Anne Ishii and Ryan Holmberg at Fantom Comics talking about Tagame's Fish and Water manga (updated with audio file)

In the above image, they're talking about Anne's previous work translating Tagame especially for a German publisher that folded in 2017.

 

More photos and audio on the Internet Archive 

July 11: TRANSLATORS IN CONVERSATION: FISH & WATER BY GENGOROH TAGAME at Fantom comics

TRANSLATORS IN CONVERSATION: FISH & WATER BY GENGOROH TAGAME
Translator ANNE ISHII interviewed by RYAN HOLMBERG
>> SATURDAY, JULY 11th @ 6:30pm
Two titans of manga translation here at Fantom at the same time!! ANNE ISHII visits DC to celebrate her translation of FISH AND WATER, the new slice-of-life romance by gay manga master GENGOROH TAGAME (My Brother’s Husband, The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame). Ishii is the co-founder of MASSIVE and is largely responsible for Tagame’s work reaching an English-speaking audience, having translated & edited all his work published in the U.S.

Anne will sit down at Fantom to chat with manga historian, editor, and translator RYAN HOLMBERG—both of these friends of Fantom have forged their own unique careers translating & championing very different kinds of alternative manga.

Fish and Water follows the chance romance of two men in an unassuming friendship. Akira, a business sales administrator, and Koji, a freelance writer, quickly become close buddies even as social-distancing regulations bar most connections during the pandemic. One day, during a visit with a farm client, Akira is offered a case of freshly picked cabbage. Since no one at his office wants it and he is a disaster in the kitchen, Akira decides to see if Koji (who loves to cook) might be interested. Koji accepts and invites Akira to join him for dinner. Lonely in the midst of pandemic-related shutdowns, Akira welcomes the chance, and one meal becomes many. They become quite relaxed with each other, creating an amusing but emotionally perplexing scenario. Eventually, Akira and Koji grapple with deciding if they are just friends, or something more.

Available in-store and on our website: https://stores.comichub.com/fantom_comics/products/fish-and-water

Audio and photos from Audio and photos from Miles Morales and Me and THE CURSED BODY BY KAWAKATSU TOKUSHIGE

COMICTROPOLIS: Miles Morales and Me - How a D.C. Kid Ended Up Writing Miles
    David Betancourt

Washington, DC: DC Public Library Southwest Neighborhood Library

Photographs and audio online at 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/42072348@N00/albums/72177720334228079/

and https://archive.org/details/comictropolis-miles-morales-and-me-how-a-d.-c.-kid-ended-up-writing-miles-morales

 HORROR MANGAKA TALK: THE CURSED BODY BY KAWAKATSU TOKUSHIGE
by Kawakatsu Tokushige and Ryan Holmberg with Emily Yoshimoto

Washington, DC: Fantom Comics.

Photographs and audio online at https://www.flickr.com/photos/42072348@N00/albums/72177720334200265 and https://archive.org/details/horror-mangaka-talk-the-cursed-body-by-kawakatsu-tokushige-with-ryan-holmberg

HORROR MANGAKA TALK: THE CURSED BODY BY KAWAKATSU TOKUSHIGE at Fantom Comics (UPDATED)

Interviewed by Ryan Holmberg who did not translate the book but wrote an afterword.

He was very influenced by Garo Magazine.

The two have known each other since university.

More photos can be seen on Flickr and an audio recording and photographs are on the Internet Archive.

Comics links in the Mucha exhibit at the Phillips

 I just saw the show yesterday. Here's info from the Phillips Gallery on it. Relevant quotes are

  In the 1960s, Mucha’s distinctive style found new life in the vibrant poster art of the counterculture movement—becoming a trademark of psychedelic rock posters and album covers, influencing iconic bands like the Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones—as well as comic books, Japanese manga, and murals.

 Mucha’s visual language also made a lasting impact on Japanese manga, where his stylized forms can be seen in the work of artists such as Hideko Mizuno, one of the first successful “shojo manga (girls’ comics)” artists in Japan, and others. Underscoring his enduring influence, the exhibition will pair classic Mucha works with contemporary examples they inspired, from the cover of a 1969 album for Diana Ross & The Supremes to Joe Quesada’s comic book illustrations.

 Not mentioned therein is Mucha's work on designing Krokodil, a comics magazine in the late 19th century. Here's photos of that and the people that adapted his style.

