Why can't all ballet be like this?

Rite of Spring seems to be about the only one so far I don't fall asleep in!

Job interview

After an entire summer of sitting on my ass, I FINALLY get a call for a job interview at the mall.
ಠ_______________ಠ
So...should I go for it???

Last semester at school was nothing short of a fiasco, so I think I should really get my freak on about studying.
Then again, money is nice to have and the lady said I would be doing part time on the week in the evenings.

Man, if I had gotten this call TWO MONTHS AGO, my reaction would have been this:

FUCKYEAH

MY YAHOO INBOX HAS ONLY 92 MESSAGES ON IT

NINETY-TWO

THIS IS A MAJOR FUCKING ACCOMPLISHMENT

This effectively means I may actually have the opportunity to write all the fanfiction I have been masturbating thinking about all summer.

I'm also almost finished uploading all my pictures onto deviantART, so there's that as well.

Pat on the head for Eltitere? Yes, I think so!

I have been trying to figure out how to set this blog up so I get email updates every time one of my fellow bloggers posts so I can read/comment right away.
Any pointers?

And I still have no idea how to answer comments on my own blog, WTF :(

In other news, I don't know why my hair looks horrible this year, but it does
It looks like Umbridge's for crying out loud  ):

Anybody any suggestions to give it some shine? Maybe I should grow it out :p

FFFFFFUUUUUUUU-

The local internet classifieds site (like craigslist) has blacklisted me for no good reason. SO FREAKING ANNOYING.
I have a ton of shit to get rid of! UGH I was hoping to make ads for most of this junk today but apparently now I can't!

And I'm not being able to contact the customer service, which means I was blacklisted by a fucking computer.
So pissed off right now >_<

Lately I've been thinking about whether I'm a comic snob or not. I guess probably not, since I don't know that many graphic novels that no one has read about but me.

I'll confess I only read Watchmen after they announced the movie was coming out, so I cannot be a hipster on that point since I hadn't even heard the name before.

I did read V for Vendetta long before James McTeigue whitewashed the shit out of it; thought the very first time I read I thought it was more odd than anything, it was certainly unlike any other graphic novel I had seen before. After two or three readings, I was completely hooked; so am I still cool?


Anyway, I wanted to blog this time just so I could name-drop some artists than are relatively unknown unless you're in the same circle of comic snobs I apparently belong to.
Peter Bagge 

I VERY recently discovered and only by mere coincidence. Whenever I go to the library, they have a trolley of discarded books you can buy for cents, so I always look in the bin. I happened to notice a comic book and flipped through it. The brief glimpses of the story that I saw: indifferent sex, an implied drug addiction, frightened violence; were enough to convince me that I definitely wanted this book.
I'm a big sucker for controversial works, and if this comic was not that at least I would get some cheap porn off a government-owned building. Score one for me either way.
Buddy Does Seattle might have struck a chord with me because Buddy seems to be every inch of an obnoxious white hipster that I am. Or maybe it was the humour well meshed with the drama-filled lives of post-college kids with nothing to do and no shame. It's one of the few works I really like that does not have aliens, amazing inhuman feats of strength, ghosts, curses or extraordinary murders. Peter Bagge certainly managed to turn what is actually the boring life of your every-day 20-30 year-old and make it interesting enough for me to buy the sequel (Buddy does Jersey), and paying full price.
One final thought: during the entire time I was reading Buddy, I kept racking my brain wondering why the style looked so freaking familiar. I knew from the intro that Bagge had been influenced by the Duke of Comic Books underground artist Robert Crumb; and you could definitely see Crumb's oddly contorted faces here and there. 
It wasn't until I saw an issue of MAD magazine that it hit me; Peter Bagge is now making cartoons for MAD. I cannot decide if this is a step up or down; I would kill your mother to work for MAD, it's my favourite satirical magazine ever, not in the least because of the amazing troupe of cartoonists they have at their disposal (I have never talked in person to Sergio Aragones WHY). But MAD magazine is also read by children, which means most of their work is PG-13 at the most. The comics Bagge does for them are a far cry from the gritty stuff he did with the Buddy series. I wonder if Bagge is happy?


