telophase: (shikamaru - screw you i'm going home)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2005-03-16 12:27 pm

Sakura Pakk #1 Review

Quick review of EigoMANGA's Rumble Pak #1 and Sakura Pakk #1, both available online:

Eh.


(I'll get to RP in another post)



I'm mostly oriented towards the art, and I'll forgive boring writing if the art's great, so the writing's not a deal-breaker for me like the art is. In Rumble Pak, none of the art impressed me enough or pulled me into the stories. Judging by the sample pages of The Monkey's Tale that they reprinted in Sakura Pakk, it gets better. They're going to be releasing it as a graphic novel sometime soon, though, so I'll wait for it unless they manage to get better artwork.

Sakura Pakk


The first story, "Ghost Hunters," starts with something that completely turns me off 99% of the time - a wordy prologue explaining the background of the world. The mangaka gets humor points for switching to a chibi version of herself on the next page to continue the explanation, but I think it would have been better saved for the *end* of the first installment of the story, when I presumably would have some sort of emotional investment in it. Page 3 finally starts the in-media-res stuff, and by then it's pretty much too late. Page 5 or so has little numbers in the balloons that tell you in what order to read them, unnecessarily since it's pretty obvious what order they're in. A note to aspiring mangakas out there: if you think you have to put numbers in the balloons to show the order in which you read them, you need to go back and redo the layout. Anyway, the art is really up and down - there's some pages with nicely detailed backgrounds and good layouts, and others where it looks like the artist forgot to put the background in and had to throw a Render Clouds Photoshop filter on to take up space. And the camera angles aren't varied enough - note my previous LJ entry about feet and the lack of them in manga. This isn't the story that prompted that, though. Although another author's note prompts this: if you're going to put small notes in the margin explaining what's going on, try not to start with "For those who couldn't get these panels..." And putting *other* small notes in the margins earlier would stop that from looking like you couldn't be arsed to re-draw the panels to make them more clear.

I spent a big paragraph on that one, because it's so close to pro-level and just quite doesn't make it, which is frustrating. I think in a year or two, the artist will probably be there, and I hope she makes it.

And then an ad for someone's self-published manga, which leads me to note that you probably shouldn't advertise it with a not-very-good drawing. If that's your best artwork, then I have zero desire to read it.

"Inspirations" by Christina Patton is the one that spurred me to make the post about characters without feet. This story, and most of the others, have artwork that desperately needs variation in line width to make it more dynamic. It's meant to be a silly one-shot featuring the two winners who suggested the anthology's name, but still ... it's something else that doesn't quite make it, which is frustrating to me as a reader - the anatomy and perspective issues are grating to me. The story ... well, blah. No characterization.

Then we get to "Midsummer's Dream." Why they didn't lead off with this one, I have NO idea. Nice backgrounds, delicate linework with enough subtle line weight variation to look good, great tones, and I love the splash page that has people grabbing for flying paper behind the main character. The dialogue unfortunately needed a copy editor to put it into better English - it reads to me like someone for whom English is a second language, not like someone who can't write. That's the big flaw in this story, and one that I think the editors of Sakura Pakk should have fixed.

"Narta Morta" by someone whose name escapes me because they didn't put it in the opening page. I love the art here - heavy blacks and whites with an Art Nouveau feel. Drops you into the story in media res - two long-haired bishounen types are being attacked by mysterious assailants late at night and one tells the other to run. The one who runs is found in a park by a girl who adopts the mysterious nonspeaking stray. If I end up picking up this anthology on a regular basis, it'll be for this story and for "Midsummer's Dream," which will hopefully get the editing it needs.

"Sange: A Samurai's Way" shows you exactly why you should ink instead of pencil, if you don't have very crisp, clear pencils. I didn't read it - the art plus the whole samurai thing put me off - I'm tired of the ubiquitous ancient-Japan stories in American manga, because I have yet to meet one not done by Stan Sakai that's done well. I know people are passionately interested in the subject and want to read about life then, but I'd rather go reread Usagi Yojimbo for my ancient-Japan comic needs.

"Babochka" ... eh. The art almost makes it - the characters are well-drawn, but the backgrounds are lacking and the layout is a little *too* spare. I can see what the mangaka was trying to do, but I don't think it was achieved. Some of the borderless panels really needed to be full-bleed, and the negative space isn't working for the design, but against it. Nice tonework, but there need to be more backgrounds and more attention to the design of the full page.

"By The Wayside" has more indie-comic inspired artwork than the other stories. The backgrounds are again a touchy point - it's designed and drawn simply, but the characters still need a *bit* more to palce them in context - in most of the scenes they're floating in a void, and I can't tell if they're in a city, the country, *what* country, and so on. And it also strengthens my opinion that if you're going to do flat fills for your backgrounds, they need to be tones, so that the texture adds visual interest. The character designs and the comic-like, almost woodblock, inking are quite nice, though.

"Zera and the Legendary Bird" - confusing, and starring the main character's hair, since it's often the only fully-colored-in black thing on the page and thus leaps out at you.


That's it for Sakura Pakk. And I have to go to lunch now, since I'm doing Ref desk duty at 2. I'll get to Rumble Pak then, which doesn't have as many stories in it. I do wonder at EigoMANGA's insistence that this is the full issue #1 of SP, since the contents lists several stories which don't show up...

[identity profile] weyrlady.livejournal.com 2005-03-17 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Heya! I wandered over to your Saiyuki art post from [livejournal.com profile] permetaform's rec, and when you mentioned Sakura Pakk in that post, I got curious on what you have to say about it. I'm friends with the author of one of the stories that will be published in volume two. From what you've said about art recently, I think you'd really like her story and her art. She drew Warm Rain, and I think it's beautiful. Are you planning on getting the volume and doing a review? I'd really like to know what you think of it.

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2005-03-17 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
*waves hello* I've asked a friend who works in a comic shop if she can get me a copy of it. Despite living in a major metropolitan area, there is no comic shop within a 30-minute drive of me, plus I avoid comic shops like the plague because every time I go in I drop $80 and on top of my manga addiction, my budget just can't handle that. :)

Looking forward to it!

[identity profile] emtigereyes.livejournal.com 2005-03-17 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)
If you're interested, one of the eigoMANGA artist (or guest artists, can't tell) is a deviant artist I check on regularly for his doujinshi of American cartoon.

Bleedman's Deviant Account (http://bleedman.deviantart.com)

Natura Morta

[identity profile] cacklebang.livejournal.com 2005-03-21 12:45 am (UTC)(link)
Came here by way of.. a death note comm? Anyway, I saw you mentioned Sakura Pakk and I had to comment.
The artist (who is really a girl who is beyond lovely) is [livejournal.com profile] abril on lj. Her site (if it's up) actually contains another version of her story if you're interested in seeing that. (Her lj also contains some gorgeous sketches.)