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Mao Zedong Welcomes Comic books

4/20/2018

We are now with the same publisher as Mao Zedong!
Haha...
And Nietzsche, Gramsci , Walter Benjamin, SLAVOJ ZIZEK
ÉMILE DURKHEIM, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, F. SCOTT FITZGERALD and a whole bunch of excellent books... from our new Spanish publisher, AKAL, who I just heard will put out our sociology type comic book, Portraits of Violence, there.
Great company to be in...and they seem to be a very good publisher.
https://www.akal.com/coleccion/universitaria/?p=3

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2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards- Portraits of Violence

4/15/2018

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Breaking News!
The 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards results were just announced and our Portraits of Violence book got a award.

Nice!

Category 29. GRAPHIC NOVEL/DRAWN BOOK - GENERAL
BRONZE MEDAL: Portraits of Violence: An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking

That's my 2nd medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and happy to get it.

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publisher of the month at Blackwells bookshop

4/14/2018

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Good to see our two books, Goodbye God and Fight the Power among the list of great books for the 'publisher of the month' focus at Blackwells bookshop. The publisher being New Internationalist/Myriad Editions...Nice!

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Forced fat aint fun

4/11/2018

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Scene from Trainspotting 2 where the characters are looking at old 70s football scenes from Scotland and correctly noting that most people were thin then (in the UK in general)... but aren’t now.

Since then changes in the food industry has made the average person overweight. and yes, its the faulty of yer best pal, ca-pi-ta-li-sm.

"UK Professor John Yudkin... In 1972, Yudkin wrote a book called Pure, White and Deadly, which outlined how the rise in heart disease correlated to the rise in the consumption of sugar. This was not a popular argument with the influential sugar lobby however and Yudkin was basically black-listed and discredited by powerful sugar-funded opponents. As a result, the case against sugar was forgotten and the low-fat obsession took hold. The result? Obesity rates in the UK are now 10 times what they were in the 1970s and the amount of sugar eaten has increased by 31 per cent since 1990 because of the ‘invisible’ sugar added to products like tomato sauce, soft- drinks, yogurt, baked beans, etc."

So...lets not let these food industry eejits away with making us fat for the sake of profit. Let's control their activities, have strict oversight of what they put in food... and, then, in a very good way, 'take us back to the 1970s.'

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The Satsuma Rebellion book now

3/19/2018

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Our new book connected to Japan is officially published this week: The Satsuma Rebellion.

The English version is out from North Atlantic Books from April the 3rd.
And the Japanese version 西郷隆盛と西南戦争 is coming out in May from Kodansha.

I'm happy with this book - its the kind of history book that I would have really liked myself, when I was a teenager getting into reading about history.

"A gripping graphic novel describing the uprising of 1887, when the old style samurai were crushed in a bloody conflict with the imperial army that ended samurai power in Japan. Historically accurate and with an easy-to-read format, The Satsuma Rebellion is Volume 2 in the Illustrated Japanese History series that began with Black Ships.On the same subject as NHK television's Taiga drama, now showing weekly in 2018.”

https://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/satsuma-rebellion.html

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'China is even worse!'

3/10/2018

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This is a common point made when anyone mentions some problem in Japan:

‘China is even worse!’

It may well be true in A, B, C point. But two problems with that:

1. Because X place is worse than Y place it does not mean - AT ALL - that we should give up and accept the moderately bad state of Y. Especially when the solutions are sometimes clear and easy. Things should be improved even if the problem is only moderate.

2. That attitude breeds a kind of arrogance and blindness that often ends up with Y ‘moderately bad’ place being left behind by X ‘very bad’ place. Because the bad place makes effort to improve, and after 20 years or so is - in reality - better than the Y place that has made no effort to improve.

Yup.

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classes at The British School in Tokyo

3/4/2018

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Me at 'The British School in Tokyo'

As the 'visiting author' during their book week I taught 9 classes in comic books over 2 days there. 7 classes to the younger kids (12/13/14 years old) in which I did a very short PPT intro to my books, then we spent most of the time on activities. In this case, I gave them 2 pages of art from our books, with the text whited out - and they had to come up with the speech balloons and caption text, working in pairs.

Then, with the use of a nice little pen type camera which the school had, we sent what they had done, panel by panel to the screen, and i read it out...of course they had done lots of silly and interesting stuff: comedy, horror, realistic and out right odd interpretations of what the story could be. The kids laughed a lot to see each others stuff.