 

Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise comic cover, and Mucha's original

 

 

Mangaka influenced by Mucha includes Yoshitaka Amano, Akemi Matsunae, and Hideko Mizuno.

 

 

Comic books by Joe Quesada,  John Tyler Christopher, and Michael Kaluta. None by Charles Vess surprisingly...

 

 

Two prints by Barry Windsor-Smith

If you missed it in DC, the exhibit is traveling the US.

.The Phillips Collection, in collaboration with The Mucha Foundation, announces the North American tour of Timeless Mucha: The Magic of Line, a groundbreaking exhibition that reappraises the work and influence of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939). Organized by the Mucha Foundation, this major exhibition will premiere at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, on February 22, 2025, and will be on view through May 18, 2025. The exhibition will then travel to the New Mexico Museum of Art, Sante Fe, NM (June 20–September 20, 2025); the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL (November 19, 2025–March 1, 2026); the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (April 11–August 30, 2026); and the Museo Kaluz, Mexico City, Mexico (October 8, 2026–February 8, 2027).\

 

I'll try to improve and repost the photos, but no promises.

Another Ryan Holmberg-translated manga reviewed at TCJ

Reviews: Flash Point

Brian Nicholson | April 8, 2025 

https://www.tcj.com/reviews/flash-point/

Flash Point

Imai Arata, translated by Ryan Holmberg

Glacier Bay Books

$25

248 pages

Buy Now

Konnichiwa WcDonald's

by Bruce Guthrie

Not being an anime aficionado, I was surprised to find that my McDonald's cup had a "W" instead of an "M" on it this week.  And there were Japanese characters next to it which the Google Translate software on my smartphone translated as "Wak Donald".  Was this a yakuza signal to take out the Republican front runner?

Apparently not.  Little known to me, a fictional WcDonald's franchise was introduced to manga back in 1981 when they wanted to refer to a food franchise like McDonald's but didn't want to run into trademark issues.  ( https://fictionalcompanies.fandom.com/wiki/WcDonald%27s )  This month, McDonald's announced a tie-in to the fictional franchise starting on February 26.

Their regular website describes this as:

What Is the WcDonald’s Isekai?

Isekai is a popular anime genre that explores a story’s main character who suddenly finds themselves transported to a parallel “otherworld.” A fixture across various anime and manga titles and genres, WcDonald’s has been an indelible part of anime culture for decades. From it comes the new Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce! Dip into another universe and immerse yourself in WcDonald’s, artistically realized to serve as homage to fans of anime and the Golden Arches alike.

There are lots of in-store promotions for this campaign including bags (possibly only the medium and small sized ones), the cups, the backs of receipts, and videos on the order kiosks and behind the counter.  There's also a new promotional website ( https://www.wcdonalds.com ).  All of this is to promote a new McNuggets sauce.  (Which is really spicy!)

The website offers a free miniseries of four video shorts and four manga chapters.  Currently, only the first set is up -- the first comic is a 24-page PDF -- but presumably the other sets will be added each week as the campaign continues.  The story appears to start on the medium-size bag and can be read below.

As far as I can tell, the WcDonald's website only serves up the episodes if you use the QR scan code to access it.  If you access the www.wcdonalds.com site directly, you're told that you have to unlock each episode.  If you don't have a device with a QR-reading built-in camera (like a desktop PC), you're SOL.  Once you use the QR code, there's a cookie that's saved on your smartphone/laptop/PC which tells the system you're kosher and lets you see the episode.  Maybe that will change as complaints mount.  

Having said that, if you type in the short URL from your desktop browser -- 3wqv.short.gy/aZ1 -- things should work fine.  I have to presume that McD's isn't issuing multiple bags with different QR codes each week so the new episodes should magically show up each week along with the old ones.

(You can access the first issue of the comic directly via: https://www.wcdonalds.com/pdf/2rg5pBDamf.pdf .  The first video is https://www.wcdonalds.com/episode?id=1   I suspect id=2, id=3, and id=4 will be activated later. )

Officially, the campaign ends on March 24.

Nerdist has a great article about the campaign on https://nerdist.com/article/mcdonalds-serves-up-an-anime-and-manga-experience-with-special-wcdonalds-celebration/

Some images (and, yes, I felt like an idiot photographing the screens above the counter...)