4 posts tagged “comics”

Another short comic strip, featured at 2007 "Коммисия" festival (Russian Comicon). Really amusing :)

Ok, so this is a second post about upcoming GTA4 and now I want to disclaim everything I'd said before! The video embedded there was a little culture shock to me, but it was nothing, comparing to what came out recently.

Fuck, it's just a time to stop being a dick and muttering some shit about "not cool" depiction of Eastern Europe by Western media. I can assure you, that basically all you're hearing in that promo, will be considered as a fail by "cool", advanced Slavic youngsters, who study in high schools, have access to the Internet and other modern cultural conveniences. And I could have been still sticking to that elitist point of view, but, hell, - this sucks.
There is big difference between all things concerning Eastern Europe, I've seen in western media before and what I'm hearing here. All this singers, all this songs they do really rotate on music charts in Kyiv or Moscow, they are really popular (even my pretentious personality sometimes doesn't want to accept it). And Russians in the trailers are really Russians, they speak Russian, not some shitty Arnold's mumbling in Read Heat. Unlike ordinary Hollywood producers or comic book authors, they didn't just take several stereotypical clichés of Russian guys, but actually receipted elements of this culture. And I know what I'm talking about.
Recently I've been reading Y: The Last Man comic book. Yes, I liked it, I've finished it all in one week. It has cool, thrilling plot, charming characters, I like all these pop-culture references, from The Godfather to The Superman. But Vaughan should be kicked into his bold scull several times (along with others, who produce same shit), for his Issue 55. Fuck, just what is this shit? It's fucking 20 years old!!!!! It ended even before my birth! And this was released in fucking 2007, just several months ago! No one, except old retired assholes care about communism. (it means even not all old people support them). But they still continue to release that outdated bullshit.
And thanks God there is Rockstar and thanks God there is GTA series. There is no such crap there. And that's what really matters. Someone might not be very much fond of Russian "gangsta rap", but  since it's part of the culture, it should be mentioned as it is. Italian mobsters weren't good people as well, but no one disgraces Sicily for The Godfather.
So no matter what I music I listen to and what I consider cool, GTA4 will rock because they do really create some new cultural objects, not just repeat old clichés.
PS: and to be fair, it's not just about Russian culture. Ruslana, the radio host - she is our Ukrainian singer, and in the demo she is really speaking Ukrainian. And I'm sure that when the game will be released I'll find a lot of unique references to Ukraine).

Jeez.... Just finished reading.

Yeah, really creepy manga... But I liked it....Never thought that you can get scared by a book.  Strange things start happening around small seacoast village of Kurozo-Cho. People get obsessed with all kind of natural and unnatural spirals there. And from then on really scary events start taking place. Especially, I like Junji Irl's style. The storyline is simple and thrilling at the same time. Added to high-quality graphics, it creates perfect impression. Already decided to read something more of him. Perhaps "Museum of Terror" - I like the name))
Last month, with help of F3, started becoming real "Otaku". Reading one manga after another. Yes, in our beloved motherland Japanese comic book -  is the thing really hard to discover. Of course,  Japanese pop-culture becomes popular here too. But mostly people are interested in anime (usually translated by pirates in Russian from English, that was translated from Japanese. Imagine how "good" quality is) or fat girls trying to do cosplay. Seems like very few people are interested in manga. So the only thing that is left, downloading scans from different peer-to-peer networks....