#Sana Takeda

[dailydccomics]

Harley by Sana Takeda

#harley quinn #harleen quinzel #dc comics #cover art #sana takeda #dc #black + white + redder #comics

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #3 – Monstress Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Monstress is one of about three comics I’ve ever considered myself an unequivocal fan of. I, alas, lost track of things during a hiatus a while back, and got to the point where I barely remembered where I was or what was happening. So, as a palate cleanser between longer books, I’m making it a project for the first chunk of the year to reread this from the start until I’m caught up again.

This is a very high concept series – a matriarchal dieselpunk fantasy world vaguely inspired by 1920s/30s East Asia with a strong art deco aesthetic. The world is divided between the Arcanic Courts – kingdoms ruled by the animalistic ‘Ancients’ and populated by the Arcanic descendants of their half-human children – and the Federation – a human nation-state dominated by witch-nuns who derive their influence from being able to render down the corpses of said Arcanics into magically potent ‘lilium’. Also there are insubstantial projections/ghosts of titanic tentacle-ey monsters that wander across the landscape sometimes. And a genocidal war ended in a stalemate a decade ago after a city was destroyed by something that no one on either side understands. Oh an in addition to the anthromorphic animal Ancients there’s also just normal cats, except they’re sapient and capable of speech and also necromancy. The book really throws you into things and a decent chunk of the first volume is just introducing and establishing the rules of the world.

The actual plot follows Maika Halfwold, an Arcanic who can pass for human except for the giant occult tattoo on her chest. The story follows her abandoning her girlfriend and voluntarily getting herself enslaved and brought to the mansion/mad science laboratory of a powerful witch-nun so she can break out, fight her way through it, and interrogate her at gunpoint for information about the giant gaps in her memory of when as a child her mother worked with the witch on an archaeological dig. Things escalate from there due to a shard of an enchanted mask and an eldritch abomination that had been slumbering with Maika’s body who is awoken by it. The balance of the volume is spent with her, an incredibly untrustworthy cat, and a vulpine arcanic child who she more or less accidentally rescued from slavery as they try to escape the manhunt after them.

So there’s a lot here, and I really do love almost all of it. Most obviously, the art is just gorgeous – I mean, I’m an easy sell on dieselpunk/fantasy 20s stuff, but genre trappings aside the detail and use of colour is just incredible, and even the less detailed panels do an amazing job capturing expressions and emotion. Basically every aspect of character and environmental design is just very deliberate as well – aesthetics reflect character, and scenes are full of little background details that help sell and fill in the world. But fundamentally just very pretty, an aesthetic pleasure to behold.

Of course, one of the things a whole page of artistic flourishing is devoted to is a flashback of Maika – a starving enslaved orphan during the war – eating the stomach of another child who’d died before her to keep herself going. This is a book that just about exults in brutality and brokenness – ‘there is more hunger in the world than love’ is basically the tagline of the entire volume. This is a world on the verge of a genocidal total war, rife with slavery and human sacrifice, and it pulls absolutely no punches about depicting that (so, so many dead children). With, like, one-three exceptions everyone is flawed and compromised and betrays something they care about when their backs are against the wall. You really and truly can’t trust anyone.

You can see this clearly with Maika herself. She’s just, genuinely an incredibly unpleasant person to be around. Responds to feeling unsure or anxious by lashing out, all but incapable of showing affection in any legible way, too wrapped up in her own mountains of bullshit to even notice what anyone around her has going on until it’s shoved right in her face, paranoid and suspicious and more comfortable with violence than uncertainty, has 100% gotten people killed multiple times due to lack of ability to get over her own (mountains, abyssal, soul-crushing) trauma – really the list just goes on. In her defence basically everyone is actually out to get her (sadly the paranoia and suspicion do not in any way actually make her more difficult to deceive or betray). Anyway, I obviously love her, and the supporting cast is very nearly as good.

Just, generally this is not a series where suffering is ennobling – fear and shame and trauma and a desperate need to cling onto what power or privilege you can drive people as much or more as sympathy for or solidarity with others going through the same things they have. The fact that the Federation is run by a bunch of genocidal religious fanatics doesn’t mean the Ancients ruling the Arcanic Courts are good, or even necessarily that they care about the lives of their subjects beyond their own power and pleasure. It could easily tip over the edge into monochrome nihilism, but it actually manages to toe the line very well.

Though like, despite everything I just said, it does do the oddly common modern genre fic thing where there’s brutal unsparing depictions of colonial plunder and oppression but also everyone’s an intersectional feminist. Not as much as some, but the race-war is between humans and arcanics with no one seeming to care on whit about intraspecies ethnicity or race, and the setting is matriarchal in the modern implicit glass ceiling way a modern American corporation is patriarchal, not the way a midcentury warlord state or fascist empire is patriarchal (not that this means there aren’t graphic threats of rape or depictions of what’s clearly sex slavery just that being the one holding the lash isn’t really gendered).

