Here’s a little oddity, it’s the story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s early Apple days and the creation of the Apple ][, a story we’ve heard many times before, but never in Japanese Manga…

This dates back to 1984 and is the work of Japanese manga artist Mitsuru Sugaya who put the strip on the web on iPhone launch day in Japan. It’s been a while since I studied Japanese so my reading isn’t what it used to be (I think I can still make out some of the kana in there but not much else), but the pictures are pretty special…

Found via 9 to 5 Mac…

So there’s a Batman film out at the moment, I thought it was rather good. Christopher Nolan embarked on his retelling of the Batman story with Batman Begins in 2005 and he’s sure to deliver at least another installment before he’s got it out of his system. I enjoyed the film, and it made me think about the different ways a group of people can tell the same story. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a Bat-Blog but designers tell stories every day and as individuals they can do it quite differently. There’s a parallel in there somewhere…

Batman is a good example because it has received many different treatments and been retold according to some very talented people’s vision. I remember the original Batman movie coming out in 1989, and being swept away in the event as a child, collecting the sticker book, playing the Commodore 64 game etc and just generally reveling in the spectacle of the thing. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson’s portrayals formed the basis of my perception of those characters for a good few years and Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham City and it’s inhabitants was incredibly rich and atmospheric. It was certainly at odds with the 60s TV series.

Read the rest of this entry…

Less of a film review and more of an excuse to post this image which made me laugh. I did actually go and see The Dark Knight last week and enjoyed it immensely. Heath Ledger was bloody brilliant as The Joker, really very frightening. His pencil-disappearing trick was certainly not from the Paul Daniels school of magic. Michael Caine was great too.

I wish they’d resisted the temptation to ladle plot twists over plot twists as it ramped up though, and we’d got a bit more of Ledger with a cleaner narrative. I remember Batman Begins rambling a bit like that towards the end, but overall it was great and if you’re a fan of this sort of thing get down to the cinema and see it. Then read The Killing Joke.

Also, do yourself a favour and catch the Watchmen trailer…

Someone’s busy removing Garfield from all the Jim Davis strips, and it turns out the remaining cartoons document the sad mental decline of Jon Arbuckle. In fact, was Garfield ever there? It’s kind of like the end of the Sixth Sense…

[via]