‘Kansai mini tour’ of comic book stuff in Osaka and Kobe.

Back from my ‘Kansai mini tour’ of comic book stuff in Osaka and Kobe.

It was pretty good in general, I think. Taught 8 classes on comic books to various ages at the excellent Osaka International School. The kids were good in all classes (expect the older bunch who were a bit cool – it’s really interesting how behaviour changes from the direct enthusiasm of a 12 year old to the cool, detached distance of a 15 year old).

But the younger kids were great. I was very impressed with their questions – which their teacher had got them to prepare before but then they went off into ad hoc ones that were just as interesting. For example the Grade 4 and 5 kids, at only 9 or 10 years old, asked really detailed and insightful questions about how to make comics, how to combine text and art, even on what the financial situation is like!

We did an activity in which i had taken out the text from one page of our comics, and they had to fill in the words with what ever they thought appropriate. Then the reverse – the words were there but I’d taken off the art – so they drew what the wanted that time. They did really well. One young girl wrote hers in Hebrew as she has only been in Japan a few months and her English and Japanese are not good enough yet.

The kids were very nice to me when they saw me in the halls or at lunch time, and treated me like I was a visiting celebrity (even crowding round me for about 50 autographs, as the photo shows). Not that this is my aim, but it was nice to be the recepient of their cute enthusiasm.





Ninja, racism and halloween

Not that those three are connected!

Not in this case anyway…

“To celebrate the launch of SECRETS OF THE NINJA book on July 7th, author Sean Michael Wilson explains to readers how comic books and manga are actually written. Using examples from his own book, he guides us through each step!”
The publisher asked me to do this – it outlines the basic steps of writing a comic, since most people have no idea of even these basic aspects. I also include what these stages are called in Japanese, just for fun.

Notice that this focuses on just the writing aspect of comics. Which is, of course, in no way to suggest that the art aspect is of lesser importance! And, indeed, with some clever people who can do both the words and the art the process maybe be very different from what I outline here:

https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/…/how-to-write-a-manga-…/



2. ‘If you dont like it – Get out my Country!’ … my article in ‘The London Economic’ newspaper on why that racist attitude is a mistake.

“If wrong, to be set right, to be made right, improved on when there is some problem. And how can some wrong habit, position, erroneous view etc be understood and set right if people are not allowed to express their opinion freely? All people, regardless of which country they happened to have been born in.”

…dedicated to certain people I know in Japan, the US and the UK.

http://thelondoneconomic.com/news/get-out-my-country




3. これは私の日本語の記事です　ハロウイーン

Here i am teaching the Japanese kids about halloween in Scotland, including the fun game ‘apple dooking’ – my article in the main Kumamoto newspaper, ‘Kumanichi shinbun’ October 2015.

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