Twist Street

HQ @ Los Angeles, California.

[twiststreet]

From an essay about Ryoko Yamagishi's Arabesque (1971):

What’s remarkable is how Yamagishi works within the typical shojo constraints to produce a story that is almost obsessive in its discussion of the dancing presented and lyrical in its visual telling of that dancing. I’ve never seen a manga so intensely focussed on dancing. Like, the actual dance part of dancing. Page after page after page lovingly depicts ballerinas in the middle of grand jetés, pirouettes and attitudes shown in a series of overlapping figures in slightly different position. And you can tell that Yamagishi loves ballet. There is such beauty in her ballerinas, such tenderness in the lines of their exaggeratedly long legs. And she never fails to explain a ballet term to her reader, giving us the details on a variety of classic ballets and their significance to ballet in general.

[twiststreet]

[twiststreet]

I'm having a really nice time with Kyoko Okazaki's Pink lately, which I'm reading slowly, the ebook sitting in the Apple Store. It's about an escort (who also has an office job), her family, her pet, this guy she gets involved with, them colliding around. It's from 1989 so it's about money, basically-- there's a kind of 80's punk disconnected-feeling to it that I think makes for a real comic. (It's considered a classic apparently of its genre, but I don't much about anything, josei or whatever genre it's considered a part of).

Okazaki's more famous for Helter Skelter which I remember seeing only a little of (it's one I want to circle back to and finish) but as being way, way more intense, more De Palma or Polanski or somebody, more horror-- this is just loose, a lively sort of character piece/comedy-soap, more new wave, though I don't know which new wave, exactly, just "generally new wave". Stories about young people with anomie fucking always = a new wave somewhere on the planet or another.

Okazaki's line is really free, even compared to what I've seen of her later works-- it's pouring out of her. That's always a fun plus for me, when someone can make that feel organic to the work/their-voice instead of just sloppy / a-skill-issue. I guess the obvious comparison point for her line (besides fashion illustration) would be Feiffer, but you know, that feels a little easy to say; or Penelope Bagieu and that era of French blog-based comics artists, I guess, but Bagieu's interests are so different, more wholesome or historical-- Okazaki seems angrier, though in a fun way, not in a take-a-vacation way.

Okazaki's a sort of tragic figure because she was very impressive to her readers, or she just seems pretty singular, very of her time, but then her career got cut short due to severe injuries she sustained. She's still alive but not working in 20 years, while that talented-- it's tough to hear about. Still, for a 13 year career, she really belted out some winners that do seem to manage to linger before that happened. There's a video essay about her here; a better write-em-up here.

[twiststreet]

"Weird ramble about the Scooby Doo universe timeline. But we know Scooby doo takes place in the 1960s during the original series which is roughly 100 years after the Civil War ended. We learn in "A night of fright is no delight" Scooby saved a very rich Colonel for drowning and that Colonel was in the Civil War based upon his Civil War items the gang stumble across. In order to have died in the 1960s and have been old enough to fight in the Civil War (even super young) he would have still been 100+ years old. Now in the movie the Boo Brothers which is from the 80s and takes place after the main series Shaggys Uncle passes away right before the beginning of the movie and was most definitely a Confederate soldier judging by his ghosts uniform and War stuff found by gang. Putting his uncle (not even great uncle) at the youngest 115-135 years old. This leads to so many questions for me like why are there so many Confederate soliders in or mentioned in Scooby doo? Do people just live longer in Scooby doo? Is it a different Civil War and happened later?"

Scooby Dooby Doo: WHEN are you?

[twiststreet]

[twiststreet]

Even if the sun is shining and you can see the beach in the horizon, you’re never 100% free from flashbacks to Charlie’s Angels 2. They went full throttle— we’re none of us safe.

[twiststreet]

Damn, the asian grocery took one look at me and called their shot like Babe Ruth. Dr. Ruth saw your blue-ribbon boy coming from a mile away.

[twiststreet]

“We’ve got a Morgan Stanley banker who’s doing change in their neighborhood.”

[grootficguy]

i tried explaining to this girl at a party once how i could be gay and asexual at the same time and it basically boils down to never being into anyone but like once a year i’ll find a man attractive. and she was like “so what am i if i only like girls, and i’ve never found any of my boyfriends attractive and and i just wanna do cocaine all the time?” i was like “you’re a lesbian with a coke addiction?” and she was like “woooooah”. she broke up with her boyfriend that night and had a threesome with two girls in the bathtub. rebecca if you’re out there, i hope you’re going places. well, not far, since you’re electronically tagged. but spiritually.

[despazito]

Another one for "objectively funny crimes should not be punished"

[sorairoknife]

[lackeyhenchman]

[twiststreet]

[twiststreet]

Blade Runner real...

[twiststreet]

God, I hate Scooby Doo tourists. They don't get it-- they're not about that Scooby life, for real, filthy casuals. Get a clue! Oh wait, you wouldn't know what to do with a clue because you don't know the lore or how to build a clue-appropriate trap. Fake Scoob fans killing me. I'm really him, this shit ain't nothing to me, man. (X)

[filmphotofranz]

[twiststreet]

“Is this place hipster? Not sure.”