Romanian manga -- manga meets Metal Hurlant meets Marvel
Forbes magazine just published my latest article for them, a piece for a special on global pop culture about the "otaci" -- Romanian manga enthusiasts who remix French, Japanese and American comic styles, language and stories:
LinkThe artwork in the individual panels veered from traditional Japanese manga to surreal, "adult" images seemingly lifted from the French classic magazine Métal Hurlant to stuff that could have come from the pages of the latest Marvel comic. The text, too, was a glorious linguistic salmagundi, mostly Romanian, but with English, French and Japanese phrases sprinkled liberally throughout.
"What the hell is this thing?" I shouted at Stefan, over the din of the monstrous, grinding automated mojito machine that was attempting to crush lemons beside us.
"They choose different languages and styles based on the kind of stories they want to tell," he said.
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What's with the Japanese on the girls shirt, it's all been flipped.
I don't know why they flipped the image, but it's of Wikipe-tan, a cute anime girl personification of Wikipedia, hence the puzzle pieces.
I only just recently found out about Wikipe-tan, noticing the adorable little icon at the bottom of an anime-related stub. ^___^
Yep, that's Wikipe-tan all right, and she's GFDL / CC-BY-SA dual licensed, so they're allowed to use her in the poster shown (though they *should* put a credit there, somewhere).
now they have a character for Wikipedia? o_o
seems like manga is really taking over the world. but the romanian manga....i think it's an interesting concept... just that it's quite new and not many ppl (esp outside of romania) can accept it
Cory or anyone else out there,
do you know any place somebody in the States could pick up Romanian octai (or any other type of Romanian comix)?
Or any links to scans or online comics in Romanian?
I'm writing about conglomeration/transmutation/creation comics culture in places like Argentina, and, knowing a little Romanian, would love to find a way to bring that into the piece too.
It's just hard to find.
Thanks for any help!
Thanks for the Anime North plug!
Well, Stefan Tiron pointed me to this.
I'm the guy that organized that damn NijiKon thing. If any of you guys want it, here's the official poster:
www.projectsakura.com/poster.jpg
Also, for those of you feeling really adventurous, here's a HUGE version of it:
www.projectsakura.com/BIGASS_poster.jpg
Be warned though, it's a big ass 26 MB jpg file, which will most likely cause your computer to curse at you for the remainder of its [now shortened] life.
To Steventity - I don't know what you meant exactly with "octai", but since I'm from Romania myself I could at least try and help you (if you so wish). The least I can do is point you in some directions or something. My e-mail is "dancomsa[AT]projectsakura[DOT]com".
PS - Oh, the Wikipe-Tan thing was fun: On the official flier we inserted into a text bubble the Wikipedia definition of "nijikon". And the text bubble came from Wikipe-tan - the anime mascot of it. Yes, we also printed the necessary credits. The poster shown in this article is made by our partners from the Romanian "Otaku Magazine" for their publicity page. I don't know why they flipped the image though, probably some aesthetic concerns or something.
I loli Wikipe-tan
err. I ^lt;3 ... http://bp2.blogger.com/_ePazWbTrP9g/Rm6dU-oj-MI/AAAAAAAAAWM/UoNJZMHhlms/s400/LoliWikipetan.jpg
I <3 ? lol
Five years ago we used to say that selling comics in Romania was like trying to sell ice-cream to Inuits. Four years later we can proudly state that it now resembles selling pork in Palestine.
Hardcomics began 6 years ago in the city we call Bucharest. The birthchild of Serbian graphic designer Milos Jovanovic and Romanian animator Matei Branea, later on to be joined by Street artist Andy Sinboy. The meeting of these comic fans spawned Romania’s first independent (and back then only) comic book publication. The first issue called "Aaarghh" was made by Romanian painter and illustrator Roman Tolici, a bizarre, neurotic and abstract compilation of sex, violence, love and beauty. The second issue was by our own Matei Branea and his lovably chainsmoking character Omulan. This issue was mute and looked at man’s relationship with a God which is enforced on him, as well as how to get extremely high and party. For the third issue we captured a million pigeons and tied messages to their neck, telling people that we were going to publish a compilation of Romanian comics, professional or amateur, if it made us chuckle or think it was going in. After a few months we were proud to present a compilation comic book featuring different styles from 28 artists. At the time there was no other means of publishing physical comic books in Romania.
Romania’s history with comics is sparse and vague. During communism only a few titles were available, such as Rahan and Pif. These titles were successful with children, but due to there not being any other comics available, people would eventually lose interest and cease reading comics. These were the main titles, but we must add that we are pleasantly surprised every once in a while when we find some comic that was published during Communism by a small, long forgotten press. After the 1989 revolution some attempts were made to bring comics into Romania. Huge titles such as Asterix or Superman fell flat on their face and were cancelled after a few issues. However in the last couple of years some books have started to appear on the market, such as Tin Tin, Spiderman (a success thanks to the films) and even reprints of classic Rahan (bought by 30 year old kids). As well as this there has been an increasing interest in Manga culture, fore fronted by the Otraku crew.
Since we began, we have grown from a small company of three people to a massive corporation with one boss, two exhausted employees and a horny cat. Our first issues were self financed, but we were fortunate to have made a statement and produced some quality books which have gotten noticed by cultural institutions such as the Romanian Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) which sponsored the print for the compilation 'Hardcomics 6 - The Anthology'.
Our latest issue is yet another compilation, 'the sex issue' where we can find the sexual experiences and deviance of Romania's underground artists, as well as some international fetishists. Dick jokes aside, it's sexy.
Comic book culture in Romania is still next to zero. You can barely find a couple of international comics in two specialized bookshops in Bucharest. Nonetheless we are sticking to our horses, providing a platform for anyone who enjoys frames and speech bubbles as a form of communication, interaction, entertainment or masturbation.
We aren’t holding our breath for our first million, but we hope that in time we will be recognized for being there when no one else was.
www.hardcomics.ro