Okinawa And Tiny Massages

Plus: Newburn! Daredevil AMA! Action figures!

Aug 22, 2023

As most of you already know, I’m something of a jock. In the sense that, once a year, I decide to be physically active and overdo it and end up almost dying. My latest thing is volleyball and, yes, last night I pulled a back muscle in the middle of a game. I sat on the sidelines trying to figure out how to breathe without pain, as I watched my teammates do infinitely better without me on their team.

So, yeah, sleeping last night was rough, but I managed. Shout-out to drugs! DRUGS: STOP FEELING THINGS™

This morning I of course spent some time googling how to fix my problem (the immediate problem, not why I think I can do sports). And I came across this:

Oh my god what an adorable image. Little mice on little massage tables as scientists give them little rubdowns! Yes, the world is burning, but somewhere, as I type this, a mouse is getting a deep tissue massage.

ARE YOU OKAY

I … wow. Thank you for asking! I’m pretty sore but am managing. I’m not used to you caring!

YOU HAVE FUCKING DEADLINES AND NEED TO KEEP WRITING

Oh, yeah. Of course.

Today is a special day! As MANGASPLAINING heads toward its 100th(!) episode, I’ve basically become a manga expert. And as an expert, I can safely declare which books are great and which are duds. Well, there’s a book out this week that is not only GREAT, but is also … a Mangasplaining publication??

Susumu Higa’s OKINAWA is out today from Fantagraphics, a collaboration with the MSX (Mangasplaining Extra) imprint. The first Mangasplaining book! It’s a series of stories about the island, dealing with WWII and the resulting occupation. It’s a profound and emotionally charged work that really brings to life the effects of war beyond the battlefield.

OKINAWA was the first book that MSX serialized, thanks to the amazing grant provided by Substack, and you can read the opening chapter here. The reviews are in for the book and boy oh boy they are fantastic. Check out the roundup here!

I’m not really involved in any of this, since I’m the ‘splained-to, not the ‘splainer in Mangasplaining. And neither is David since he’s got a manga day job. This is Chris and his husband Andrew, along with Deb, who pushed this project toward serialization and now print and I couldn’t be happier or prouder.

Mangasplaining books!

And now David Brothers gets his second shout-out because NEWBURN #10 is out this week and the new chapter of “GO BACK” by David and Nick Dragotta is in it!

The main story by myself and Jacob is INTENSE. But everything’s okay:

And did I mention NICK DRAGOTTA is on art for the backup??

So good. I know I’ve said it before, but David and Nick together on the page is like poetry.

My Daredevil AMA was a lot of fun last week! You can head over and check out all my answers if that’s your bag. There were a couple hundred questions and I did my best to answer them all! Even popped in this morning to handle the stragglers.

Next up is Marco answering questions! So head on over and find out what it’s really like to work with me (bad)!

And finally, last night I was on my friend Ken’s show, FORCE FIVE, where he, uh, opens action figure packages? It is very much not My Thing, but I played along as a terrible guest who didn’t understand the premise. Turned into a fun discussion about collecting!

Fun little easter egg too: I’m wearing my volleyball shirt because this was just before my game, so now you know I was wearing a “DID IT.” shirt as I hobbled home in shame.

Have a great week everyone!!!