Bakuman - a comic about making comics! By comic-makers!

Hey everybody, want to read a Japanese comic that isn't filled with either monsters, robots, wizards, robotic monsters or monstrous wizards constantly fighting each other with ever-bigger unwieldily-named attacks? Then look no further!

Bakuman is a story about two teenagers who want to make comics, and... that's it. They don't have some magical enchantment that allows them to draw at the speed of light, or anything. They even improve their skills by practice! Mind you there's still some suspension of disbelief required as their unemployed grandad is somehow paying for their studio's rent and electric and has been for decades before they even get started.

There's also only two books out at the moment, so getting started on it won't break the bank. The third is due out in Feburary. It's by the same creators as Death Note so i need not add the art is absolutely amazing. One of my favourite pictures is actually of a box of old love letters in a cupboard, the attention to detail on the torn paper, stamps and, erm, stamps (the kind the post office put on) is little short of obsessive.

Great artwork!!

Read book 4 today, only one month to wait until the next one rather than two or three!
Anway it involves four entries for some kind of competition, and it actually shows those entries! The artist has actually cultivated four different styles of artwork that the different characters draw in XD. Anyway the third entry features "unusual" backgrounds "made entirely of stippling" ...which look like they've come from the pen of a certain Mr Bellamy!