Interviews from ConnectiCon 2015

Last week I said I would be posting all the ConnectiCon interviews to the new A. Book’s Review Channel.

Well, I didn’t want to ignore my faithful blog followers. So, just for you, here are the seven interviews I conducted at ConnectiCon.

Matt “Matman” Herring, author and podcaster:

 

Charels Muir, founder of Full Coverage Writers:

 

Mark Hodder, author of the Burton and SwinBurne series:

 

Michael Bracco, author/illustrator of the Novo and The Creators series:

 

Ethan Rappaport, author of The Legacy of Ogma:

 

Sean Wang, artist/illustrator of the Runners series:

 

and James A. Owen, author and illustrator of The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series:

ConnectiCon 2015

I attended ConnectiCon, held in Hartford, July 9-12, 2015.

As always, I sought out graphic and illustrated novel writers and artists. I had the opportunity to speak with well-know authors and some lesser-known ones, as well as the founder of a writers’ resource repository.

These interviews will be posted on the brand new A. Book’s Review YouTube Channel over the next seven days.

An Onslaught of Brilliant Satire

Our literary journey around the world continues with
Onslaught written and illustrated by New Zealander Greg Broadmore.

This compilation contains the three previous released books in the Dr. Grordort universe: Dr. Grordbort’s Contrapuntal Dingus Directory, Victory, and Triumph.

Subtitled, “Excessive Space Violence for Girls & Boys,” I was a little leery of what I would find. Turns out, it is an absolute hoot!

Lord Cockswain is a stereotypical “great white hunter” on Venus, and as much of a blunderbuss as his favorite weapon, blowing up a base of Moon Men in this hilarious satire of British imperialism and colonialization.

Presented as a spoof on early twentieth-century pulp comics, in addition to the comic adventures of Lord Cockswain, it includes catalog pages of and adverts for Dr. Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators, bestiary of Venus, genre movie posters, and more.

The extensive raygun collection that graces the pages comes from Greg Broadmore’s work as an artist and concept designer for Weta Workshop. Creating a backstory of each weapon’s origin led to the Dr. Grordbort universe.

Call it steampunk, call it retro sci-fi, Onslaught is a brilliant piece of satire, beautifully illustrated and cleverly constructed.

Listening to Fallen Words

I decided to round out Asia Month with a book by an alternative manga pioneer, whom we lost earlier this year.

Fallen Words by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, is a collection of short stories inspired by the Japanese oral storytelling tradition of rakugo or “fallen words,” hence the name.

Like the folktales they are based on, these eight morality tales take place during the Edo period, complete with traditional attire, hair-styles, and stereotypes; the men are foolish, and the women cunning and/or spiteful. And each story has a punchline that, for the most part, the reader doesn’t see coming.

The tales are drawn in Tatsumi’s pioneering gekiga manga, considered a darker, more realistic style of cartooning. His clean-line drawings employ universally understandable facial expressions and body language to convey emotion, not the culturally-specific iconography of mainstream manga.

In Fallen Words, Tatsumi shows these two seemingly dissimilar storytelling forms: rakugo (that relies on vocal pitch and intonation) and gekiga (that has no sound) can work together. He recreates audio tone with graphic art.

Perhaps it is my love of morality tales, or Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s use of universally comprehensible imagery that allows me to appreciate this early master of Japanese alternative comics.