Elsewhat

Like many houses with preteens, my house has been increasingly inundated with more and more manga. One of my 10 year old son’s favourite activities is going to the library or manga store and reading for hours.

The New York Times has a beautifully rendered take on how manga are translated for western audiences. There are many subtle aspects, line onomatopoeia being different, and non-subtle ones like the structure of the books, which read right-to-left. Earlier books like Akira, pictured above, were flipped for Western audiences.

Since manga was first introduced to the U.S. in the 1980s, American companies have wrestled with how to adapt the genre for their readers. It requires taking into account not only art and visual concepts that are unique to Japanese, but also an entirely different system of reading.

Today manga is enormously popular in the U.S. and is published in something close to its original form: in black and white, on inexpensive paper stock, to be read in the Japanese style. But this wasn’t always the case.

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I can’t find the artist, but I’ve always liked this sculpture of car parts along a bike path that runs between Montréal’s Mile End and Little Italy neighbourhoods.

My longest and most elaborate abstract video so far, at well over 5 minutes. This one is an experiment with colour. Strobe warning.

Some nice paste ups by tbanbox.

I was going to post this without a proper title, but my 10 year old son instantly recognized this as a Secretarybird.

Another abstract piece I did for a small side project playing with abstract motion.

The most frustrating work of art ever?

Canada’s National Film Board has helped create many wonderful films over its long history. In 2020 I hosted an event in collaboration with the NFB to show films and host a discussion about legendary animator Norman McLaren. I want to talk about one of his frequent collaborators, Evelyn Lambart. Specifically, I want to highlight her tremendous title cards and wonderful lettering.

The bulk of her films were created using stop motion of paper cut outs, laid out on a black table and filmed from the top. Her title cards were absolutely gorgeous—colourful, playful. Each title links to the films, which are mostly beautifully rendered versions of simple folk songs or fairy tales.

Lambart was born in Ottawa in 1914, and was active making films with the NFB from 1943 until 1977. Each of these title cards links to versions of the films you can watch for free.