2 posts tagged “japanese”

Oh man.

As anyone on my facebook knows, I've been working hard for the past few months on the design for the first issue of the upcoming US publication, Japanese Nostalgic Car. It's the first US (or possibly anywhere in the west?) magazine to focus 100% on classic Japanese cars.

Here's a bit of a preview of what's to come. It's an 83 page magazine, professionally printed, perfect bound, and on good solid stock with card covers front and back (not unlike Freestyle magazine's covers). I'd tell you exactly what weight the card and paper is, but it's measured in some stupid US scale rather than in gsm, haha. Sorry! Suffice to say, it's all damn nice.

I hope those of you interested in classic JDM will consider buying a copy from http://japanesenostalgiccar.com! Unfortunately it's not being distributed through stores - that kind of thing is damn hard and expensive to line up.

Urgh, I have too many interests and hobbies.  The end result is that I know a little bit about everything, and I'm an expert on nothing at all, haha.  

Drawing.  Obviously, this is the main one.  I'm very far from pro, but I've made some real progress in the last year and I hope to make even more in '07.

Cars.  Can't get enough of cars.  JDM, EuDM, USDM, AuDM, even KDM.  

Music.  Not to the extent of some folks, but I definitely can't go 2 minutes without some sort of music playing.  I don't even watch TV.  Can't sing along to TV.

TV.  Okay, I lied.  There's a few shows I watch, but I download them.  Heroes, Jericho, Smallville, Top Gear.

Anime & Manga.  Can't get enough of these.  Although lately I've come to the conclusion that 95% of all anime and manga available right now is pure shit.  Crap stories, confusing, convoluted, formulaic rubbish.  

Japanese culture.  I dunno why, but I guess it's the complete alien-ness of it all.  It's not like Europe or America or even South America, where a lot of things are the same as they are here.  Going to Japan is like going to another planet, and that fact alone always amuses me.

Fashion.  I'm too much of a fat bastard to fit into anything fashionable - how it's not illegal to put an "XL" tag on a shirt that wouldn't fit my fairly slim girlfriend always shocks me - but I do love browsing the various clothing websites. I'm not comfortable going into stores though, I always feel like they're looking at me and thinking "yeah none of us stuff is gonna fit you, fatty!"

Comics.  The first comic I ever bought was one of Marvel's old "What If?" titles, wherein the X-Men were sucked off to the Mojoverse.  With the knowledge I have now, I get what happened.  But as a 10yr old with very little X-Men knowledge, I couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on.  Wasn't the best entry into the comics world!  Since then I've built up quite a sizeable collection, though frankly I haven't bought a comic in about 5 years.  I can't justify the cost, they're just too expensive these days.  I know there's a lot more people involved in each comic now, and the printing stock and methods cost more than they used to, but still.  Anyway, I'm an unashamed pirate of comics now.  Always downloading them.  Garth Ennis's "The Boys" is interesting.  Warren Ellis is an old fave of mine - The Authority, Planetary, etc. - but his recent work has been formulaic bullshit that he pulled out of a hat, and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.  Nextwave? Get fucked.

Gadgets.  I can never afford them, but I do keep track of what's out there. Aaaahh to be a millionaire!