Comics...

[khiemtran]

As regular readers will know, Liem adores Pokémon comics. He will happily sit and chomp through a two hundred page manga in a single sitting. Even allowing for most of the pages being illustrations, that's still quite impressive for his age.

And I must admit, they're quite fun to read too. The plots are quite strong (at least in the earlier books), the artwork can be clever and there are lots of strong and endearing personalities amongst the characters (probably more so than in the tv series).



But lately, we've also started to notice a change in Liem's drawing...



Here he's decided to split the action into panels, going from top-to-bottom. (It will be interesting to see when he gets to more panels, whether he decides to go form right-to-left or left-to-right.) Liem's narration for this was "NOT FAIR! YOU SPOILED MY FIGHT!!!"



And this one dwells on the ironic dangers of firing an anti-aircraft gun during battle. (It may also be influenced by any number of Daddy's multiple crashes playing Il-2...)



And while we're at it, these are from Liem's Surprise series. (Picture yourself reading quietly on the couch, when suddenly someone sticks a sheet of paper in front of your face...)

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

How interesting that his pictures are developing a narrative and turning into comics. I did particularly like the first surprise picture. :)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was quite surprised when the change to separate panels came about. He seems to have picked up some of the visual language of the manga too. You can see he's trying to convey distinct emotions on each character and putting each emotion on a different panel.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I love all of those. I think Liem has real talent. I got a good chuckle from the Surprise series. Is that his own idea? Because the perspective on them is just perfect for conveying something "in your face."

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

He could have picked it up from his friends at schools, but it certainly didn't come from us. I like how in the airplane one, you can see people bailing out in the distance and they look a lot smaller. (It does look remarkably like the gunner's view from the earlier cartoon...)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that airplane one shows real imagination--thinking what it would be like to have a face full of oncoming propellor!

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I love the surprise concept. The anti-aircraft gun one made me laugh. He's developing a great sense of humor.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a lot of fun at the moment, because he's always surprising us with new things. Right now he's playing on the floor with his lego and all sorts of robbers and ninjas are suffering horrible fates while trying to break into his booby-trapped house.

[cecile-c.livejournal.com]

Best thing is, the two comic strips really are funny! I love the soldier jumping out of the paper on the second one...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it. We were certainly very amused.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

:-D :-D :-D

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I wonder what's going to happen once he discovers how to make flick pad animations... Then again, maybe that's an obsolete art these days.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh *here* is the post with the comics! I saw them on Flickr before I found the post.

These are awesome and excellent. I love the expression of the cloud (both expressions, in the two panels) in the first one, and I love the SURPRISE ones--those monster faces are the best.

Keep up the good work, Liem!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I especially like that first monster. He was drawing just now ("this is a building falling on you"), but he's just received his next Pokémon manga, so I guess he'll be busy for the next little while...