Sunday, October 06, 2013

Berserk - Complete Series (1997)


Berserk is a long-running seinen manga by legendary manga-ka Kentaro Miura. It is an incredibly dark and deeply textured tale centering on two men; the black swordsman: Guts, and the leader of the Band of the Hawk: Griffith. The first volume of the manga was published on November 26, 1990 by Hakusensha in it's Jets Comics collection. 

In 1992, after the publication of three more volumes, Berserk was serialized in Young Animal. The series was adapted into a twenty-five episode series covering the series' first story arc from October 7, 1997 to March 31, 1998. 

It should be noted that Berserk, the manga, is still running and still features some of the best artwork ever created for the medium. Miura is an undisputed master and Berserk is his masterpiece. The series gets progressively more supernatural as it goes forward and fans who began the series in the nineties are still eagerly awaiting it's conclusion.

The anime series below is an excellent introduction into the Berserk universe and covers the first major story arc of the manga, The Golden Age, extremely faithfully. As good as the anime is (and it is good), the manga is better, and so if you like the show I assure you, you will need to read the series, especially since (without giving anything away) the show ends extremely abruptly and at a very insane cliffhanger that if you are anything like me, will just encourage you to read through the entirety of the manga, probably as quickly as possible.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Peter Gielen - Supermax Photography

"I specialize in photographic and video aerial studies of urban development, documenting its relation to land use. During a 2010 helicopter photo mission in Arizona, where I recorded sprawl patterns—the hidden geometries of suburban and exurban developments that become visible only when seen from far above the ground—I also flew over a number of prison complexes. Observing residential construction, I normally take my time to find the right position in flight, but these quick “fly-bys”—for example, over one of the Florence State Prison compounds, as seen in the shot above—were necessarily much less controlled. This airspace is technically not restricted, but it’s more or less understood that as a member of the general public, one shouldn’t come too close to any of these high-security places.

Initially I was interested only in the comparative planning forms of these prison structures, in contrast to regular commercial housing developments. But then I quickly became intrigued by what else these constructions might reveal, both from an aesthetic and a sociological point of view."

 -Peter Gielen via Creative Time (click for more/context)













More on the project from Wired

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Wicked City aka Yōjū Toshi (1987) - Yoshiaki Kawajiri


Friday, August 16, 2013

Junji Itou - The Enigma of Amigara Fault
































Sunday, June 02, 2013

Jake and Dinos Chapman - Selections