Weinsteins launch indie toon

By: BRIAN THOMAS
Date: Saturday, January 14, 2006

I rushed to the newsstand last Sunday morning to pick up a copy of the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Okay, I'm exaggerating to add some excitement in truth, I picked up the Sunday edition at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon. Real newsstands are rare these days and the Sunday paper is really the weekend paper now. The reason for my purchase was that I'd read in the Thursday edition that they were taking reruns of CALVIN & HOBBES out of the Sunday comics section to make way for a new feature called TOKYOPOP. The announcement didn't elucidate, but Tokyopop has been one of the more adventurous Japanese manga and anime distributors in the USA (and around the world, actually), getting their products into all sorts of unusual places, such as their service that makes manga downloadable to cell phones. Would they somehow be bringing INITIAL D and GET BACKERS stories into the Sunday comics section? And what about Tokyopop's controversial cost cutting decision to not reverse their translated manga? Would the newspaper feature read right-to-left? It seemed unlikely, but the they'd be taking over the space of a cartoonist that contracted to keep his feature printed a certain size and shape.

What I found crammed into a 5 x 8 inch rectangle was a disappointment, though the disappointment has nothing to do with the content of the feature itself. The "Tokyopop presents" feature is actually PEACH FUZZ, a series created by Florida-based cartoonists Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges and bought by Tokyopop as the top entry in manga contest. The strip is about a little girl named Amanda and her pet ferret Peach, and it's a cute enough story that deserves some wider recognition. However, it may suffer from some factors. For one thing, since the feature is only carrying two pages per week of a longer story, readers are brought up to speed with a few paragraphs of "Amanda's Journal", crushing the already compacted artwork to the point where the fine line work is almost disappearing. They've also kept the art in black & white, which is kind of pointless in a newspaper section that made history because of its full color printing.

And then there's the question of style. PEACH FUZZ is drawn in what's considered a "manga style" This is kind of like saying that a portrait is painted in a "British style", which is to say that it really means nothing. Japanese cartoonists work in a wide variety of styles, but the work of Osama Tezuka has been hugely influential on almost every one of them, so that influence is what most people think of as manga. Tezuka was mainly influenced by Disney, who was in turn influenced by pioneers of newspaper comic-strips, so you could say that Cibos and Hodges are bringing their influences full circle with a Sunday comics feature. Despite this, PEACH looks awfully out of place or even invisible next to strips that were created specifically for the newspaper format by artists who have spent years tailoring their work to come across well in that format. I wish them well, and congratulate Tokyopop for putting over the experiment, but they're looking mighty weak in among BRENDA STARR, BLONDIE, and even (ugh) CATHY.

SPOTLIGHT OF THE WEEK

Opening in theaters this weekend:

(O) HOODWINKED (Weinstein) You may not have heard much about this new CGanime theatrical feature. That may be because it's the first Cganime independent film, an odd, hip comedy reworking of the "Little Red Riding Hood" story co-written and directed by three Midwestern guys whose previous feature experience is making the little known comedy drama CHILLICOTHE. The newly split off from Miramax Weinsteins grabbed their earlier lo-tech version, expanded the technical quality and added a new voice talent cast, including Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Anthony Anderson, Davis Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Chazz Palminteri and Andy Dick. The sad part is that many kids won't get a lot of the humor because nobody read them the original story before taking them to the movie.

NEW DVD RELEASES

Here's a rundown of the constant stream of anime comin' at ya on DVD from around the world:

(O) AREA 88 Volume 4: Wings of the Wind (ADV) Episodes 10-12. Shin is getting close to saving up the price to buy out his contract. Includes interview.

(O) BEFORE THE DINOSAURS: WALKING WITH MONSTERS (BBC) Early prehistoric beasts recreated by the WALKING WITH DINOSAURS Cganime crew.
(O) FAFNER Volume 4: New Divergence (Geneon) Episodes 13-16. Kazuki uncovers important information while in captivity.
(O) FUNNY FACTORY WITH DONALD (Buena Vista)
(O) FUNNY FACTORY WITH MICKEY (Buena Vista) Each Funny Factory collection includes 8 cartoon shorts from the Disney Studio archives.
(O) GANTZ Volume 10: Endgame (ADV) Episodes 24-26. The final volume finds Kei fighting alone against a pair of thrill killers. Includes featurettes.
(O) GANTZ Season 1 (ADV) All six volumes in a thinpak set.
(O) GODANNAR Volume 3: Nuclear Family Meltdown (ADV) Episodes 10-13. Anna is pushed over the edge by the chaos all around her. Includes interviews and more.
(O) GRAVION Complete First Season (ADV) All 13 episodes on three discs. A mysterious billionaire known as Sandman funds construction of a super-powerful robot warrior driven by a crew of sexy pilots to fight an alien menace.
(O) KALEIDO STAR Season 2 Volume 1: New Wings (ADV) The circus stars return for another season. Includes mini poster and more.
(O) OTOGI ZOSHI Volume 6: Full Circle (Media Blasters) Episodes 23-26. Actions of past lives must be repaid in the present. Includes round table, interview and lecture.
(O) OUTLAW STAR (Bandai) Space cowboys take a job as bodyguards and are swept up in mystery and adventure. Complete 1998 series.
(O) RUROUNI KENSHIN TV Series Season 2 (Media Blasters) Shishio the tyrant sends an army of assassins after Kenshin, the great warrior opposing him in his march to conquer Japan.
(O) SAMURAI CHAMPLOO Volume 7 (Geneon) Series finale finds our trio of heroes attacked by assassins as they near Ikitsuki Island.
(O) TRIGUN (Geneon) Bounty hunters search an arid planet for the outlaw Vash, who has a sixty billion dollar price on his head. Limited collectors edition.
(O) YU YU HAKUSHO THE MOVIE: POLTERGEIST REPORT (Central Park) Yusuke is restored to life with super powers via supernatural means.

UMD CORNER

None this week. Sorry, PSP fans!

And be sure to check back next weekand every weekfor CINESCAPE's Anime Avalanche! And check in every Tuesday for the latest DVD Shopping List!

Anime Avalanche (© 2005 Brian Thomas) is our weekly animation column. Brian Thomas is the author of the massive book VideoHound's DRAGON: ASIAN ACTION & CULT FLICKS, available now!

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