JIS (José Ignacio Solórzano) 

Now this one might be a bit of a disfavour to my English readers (do I have any? LOL) since I have never seen this guy's work in English and you cannot attempt to translate it.
I actually have no idea how famous JIS is even in his native country of México. I know that his work of El Santos Contra la Tetona Mendoza has been translated to English for at least one edition that you can get on Amazon.
I know that in México he regularly draws for Mamá de Abulón, but again, it's hard for me to gouge how famous or well known this guys because I've known about him all my life. Since he is native to Guadalajara, Jalisco; he actually knows my father and they are such good buddies that JIS helped name his niece after my aunt. 
HOW COOL IS THAT.

Unfortunately I have never met JIS himself, but I know I am very much invited to his home and his drawings for being my father's spawn. I need to go to Guadalajara :(
And my father has not bought every single book JIS ever made because he's such a good friend, he bought them because this shit is damn funny.
Despite having read both Bagge and Crumb, JIS bring on a new level of depravity within comics that I find extremely funny and extremely honest. JIS draws like he sees the world, not caring if he offends everyone in the process. And somehow, he manages to make this, gritty, ugly world funny.
I actually feel like I'm doing him a disservice writing this, because he deserves praise beyond what I can describe. Basically, he's the reason I wish I hadn't left México, since now it's almost impossible to buy his Va de Nuez books. I cannot wait to meet his guy.


Hitoshi Iwaaki

Look, I have nothing against Naruto or Bleach or CardCaptor Sakura. They are entertaining series with gripping tales and I love them. But they have nothing, absolutely nothing on Parasyte.
Iwaaki knows how to tell a story, he knows how to make suspense at the right places, how to make character compelling and most importantly, given the medium he works on, he knows how to draw.
The main complaint most manga non-lovers have is that all the characters have completely interchangeable faces (hat tip to you, Lar DeSouza). While the same argument can be made for many non-Japanese comics (quick! aside from the costume, what the difference between Batgirl and Poison Ivy??), it's definitely a valid complaint and something a lot of Japanese mangas and North American comics suffer alike.
Iwaaki will have none of that. All his characters have distinctive faces, body type and mannerisms. You cannot confuse one character for another even if they switch hairdos and clothes.
Not only that, but his aliens are also very praise-worthy. These aliens can change shape at will and become hideous monsters, Iwaaki still manages to give them very organic shapes and believable transformations. He takes a concept that would be laughable -an alien disguised as a human stretches his mouth to impossible proportions to eat a human- and makes it pretty terrifying, as seen in the picture above. And then, he has his characters laugh at the concept of a mouth-head; knowing how ridiculous the premise sounded in the first place. Mind officially blown.
I love this guy and I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy of Historie.

Zoran Janjetov

 I am 100% sure none of you will have heard of this guy before I mentioned him. What a sad world.
Like JIS, Zoran is a very accomplished artist who is famous locally (he lives in Novi Sad, Serbia) but completely unknown to the national market.
Also like JIS, I only know Zoran because I was introduced to him and his comics by my parents. I was actually in this guy's apartment in Novi Sad and he showed me his treasured five frames of the original reel of Princess Mononoke. THAT ALONE SHOULD TELL YOU HOW AWESOME HE IS.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, his works have never been published in anything other than Serbian (I hope I'm wrong!), so no English titles :(
I don't even know how to tell what the title is, though a Wikipedia search gives me Avant L'Incal. I don't know if that is the protagonist's name, or the name of the series or just the title for that book.
What I can tell you is that he writes about future Sci-Fi and how society is fucked up. Imagine what would happen if H.R. Giger made a comic book about a steampunk adventurer and you have Avant L'Incal. It's simply awesome.

Hayao Miyazaki

Now this one doesn't seem so fair because Hayao Miyazaki is very well known...as a filmmaker.
A surprisingly high number of people don't know he's a genius outside of movies. It really shouldn't come as a surprise at all, since most of us already know he does well at story-telling, making compelling characters and drawing absolutely gorgeous backgrounds and people.

I simply don't want the people to lose the opportunity to read Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in the original manga format. Because if you liked the movie, this thing will blow your mind. You are not prepared.

Not only does it have the environmental message that was sort of the basic plot of the movie; oh no, it has political intrigue, classicism, religious witch-hunting, issues with privilege and murder as well as the amazing art Miyazaki is famous for. You are not prepared.

And that concludes my list of comic artists and story-tellers that everyone should read, even if they are not as famous as Alan Moore, René Goscinny or Masashi Kishimoto.
And if you haven't heard of the last three, what is wrong with you.

Honorable mentions: Kazuma Kodaka
Ai Morinaga
Junji Ito
Katie Shanahan