monkey comic

Last night my neighbour came upstairs with a comic book he’d bought in China, telling the same story I saw at the ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’ opera I saw recently. I did a study of the monkey character in one of the panels with my brush pen:

Here are the covers:

And inside (click to enlarge):

And moving on to Japan…
I just heard from Paul Gravett that there’s a fantastic opportunity to go to Kyoto for Lingua Comica 3:
Could you be one of the 14 to 16 lucky artists selected for this amazing opportunity to travel to Japan and the Kyoto International Manga Museum and become part of Lingua Comica 3?

With a deadline of July 30th, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) has just put out the call for applications for 2008’s comics cultural exchange between young English-speaking comics creators aged preferably 20 to 35 and based in Asia and Europe. Here’s your chance to collaborate first in pairs online from September 1st to November 1st, before flying to Kyoto, Japan to finalise your joint project together in person from November 9th to 13th in an intensive residence. This is followed by an exhibition, panel discussions, visits and seminars for a further three days until November 16th and the completed works will be published in book form.
More details here: http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/131_lingua_comica/131_lingua_comica.htm
Paul says he’s pretty sure they’ll include at least one Brit, and bizarrely none have applied yet. So if you’re British and make comics, go for it, you might stand a good chance!