- Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud. This is the book that really got me thinking about how Fey isn't really a webcomic (and doesn't want to be, either). Like Understanding Comics, this one slips in lots of subtle challenges to comics creators to be better than ever, to push the boundaries of the medium, and so on. It didn't get me quite as excited about making comics as McCloud's first book did, but it was excellently done.
- The Four Immigrants Manga by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama, trans. and ed. by Frederik L. Schodt. This is a really interesting book. It was originally written in both Japanese and English (with the odd bit of Chinese), by a Japanese immigrant to San Francisco in the early 1900s (it mostly takes place in the 1920s). It's laregly biographical and autobiographical, and shows what it was like to be Japanese in America at the time. Interestingly, the art is very much in the style of North American cartoons, rather than like the comics that developed in Japan (manga). The editor points out, though, that like later manga, this book depicts its Japanese characters as looking very European rather than Asian. That was something I'd wondered about, when feeding my manga habit.
Time to get some more comics to read, looks like. I'll probably pick up the next volume or two of InuYasha in the next week or so, plus I think the book that's waiting for me to pick it up at the library is more manga. Now if I could only find some more good North American or European comics at the library. I'm going to have to break down and buy that volume three of Preacher. Plus some Hellblazer. It's just they're so much more expensive than manga. Sigh.
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