Random links and questions

[oyceter]

• vom_marlowe is asking who's your favorite mangaka, strictly style-wise?



• TechKnitting -- Why did no one tell me about this? This blogger would be awesome if only for her 3-in-1 circular join that eliminates the jog and weaves in your ends at the same time. While a lot of technique articles tend to be things I already know (how to gauge, etc.), TechKnitter actually provides new tips and tricks on old techniques. I think my favorite may be the 3-in-1 join and the tips on long-tail cast-on.
  
  Now all I need to do is email her to ask about good ways to do tubular cast-on in circular, non 1x1 rib tubular cast-on, and the possibilities of using Kitcherner stitch to graft together things in patterns (ribbing and anything non-stockinette and non-garter).



• And I ask everyone what comics or manga you can think of that have stories-within-stories, or stories that comment on each other (aka, the text narrative is telling a different story than the graphic narrative, but they illuminate each other)?

Comments

[oyceter]

Yeah, I was definitely thinking World's End. And Ramadan, though that has less of the one story commenting on another factor.

I think I'm looking more for something like:
Caption: And then the Monkey King beat up the bad guys.
Picture: Our Hero being beaten up by bad guys

So there's that interplay between the caption and the picture, where you can see that Our Hero wishes he were like Monkey and is using the story to make himself feel better, in a way. If that makes any sense at all...

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

…heh. I was all, “SCRUBS DOES THAT!” but of course that isn’t a comic.

[oyceter]

Hee! Scrubs!

Totally OT, but did you see Dr. Kelso's His Story ep? Ahh, Kelso, I love your grumpy, bitter self.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

I really liked that one--this is the first season of Scrubs I've watched live, and it's been hit or miss for me, but I really liked that one. And the musical episode.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I haven't been crazy about some of the storylines, and then they will do Kelso's story, which reminds me again why I love Scrubs.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I know I've seen this, but only as a one-off joke panel, so I can't recall any specific examples.

I have a brief sequence that's kind of like that in one of my forthcoming manga, where the hero is narrating his martial arts training in a manner something like this:

Narration: It was hard at first...
Panel: He gets kicked in the head.

Narration: ...but after a while it got easier.
Panel: A small woman throws him across the room.

Narration: Really! You should see the other guy!
Panel: He is sitting on the edge of the floor holding an ice-pack to his head. The small woman sits beside him, bright and chipper, with a tiny band-aid on her cheek.

[oyceter]

I know! I know it's done fairly often in Western comics, but I can't think of any manga examples, so I don't know how it'd look in manga.

[octopedingenue]

Manga doesn't really do much of the "neat caption on top of picture / commenting on picture," though, to have that interplay. (There's the "shoujo inner monologue meandering through the whitespace," but...not really teh smae) Which is how I tend to spot out clunky OEL manga: "Stop putting intrusive little boxes all over everything!!"

Speaking of which, a comic I missed that sort of applies, not really, but around the edges: Cable & Deadpool.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I know! I realized this when I figured all the panel layouts in my head were from Western comics examples, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do it in manga-style.

Do you think the manga you mentioned above does something like this? I am not wedded to the caption-picture combo, but I want some sort of contrast between the text and the picture, and am not sure how to do it.

[octopedingenue]

For some kind of ironic contrast between text and picture, you've got to have the narrator telling the story (to you / to hirself) and lying (to you / to hirself), or unaware of the contrast; the former is not so common in confessional introspective shojo monologuing, so I am racking my brain for the latter...

There's a scene with not-quite-right-but-almost scene/image commentary like that in Gekka no Kimi; give me a minute to pull it up.

[oyceter]

That latter bit from GnK is very cool, thank you again for putting them up!