Tag: manga

Pop Culture Squad > manga

With Further Ado #246: ITHACON Student Writing Competition – Taking a Look at Black Butler

Posted on by Ed Catto

ITHACON 46 was a rousing success. It seems like just about everyone had an outstanding experience. As part of the class I teach the Promoting and Managing ITHACON Class at Ithaca College, each year we embrace this annual tradition with the “With Further Ado” column.

Each year, I ask the students to submit a column on pop culture as if they were the author of this space. Our crack editorial staff pours over the submissions and selects a winner, and they get published on this website. (The fact that it gives me a couple of weeks break right after ITHACON is of no concern to anyone but me.)

Anyway, we have three amazing columns to publish this year.

Our second runner-up of this year’s fill-in columnist contest is Collin Longo and his thoughts about manga called Black Butler. Congrats to you, Collin!

Black Butler is a manga series created by mangaka (author) Yana Toboso, published in Square Enix’s magazine Monthly GFantasy. Having been published since September of 2006, the manga is currently ongoing with one hundred and ninety-eight chapters and thirty-two physical volumes released. In October of 2008, an anime television series of Black Butler was released, it now having three seasons, an original video animation (OVA), and a feature length movie. Several other adaptations have also spawned such as a live action movie, a video game, and even five stage musicals. Continue reading “With Further Ado #246: ITHACON Student Writing Competition – Taking a Look at Black Butler” →

With Further Ado #244: Five and a Half Questions with Mike Reiff (An ITHACON Prelude)

With Further Ado #244: Five and a Half Questions with Mike Reiff (An ITHACON Prelude)

Posted on by Ed Catto

I can’t wait for ITHACON! It’s coming up soon – April 22nd and 23rd. And if you buy your tix before April 16th, you also get this amazing swag bag. Trust me – there’s so much cool merchandise in these that it totally offsets the (modest) ticket prices.

Educator and writer Mike Reiff will be presenting at ITHACON this year too, and I couldn’t be happier. I caught up with him just so I could keep track of everything he’s up to!

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Question #1

Ed Catto: You are doing so much work with Graphic Novels and kids now. Can you tell me about it all?

Mike Reiff: Well, I would first note that I’m working with an outstanding team at Ithaca High School (IHS) on this – from the support of the district leadership to building principal Jason Trumble to a great English department, when we think about our recent push to diversify our literacy offerings – with “diversify” a complex and expansive term – one person couldn’t do what’s being done, it takes a team. So I’m speaking as a reporter as much as an implementer of some of the shifts, and some of the graphic novel work pre-dates my active involvement in this, including texts taught in classrooms and a astonishing array of graphic texts offered and promoted by our High School librarian team. Continue reading “With Further Ado #244: Five and a Half Questions with Mike Reiff (An ITHACON Prelude)” →

First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2

First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2

Posted on by Bob Harrison

This year is a momentous anniversary at Pop Culture Squad. The independent comic book company First Comics launched forty years ago  and published its first issue in March of 1983. Mike Gold, one of our key contributors at PCS, was the founder and editorial director at First.

First Comics was the little comics company with some of the biggest stars in comics before comic superstars was a thing. Names like Mike Grell, Howard Chaykin, John Ostrander, Timothy Truman, Jim Starlin, Mike Baron, and Steve Rude are just some of the comics greats who were regulars at First. It was fertile ground for independent creator-owned comics. The genres included superheroes, science-fiction, space fantasy, spy thriller, political satire, humor, and more. The publisher produced interesting comics that challenged the larger publishers to adapt. They innovated by producing the first digitally created comic in Shatter, by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz and bringing the manga title Lone Wolf and Cub to American readers. Continue reading “First Comics 40th Anniversary at C2E2” →