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Post by thetouchtonetuner on Sept 14, 2021 14:49:04 GMT
Inspired by a recent read of Lemire's Essex County, the new Hernandez wrestling book, and the upcoming Bubbles baseball manga -- what are your favorite portrayals of sports in comic books/manga? Pictured is a hockey drawing of Essex County that really captures the size and excitement of live sport to me.  |
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Post by k0rnbr34d on Sept 14, 2021 14:53:04 GMT
Love Essex County. Ping Pong by Taiyō Matsumoto is the only sports comic I’ve read and I love it.
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Post by thetouchtonetuner on Sept 14, 2021 15:16:46 GMT
I still haven't read Ping Pong or seen the anime adaptation, but over quarantine I've been simply devouring the output of Masaaki Yuasa, the guy who they directed the Ping Pong anime adaptation. I gotta read/watch them both ASAP, will have to order the manga next month when I'm not overbudget on comics already LOL.
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Post by MilleniumDibber on Sept 14, 2021 15:19:47 GMT
I love Ping Pong! Have only read the first five volumes of Slam Dunk, but that is pretty incredible too. It's got a good blend of goofy cartoony and realistic athletics. Also it's one of the most popular manga of all time.  |
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Post by timbecile on Sept 14, 2021 16:55:54 GMT
I recently got a volume of Michel Vaillant; the author Jean Graton died this January, I later discovered. The art is so square it feels as funny to me as Cowboy Henk. Drawing cars and groups of people in pitstops and crowds is something he makes look easy.  |
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Post by disneyweirdness on Sept 14, 2021 19:10:01 GMT
Sports comics are such an underrated genre. I got this stack of 70s comics one time that had DC Comics Strange Sports Stories and some Charlton hot rod books, it was great stuff. I also collect comics with surfing covers, but usually there isn't a lot of surfing content in the stories themselves.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Sept 14, 2021 23:02:00 GMT
I still haven't read Ping Pong or seen the anime adaptation, but over quarantine I've been simply devouring the output of Masaaki Yuasa, the guy who they directed the Ping Pong anime adaptation. I gotta read/watch them both ASAP, will have to order the manga next month when I'm not overbudget on comics already LOL. I haven't read the comic but the anime is great. |
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Post by k0rnbr34d on Sept 14, 2021 23:02:08 GMT
The art is so square it feels as funny to me as Cowboy Henk. Lmao I totally see what you mean. These colors reminds me of dollar store toys. I love the aesthetic of this kind of comic but I never feel the desire to actually read them. |
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Post by lonyowdely on Sept 15, 2021 1:26:38 GMT
The closest thing to sports that I watch is professional wrestling, so I of course love whenever Love and Rockets has a wrestling related arc. If anyone has recs for other wrestling comics, I would love to hear them. The Drifting Classroom has a great violently heightened baseball bit that I enjoyed. I snapped this panel from that, thinking of Bat Kid and that Ryan Holmberg essay on the "demon ball" that I still need to read.  |
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Post by thetouchtonetuner on Sept 15, 2021 1:32:25 GMT
I forgot all about that baseball sequence in Drifting Classroom -- excellent stuff. Truly one of the best books of all time.
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Post by lonyowdely on Sept 15, 2021 18:53:04 GMT
I forgot all about that baseball sequence in Drifting Classroom -- excellent stuff. Truly one of the best books of all time. It's really the best! Makes sense that you can forget whole chapters though because the plot moves SO fast. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts when vol 3 arrives at the library for me. Baseball fan culture in Japan is next level and that sequence captures it really well. I'm excited to see more of that in Bat Kid, or maybe see how it changed over time. |
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Post by junkflower on Sept 15, 2021 19:21:18 GMT
I haven't read it in years but Eyeshield 21 by Yusuke Murata and Riichiro Inagaki is pretty crazy.
Like- all shonen sports series are fundamentally identical so I dont wanna harp on how great it is or whatever. But the illustration work by Murata- who later drew the One Punch Man adaptation, and who IMO is probably the most influential artist in the modern Jump era after Takeshi Obata (and took major cues from Capcom greats like Bengus and Kinu Nishimura)- just fucking rules.
I read once (did Jog say this? Idk) that every character in ES21 looks like they could be the main character from a lesser series. It just bristles with kinetic energy, but also, it's about the most alien and quintessentially American sport of all, American Football. Check it out!
I also dig Mitsuru Adachi's various baseball manga (H2 in particular) but they've aged like milk (full of that grabby lecherous kinda stuff).
I don't wanna be like "hey everyone check out illegal scanlations" but every major manga magazine has a few sports series running all the time, so that stuff is weirdly plentiful given the inherent cultural divide between comics and sports in the US
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Post by jpegjones on Sept 26, 2021 3:08:49 GMT
I also dig Mitsuru Adachi's various baseball manga (H2 in particular) but they've aged like milk (full of that grabby lecherous kinda stuff). I spent some time reading through his work a few years ago and it really clicked for me, especially Cross Game, but you essentially have to put your thumb over every other panel to actually enjoy it. If anyone knows of a good baseball manga where you don't have to deal with a dad saying something about how hot his daughter is or a guy trying to date his cousin, please let me know |
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Post by mikesheawright on Sept 26, 2021 18:26:36 GMT
PING PONG is theee best, I adore that book. I've never seen anyone capture the pace and feel of a sport like that. The way those pages move is astonishing, it also has an absolute hall of fame ending that made me tear up.
The boxing stuff in Paul Pope 100% is pretty rad although that's a small part of the book.
Interested in all these other recommendations too, thanks!
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