The Story of Lee – Page 2

Kinky & Cosy #10 on NYTimes GN bestseller list + more press

Nix’ snarky Kinky & Cosy is #10 on this week’s New York Times Bestseller list for hardcover graphic novels!

And Robot 6 has this to say about the collection:

“Nix’s little rascals are bad kids in the Bart Simpson/Calvin/Shinchan mode, but the humor is more fearless.”

“Recommended. The cultural tension is beautifuilly written, and the story is told well in the small moments between Lee and Matt.”

Library Media Connection on the Story Of Lee.

The Portland Examiner covers Rick Geary’s successful appearance at Bridge City Comics last week.

Finally, Manga Maniac Cafe gives Stargazing Dog an A-.

Kirkus on Sacco: ‘another great contribution to the country’s wealth of graphic lit.”

Well, we were going to highlight some other books this time but NO! Geary’s Sacco & Vanzetti hogs everyone’s attention! This time with a great review from the influential Kirkus Reviews, putting it in with “The 13 Can’t Miss Graphic Novels of 2011”. Calling him ‘legendary,’ they quote him about the book and state:

“Chalk one more up for the history books and another great contribution to the country’s wealth of graphic lit.”

Here’s another review:

“He researches diligently, then lays out the facts and theories with maps, diagrams, and deadpan narration, easily sucking in the true-crime buff. ”

Paste magazine giving it a 7. They also reviewed our collection of Little Nothings 1-3:

“Even nerds like me, who frequently love European comics, approach Continental cartoonists deemed “the next great hope” with some reluctance. Surely, their work will be too New Yorker cartoony, too elliptical, too… French. Lewis Trondheim is nothing of the sort, and his Little Nothings series, newly issued in a three-volume set by NBM/ComicsLit, is the sort of book you might want to keep in your bathroom, to dip into from time to time. Think American Elf with a lot less whining.”

On the Story of Lee, Voya, the leading teen librarian review publication says:

“There is much here to like. Lee is quite sympathetic and her straightforward romance with Matt is sweet and believable. Readers will look forward to the next volume in this gentle series.”

Story of Lee has sold out + some reviews

THE STORY OF LEE HAS SOLD OUT its first print run! Sorry that we’re temporarily out of stock while he rush back to press…

Meantime, a cute review by Erin Jameson at Playback:STL of A Story of Lee, entitled “A Love Less Traveled.”

Bill Sherman at Blogcritics sees an interesting parallel in Sky Over the Louvre with our times:

“Carriere effectively captures the debates of the day, the ways ideological purity can be used to rationalize atrocity, and imbues every seemingly intellectual debate with more than a hint of menace. In an era where a simple cartoon can spur true believers into violence, where a rising pool of writers judge art and entertainment on the basis of politics over anything, The Sky over the Louvre is more than a historical recreation. It’s a graphic novel for our polarized times.”

‘warm and fuzzy’

“Made me feel warm and fuzzy. As novel as this situation might be for readers, it’s oddly familiar territory for the creators. Writer Sean Michael Wilson is a Scot living in Japan, and artist Chie Kutsuwada is a Japanese living in London. Their familiarity with the turf wars gives this unpretentious East-meets-West, boy-meets girl story an easy, breezy sense of verisimilitude.”

Andrew Capt Comics Smith, Scripps Howard News Service on The Story of Lee.

“Even if you’ve never read the first two volumes, you won’t feel lost or overly confused, as this can be read as a stand-alone book. I highly recommend this addition to the Dungeon series.”

Curled Up with a Good Book on the latest Dungeon Monsters 3.

Miami Herald and Publishers Weekly reviews

“Kerascoet depicts action and emotion beautifully and elegantly, with great feeling and boundless humor.”

Richard Pachter, The Miami Herald on Miss Don’t Touch Me 2.

“It’s an old setup done effectively and believably. If anything, the story feels too true to life as Hong Kong, Korea, China, and Japan all have no shortage of aimless 20-something foreign men, many of them making ends meet teaching English and enjoying the occasional tryst with a local girl. Wilson and Kutsuwada’s story tells such a tale from the girl’s perspective, faithfully reproducing real Hong Kong locales and name dropping a variety of cool bands along the way. The artwork, particularly the characters, is crisp and expressive, and the story faithfully reproduces a believable slice of life, despite the neat wrapup at the end, even if the story doesn’t dig that deeply.”

Publishers Weekly on The Story of Lee.

Talk at Glasgow

I came back from Glasgow, where I attended Glasgow Film Festival and talked about manga in general and my work, of course including the Story of Lee, with Paul Gravett and Sean (via Skype!), last night.

At the talk, I showed this image to the audience and explained my working process.

When I create stories by myself, I automatically know who the main characters are and how they act and react. But when I’m working with the writers, in this case Sean, I need to read the script again and again and again, then digest it until I feel familiar with the characters and understand why they act like as the writer wrote. This process is very very important to me and sometimes it takes me quite long time to go through some scripts.

