The Eastern Edge - Latest comments on Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

tonci [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

tonci [Visitor] — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:51:00 +0000

thank you so much for all the urasawa translations! there is so little information about him in english, and your posts have been real treasures.
i actually managed to buy this on ebay, as well as manben(?), the artbook, and a book of his short stories; god knows when/if i'll ever learn enough japanese to really -read- any of it. so thanks again for this!

laraska [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

laraska [Visitor] — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:31:16 +0000

thanks from me !!!
i am glad to read here all this stuff about THE mangaka ! nice job every as always !

Felipo [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Felipo [Visitor] — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:39:36 +0000

Thank you so much for this! What a wonderful peek into the process of a master. Things like this are important to learn for me when I struggle with my own process. That bit about how he draws fast lest he lose momentum is very insightful!

Anyway, thanks again for this. I shall subscribe!

Yancho Yanchev [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Yancho Yanchev [Visitor] — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:57:22 +0000

It is really insane! :) And Genious too! :)

Thanks for sharing it :)

gottsuiiyan [Member] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

gottsuiiyan [Member] — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:27:35 +0000

Don't apologize. In fact I'd like to thank you for blathering! Now I know the difference between thumbnails and layouts.

Well, while I know that Inoue probably has an elite team of assistants, much like Urasawa I think he does an awful lot on his own.
Some creators are shamless, from obvious tracing of backgrounds, to their use of assistants to do all the drudge work while they take all the credit, but I think Inoue is a little different.

I'm sure he keeps his assistants very busy, but there is a DVD out in called "Draw" that simply is film of Inoue in his studio drawing Vagabond pages - by himself, from the initial sketch to the final inked piece. I don't know how much he relies on assistants, but at least Inoue shows his stuff and proves he's for 'Real'

If I can find some clips somehwere I'll post them. It's really amazing to watch - especially if you're a comic geek!

William George [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

William George [Visitor] — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:27:12 +0000

The idea, as I remember reading years ago, was that they didn't write scripts much back in the early days of cartooning. Instead the writer or editor would give the artist a thumbnail sketch to work from.

Even after the practice of full scripts became common, the use of thumbnails stayed because it was a great way to organize the visual aspect of the comic.

"Layouts" as a term had been used as well, but that tended to more describe a case where the main artist sketches in the figures and objects roughly on the art page, and the assistants (Or less competent artist the main artist is helping out on the sly) do the rest of the work based on that.

Urasawa doesn't say anything about his assistants and what they do up above. But going by the samples I'm assuming they do a lot of the backgrounds and object art for him. They would be working from his layouts, not the thumbnails.

Anyway, sorry for blathering. Comic geek...

gottsuiiyan [Member] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

gottsuiiyan [Member] — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:34:30 +0000

William George,

I see. "Thumbsnails", eh? I've heard of that but never really knew what that meant.

I'm not a cartoonist, but I draw a little and when I've doodled similar things for scripts, I always called them layouts or storyboards.

I'm still trying to find out where the term "neemu" came from. If I ever find out I'll make a post our of it (or maybe a tweet if it's not interesting enough to make a full post out of - haha).

Cheers.

William George [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

William George [Visitor] — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:13:09 +0000

"neemu"

Myself and most cartoonists call them "thumbnails". Or sometimes "layouts".

gottsuiiyan [Member] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

gottsuiiyan [Member] — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:12:58 +0000

Stuart,

Of course I remember you!
Thanks for coming back.

I think I understand your idea, but to be honest I wouldn't even know where to send a letter - although I suppose I could look up Stuido Nuts or even try sending one to Weekly Morning.
Do you mean sending fan mail to him, or an open letter on-line type thing?

I'm not adverse to the idea at all, but I will warn you in advance that although I can write competently in Japanese, translating into Japanese may take me a little while to get done properly, especially if it's going to be long.

It's definitely something to think about.
I can't make any promises at the moment, but let me know what you have in mind.

Stuart [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Stuart [Visitor] — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:01:36 +0000

Sorry for my earlier sloppy message.

But I think you got the message and with the last lines I meant:

"I think we have a good chance of writing something interesting".

I hope you like the idea, send me a message back!

Stuart Bilo [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Stuart Bilo [Visitor] — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:09:26 +0000

Remember me? A loyal visitor of your blog and Urasawa fan.

Is it possible for us (with your Japanese language skills) to send Urasawa a letter as from this blog so everyone here who wants to can send his little part of the letter?

It's real crazy, but the idea Urasawa is actually going is insane and besides that who should believe in our own originality and linguistic skills to make it a letter that may even be interesting for him to.

We could even mention the blog.

Humm, Say what you think.

gottsuiiyan [Member] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

gottsuiiyan [Member] — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:56:23 +0000

Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Knowing people read keeps me motivated to do this.

I've got more coming soon.

P.S.

Matthew,

Yeah, I think it's "name" too, but I prefer to write it as it would be transliterated from the katakana because I don't know the origin of the word. Also "name" would not make sense to anyone who didn't know the Japanese and I hope more than just "manga" people will take an interest in Urasawa.

So far no one I've asked, Japanese or otherwise, seems to know where "neemu" word came from either. If it is from the English "name", I'd like to hear the story behind it!

Thanks for reading and for the comment!

Santi [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Santi [Visitor] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:49:38 +0000

Great interview, thanks for the hard work as usual

I love what he says about the faces

and he makes really good nemuus with the facial expressions and all

and finally making mangas like they do in japan it's insane but it's awsome! hahaha

till next post

Matthew J. Brady [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Matthew J. Brady [Visitor] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:34:03 +0000

I love these interview translations, as always, especially since we don't see comments like these from manga creators very often in the West. And those images are incredible.

One note: I believe the term for a rough draft, as I've heard it translated, is "name", although I might be wrong about that.

Baletanke [Visitor] in response to: Naoki Urasawa on making comics.

Baletanke [Visitor] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:40:53 +0000

thee cartoon is great...keep it like that... :)