I’m Famous in Japan! Page 5
Hello and welcome to the next page of I’m Famous in Japan!
We’ve now reached Japan proper, and this page is pretty much as scripted. I really did want to make this airport scene a bit fancier, but after looking at photos of Tokyo Narita airport, and found it to be a very generic looking airport. The top left panel is heavily based on one of those photos, and as you can see Narita is mostly made of boxes. Having traveled through Asia, I usually encountered weird and wonderful airports with crazy curved designs and glass all over the place. Thus it’s kind of disappointing to see Narita look so…well normal. That isn’t a very big deal though, since most airports tend look identical on the inside, and thus we have the very sterile looking travelator corridor that dominates the page.
The final pun came to me last-minute. The script called for Lone Wolf to sit on the floor, all annoyed with the idea of standing. Then I thought: ‘What is the most thick-headed jerk thing a person could do here?’ And so the image of Lone Wolf sitting on the travelator’s exit came to me. I’ve actually encountered jerks like this in the past, just standing that the end of these things while a large crowd approached. My typical solution for them would be to just plow right through! I don’t know how that would work with LW….
In Japan
Finally, a sort of weird side note. This page has broken one of my personal ‘Cardinal Rules for Western Manga-style Comics’. These are rules I made up a lone time ago to ensure I didn’t fall into some of the pitfalls of other similar artists. I’m Famous in Japan breaks Cardinal Rule No.1, which is: ‘Never set your in comic in Japan!’ Sounds kind of strict doesn’t it? There’s a reason for this rule.
I have seen a lot of Western Manga-style comic artists throw in a whole load of time, effort and talent into a comic, only to set it in Japan….you know…just like the few hundred thousand Manga that are produced yearly in Japan itself. I feel that it’s a massive waste to just copy that. If you are from a country other than Japan, you really aught to inject your own culture and settings into a comic…or at very least not copy the Japanese right down to their location! It’s nearly pointless! And so, I have this rule.
I’m Famous in Japan! is an exception to my made-up rules, since it’s a parody and collaboration comic. The fact that Lone Wolf is even in Japan is main joke of the whole series, and so I really like the idea of bring in this particular comic to Japan. Also, I do like making fun of the very genre I use in my comics. Some people can take Anime/Manga a little too seriously, and it’s refreshing to make fun of it.
Coming soon (I hope) Page 6!
-Rawr