist Experience. "Martin Wagner Owes Me Fifty Bucks" was the 1999 title of Tom Spurgeon's departing essay for the Comics Journal.
13:42: To find a 2nd and Charles store near you, go here:
16:07 A succinct summation of Lycanthrope Leo by Kaji Kengo and Okamura Kenji.
19:00: Deb Aoki has info about Pulp and its cancellation here. The "Ichi the Killer guy" is Hideo Yamamoto.
22:34 It was the October 2002 issue of The Comics Journal in fact.
25:32: Copies of Blue Spring are still available on Amazon for about $9. Only seven copies left as of this writing!
30:57. It might not have done well, but Vol. 2 at least is selling for a pretty penny on Amazon.
36:19: You can see some of Yoshikazu Ebisu's art here.
38:57: Here's a link to the iPad app.
41:10: The short film Joe is referring to is "Beyond," written and directed by Koji Morimoto. You can see the film here. He also contributed to the 1987 anthology film "Robot Carnival."
41:35: As I recall on the DVD supplement Arias talks about he isn't really a fan of manga per se, he just really likes Matsumoto's work and Tekkonkinkreet in particular, having been introduced to it by a friend. I could be totally misremembering that though. PS: You can buy a copy of the film here. Michael Arias' site is here in case you want to see what he's been up to lately (mostly live-action)
49:20: Unfortunately, I couldn't find the quote. Maybe I just dreamed it. Anyone who is able to locate it will get a firm, hearty handshake from me the next time I see them in a public setting.
50:03: Here's that Matt Fraction review.
56:37: We talked all about Uno Moralez on a previous podcast.
57:00: I mean, just look at this stuff:
59:30: Here's a link to Chippendale's essay on Matsumoto. And while you're reading stuff, you should probably check out Joe's original essay on GoGoMonster (scroll down).
1:06:44: Here's the interview where Matsumoto talks about Sunny's semi-autobiographical nature.
1:09:17: Fanfare/Ponent Mon published Jiro Taniguchi's The Walking Man. Amazon doesn't have copies but it looks like you can buy directly from the publisher.
1:17:06: I'm referring to Lorenzo Mattotti, author of Crackle of the Frost, Chimera, Stigmata and many other graphic novels.
Regarding '90s pamphlets in today's used bookstores: I don't know if anyone remembers going to a Wal-Mart or a Dollar Store in the '90s and finding those weird polybagged 3-packs of random recent-ish comics hanging on the wall, but they are very much still around, and they largely have the SAME COMICS in them. I spotted a pile at TJ Maxx just the other day. My own theory, based largely on supposition grown from a tiny kernel of personal experience, is that there is just a shit ton of that stuff (Marvel, DC, Valiant) kicking around out there in the ether, being shopped around by remaindered book distributors. I know when my dad closed his comic shop back in 1996, he filled a large abandoned dog kennel (it was in the family and so cheaper than renting storage space) with literally hundreds (if not over 1,000) of longboxes filled with all of his backstock, and a lot of it was the glut of '90s books ordered just before the crash and then left high and dry in the new post-speculator market. He sold the entire kit and kaboodle to a re-seller in another state, and it only stands to reason that many other shops did the same. Those re-sellers, in their long-term search for ways to make any kind of money off RAI back issues, would inevitably look to remainder bookstores. My only real point is that, while its possible the 2nd and Charles that Joe shopped at adopted a local collection of comics, there could be something more systemic going on, a weird vestigial piece of '90s comic book culture wandering around the nation's cheap book racks. Which I would find weirdly charming.
Posted by: Jason Michelitch | 2013.06.18 at 09:49
Hmm, this sounds pretty plausible... I wonder if all of these '90s publishers are assigned ranks in the great resale calculus? Like, maybe every 2nd & Charles has exactly the same compliment of Ultraverse classics and early Savage Dragons...
Posted by: Jog | 2013.06.18 at 12:35
I like the image in my head of a buyer at one of these stores ordering an anonymous gross of "HOT COLLECTIBLE OUT OF PRINT COMICS" expecting to get recognizable super-heroes or at least something they've vaguely heard of via the rise of the literary graphic novel, and then their utter dismay and confusion at receiving SOLAR MAN OF THE ATOM, or a Norm Breyfogle PRIME with pictures of an adolescent boy sliding out the back of a disintegrating gelatinous superman. "Oh well, shelve these weird things and get ready to look at them sitting there until the internet makes our business model completely non-viable and we all go wait in line for the last remaining jobs at Target."
Posted by: Jason Michelitch | 2013.06.18 at 13:39
I'm a 90s/early Aughts manga guy, so you can't discuss that stuff often enough for me.
I gave away a bunch of comics recently as part of a school project/housecleaning, and put all my Pulp issues in a longbox marked Adult. I warned all comers that the box contained R-rated material. One mom of several boys didn't mind the eldest boy (about 11, I'd guess) pawing through it, though. He'd leaf through each item in the box, and if he saw some hot lady nudity he'd set it aside as a keeper. One panel from Black & White, however was too hot to handle: a naked little boy with his willy out. It wasn't a sexualized picture, but Mom got all offended, and he put that issue back. Maybe that's part of why Black & White was so poorly received by Pulp readers (per the letters column); too many naked boys, not enough naked ladies.
Posted by: Aaron | 2013.06.25 at 14:35