Once I do this part deeply, the rest is easier. When I’m ready and feel like I can see what the characters look like and how they move etc, I naturally start making memos and sketches.

At the stage of a page arrangement, one of the most important things for me is the position of speech bubbles. They will lead the eyes of the readers and make a flow of a page and the entire story. So I am very careful where I put them.

Well, I can explain how I do forever so I’ll stop here.

At Glasgow, the talk was successful and I really enjoyed my stay.

Oh if you are around the area, you can buy a copy of the Story of Lee from Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow while the Film festival is on (and you should have lunch at the CCA cafe since they serve some wonderful meals!).

(Chie.K)

“An appealing cross-cultural love story.”

“Story of Lee handles its appealing cross-cultural love story with a deft sweetness.”

Says Bill Sherman of Blogcritics, also on Seattle Post Intelligencer

Salvatore gets a “Highly recommended!” from Sequential Tart with a grade of 8/10.

And yet another review for The Broadcast from Rob Clough over at The Comics Journal. Interestingly, he went in the opposite direction of most. While he was not entirely bowled over by Eric Hobbs’ characterizations, he enthuses over artist Tuazon’s rendition:

“Tuazon’s scribbly, scratchy line is the book’s secret weapon. He transforms what is otherwise a conventional narrative into a story viewed through a driving rainstorm or distorted sheet of glass. Everyone is a little fuzzy and instinct, even as he has an uncanny way of providing just enough identifiers for the reader to quickly decode each scene and immediately understand what’s happening and who’s acting. I’m usually not a huge fan of greyscaling, but Tuazon finds an ideal balance between light and dark. Tuazon captures both the naturalism of the setting and its characters as well as the expressionistic nature of the human conflict. In the hands of a lesser artist, The Broadcast might have been trite and too on-the-nose. Thanks to Tuazon, it has a raw and visceral energy that raises the stakes for the reader.”

“Outrageous plot twists and offbeat characters”: Library Journal on Miss Don’t Touch Me; press roundup

“The plot fairly gallops in this naughty adult soap opera; snappy dialog keeps up the pace. Richly detailed full-color art offers both humor and pathos, creating engaging characters and a strong sense of place. [Those] who like outrageous plot twists and offbeat characters should enjoy this romp.”

The Library Journal on Miss Don’t Touch Me 2.

Salvatore by De Crecy elicits a fun Siskel & Ebert like exchange between two critics over at Manga Critic (just excerpting here):

“I think my strongest impression of Salvatore is that it makes me a little anxious, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most of Joann Sfar’s work – Klezmer, The Rabbi’s Cat, Vampire Loves – and Taiyo Matsumoto’s comics – TekkonKinkreet and Gogo Monster – also have that effect. I suspect the anxiety partly comes from how visually dense de Crécy’s comics tend to be, sort of dragging your eye in a bunch of different directions at once, and how morally vague his characters and their situations are.

Almost every adjective I could come up with to describe the lines sounds very unflattering (e.g. “spidery,” “shaky”), but I actually find de Crécy’s work quite beautiful in its idiosyncracies.

I’m on the fence about Salvatore, in part because I find it a little over-scripted; de Crécy has a very strong urge to narrate, even though he’s a terrific visual storyteller. The scene in which the sow catapults down the snowy mountain, lands on top of a plane, then sails back down to Earth is just the sort of wordless (or largely wordless) sequence that I wish de Crécy did more of; it’s a gorgeous bit of visual choreography that nicely underscores what a space cadet Amandine really is.”

Manga Worth Reading, a part of Comics Worth Reading, has an exclusive preview of The Story of Lee. And Jazma Online has this interview of Sean, the writer.

Sean Michael Wilson at Anime League

I have been invited to be a ‘creator in residence’ thing on a popular anime/manga website, called ANIME LEAGUE, which has about 20,000 members it seem. And it looks like all of them have posted some questions for me on their forum already!:

http://www.animeleague.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=203&t=125581

So, I better going an answer some… including posting some pages and info about the type of conflict and relationship between the characters in THE STORY OF LEE.

Story of Lee: Young Women Should Eat this One Up.

On Elephant Man by Greg Houston, while Robot 6 on CBR thought it “a bit too self-aware and a bit too in love with how “zany” it is,” Chris Mautner also went on to say: “Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh several times and the plot is a lot tighter than [Vatican] Hustle‘s. For those who don’t get easily offended and don’t mind yet another collection of smart-ass jokes about superheroes, Elephant Man will suit you fine.”

“The Story of Lee is a pretty strong outing. I am not sure about the crossover appeal, but young women should eat this one up.”

So says cxPulp. And there’s a great article on Sean, the writer of this, in Multiverse #1.

On Miss Don’t Touch Me Vol.2:
“There’s no real reason why a comic soap opera about a virgin dominatrix should be this good, but Hubert’s clever scripts and Kerascoet’s absolutely gorgeous artwork elevate the basic elements in very unexpected ways — a real treasure!”

Worcester Magazine who also reviews Salvatore 1, calling it “An alluring mix of subtle whimsy and over-the-top shenanigans.”