I also did a class with the older students, 17 and 18. Along with a few members of staff they asked me some very good questions about graphic novels, the creative approach, problems that come up, and even got into contentious issues like how money holds back comics. I was very impressed by how eloquent and knowledgable the kids are at such international schools are. One 18 year old student asked me if there are any other writers that I would like to make a visual version of. I said, yes, Jorge Luis Borges - and not only did she know who he was, she even mentioned the title of one of his stories. Great stuff!

And I did a presentation to the whole school also (500 plus and all the staff), in a big lecture theatre. The students mostly organised this themselves, including an excellent video of my books they had made, and this TV show type question and answer session after my presentation.

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Our Japanese themed books are for everyone

2/22/2018

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In a way our Japanese history/culture types books, though they have been very well received by people who are already interested in Japan, suffer from not fitting neatly into any category.

1. I am not Japanese so I think some manga readers dont consider them 'real manga' worth checking out, even though the artists are all Japanese and the subjects are all about Japan.
2.They also don’t quite fit into some folks idea of literary graphic novels, because the subjects are often samurai or martial arts focused. This is perhaps seen, quite incorrectly, by some as macho, or military or war focused… therefore not suitable subjects for female readers or not matching with the generally progressive world view of many readers of mature graphic novels.
3. Our Japanese themed books also dont fit into mainstream superhero comics (where macho/fighting stuff is perhaps more popular), because, actually, there is surprisingly little fighting in our books and battles are shown in ways that, for mainstream superhero comics readers, seem disappointingly realistic, brief and devoid of ‘wham-bam’ violent thrills.

While I can understand that easy classification is a common shortcut, I think all of the above are narrow and mistaken. What our Japanese themed books are about is: history, culture, philosophy. Aren't those interesting topics, suitable for anyone? They are done in ways that don't exaggerate or simplify like Hollywood movies often do - instead we try to show the real events and people and places, according to what research has uncovered. There is no valid reason to think of such books on history, culture, philosophy as not suitable for female readers. It should perhaps be pointed out that most of the Japanese artists I work with are female (for no particular reason, its just turned out that way). And these books should be of interest to those who like mature graphic novels like Maus, From Hell or Persepolis, etc, which are also quite often concerned with history, culture, philosophy. Manga fans, if they have an interest in Japan, can learn quite a bit from these books which go into key aspects of Japanese culture/history and which are all drawn and partly researched by Japanese artists. Those who like the more traditional superhero books probably will be disappointed by the lack of ‘action’ in our books, yes - but they should be open to trying something different.

So, why not try them!

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Library pick!

2/11/2018

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A librarian with good taste picks our book as a favourite at the American Library Association's 2018 midwinter show in Denver.

Nice!

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First Korean book!

2/4/2018

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One of our books came out in Korea, Jan 2018. That’s the first time for me in that language. Its our sociology type illustrated book ‘Portraits of Violence’ with Dr Brad Evans (now a regular guest on Russell Brand’s show, discussing various interesting topics about society) and various lovely artists.

지은이_ 진 마이클 윌슨Sean Michael Wilson
미국, 영국, 일본의 여러 출판사에서 많은 책을 낸 만화가다.
대표작으로 영국의 《선데이 타임스》에서 2008년 최고의 책으로 꼽은
《크리스마스 캐럴A Christmas Carol》이 있다.

https://blog.naver.com/darun_pub/221185462985

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Latest news

Welcome to the latest news about the books and activities of Sean Michael Wilson, professional comic book writer from Scotland, living in Japan.
Despite extensive evidence to the contrary he is not a total radge...

'I just nicked these two books' pose

Review of the film 'HANCOCK' by the legendary Gandry Macallan:
" My enjoyment of this otherwise excellent film was somewhat marred by the fact that Tony - 'the lad himself' - did not appear anywhere in it!"

'Finger glued to the face' pose.

Review of the film 'INVASION' by the legendary Gandry Macallan:
" My enjoyment of this otherwise excellent film was somewhat marred by the actual invasion of planet earth by aliens from the andromeda
system - during the film, no less!"

'Wish i was oot playing fitba wi ma pals' pose.

Review of the musical 'RENT' by the legendary Gandry Macallan:
" My enjoyment of this otherwise excellent musical was somewhat marred by the arrival of my landlord to collect 9 weeks over due rent on my small apartment in Notting hill - during the event, no less!"

Sean Michael Wilson - Wilson's Web

Mao Zedong Welcomes Comic books

2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards- Portraits of Violence

publisher of the month at Blackwells bookshop

Forced fat aint fun

The Satsuma Rebellion book now

'China is even worse!'

classes at The British School in Tokyo

Our Japanese themed books are for everyone

Library pick!

First Korean book!

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'I just nicked these two books' pose

'Finger glued to the face' pose.

'Wish i was oot playing fitba wi ma pals' pose.