So yeah, overall happy to report that the first volume of this still absolutely and entirely holds up – and considered as a work on its own the first volume really coheres far better than I’d realized when I was first reading this in one mad rush. Very much looking forward to continuing on to volume 2.

#book review #monstress #comic #sff #lesbian space atrocities #Marjorie Liu #Sana Takeda

[artverso]

Sana Takeda - Monstress

#sana takeda #monstress

[extraordinary-heroes]

Dark Crystals #6 (Cover art by Sana Takeda)

#dark crystal #sana takeda #urru #mystics #boom! studios #boom! comics #textless cover art #artwork #illustration

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Harley Quinn: Black + White + Redder #5 by Bilquis Evely, Matheus Lopes, Justin Halpern, Kath Lobo and Speremint. Cover by Sana Takeda. Variant cover by Warren Louw. Out in November.

"When the women of a medieval village reach their breaking point about their men’s abusive ways, they make a terrifying choice… to enter the woods and conjure the spirit of the Harlequin! Harley Quinn animated series executive producer Justin Halpern and rising star Kath Lobo let Harley loose on a prison transport plane, intent on punishing the villain who let out a stinky fart. And WebTOON creator Speremint shows what happens when Harley comes face-to-face with an internet impostor!"

#harley quinn: black + white + redder #harley quinn #harleen quinzel #dc comics #bilquis evely #matheus lopes #justin halpern #kath lobo #speremint #sana takeda #warren louw #variant cover #comics

[undefinedbehavior]

Monstress remains impossibly good.

#monstress #sana takeda #marjorie liu #AND ITS ON HIATUS UNTILL FEBRUARY ; ;

[omercifulheaves]

Monstress #47 Art by Sana Takeda

#comics #image comics #monstress #marjorie liu #sana takeda

[haveyoureadthiscomic-poll]

#the night eaters #night eaters #marjorie liu #sana takeda #titan #titan comics #graphic novel #graphic novels #horror #horror comic #horror comics #poll

[seanpgilroy]

Age of Conan: Bêlit #1 cover by Sana Takeda

#sana takeda #conan #belit

[xmencovered]

X-Men Forever Annual (2010) #1 / Published: April 21, 2010 / Artist: Sana Takeda

#sana takeda #xmen forever #jean grey #wolverine #2010s xmen #<3

[newx-menfan]

Fav X-23 artists!!

In celebration of Laura’s new mini (🍾🥂), here’s a countdown of some of my FAVORITE Laura Kinney art!

Mike Choi

Let’s be honest- Choi is pretty much *THE X-23* artist! From “Target X” to “X-Force vol. 3”, there’s just something about his art that always manages to capture Laura’s essence perfectly!

2) Joshua Middleton

I KNOW Middleton is a controversial choice…but there’s just something sad and tragic about his rendition of Laura that I really love. He’s one of the X-23 artists that I really wish would return on another X-23 book!

3) Will Conrad

It might be because of the Hellion and Laura “Killing Dream” scene, but Conrad is one of my favorite X-23 artists! While definitely not the strongest X-23 artist listed…I just really like his rendition of Laura!

(I think part of it is that I just like Laura with pouty lips!) 😂🤣

4) Billy Tan

Tan probably SHOULD be higher, simply because he did such a wonderful job with conveying a wide variety of emotions despite Laura being completely silent!!… Tan really makes “Innocence Lost” the power house book that it is and if it wasn’t for Choi and Middleton, I would probably say he is the most iconic X-23 artist!

5) Skottie Young

While I do weirdly enjoy Mark Brooks 90’s style chibi art…Young is definitely *THE New X-Men artist!* While I wasn’t much of a fan of his version of Julian…I deeply LOVE his Laura, Surge, Pixie, and Anole and appreciate how much Young IS the Bill Sienkiewicz of NXM!

6) Sana Takeda

Takeda is kind of a “hit or miss” for me…if I am being honest, I like Takeda’s rendition of Hellion better than I like her Laura.

Some of Takeda’s panels are really gorgeous and really fit the scene perfectly (like the panel of her with Jubilee!), and some just feel kind of out of place in an X-23 book; I would kind of compare it to “Batman: Gotham Knight” with bishie Bruce Wayne… sometimes it’s just a little bit jarring and it kind of takes me out of the moment.

7) Kalman Andrasofszky

While Andrasofszky has ONLY done covers…I tend to think they have all been pretty memorable! I especially LOVE his Hellion and Laura cover and I wish Andrasofszky was doing the main art for the new Schultz book!

8) Marcio Takara

I really enjoy Takara and how fun his art is; my only wish is that he had drawn Laura during her X-23 days, because I think his commission work of her is a bit better than his work on ANW. That being said- his Gabby is positively ADORABLE, as is his Jonathan!

9) Sara Pichelli

I REALLY love Pichelli’s art despite it being a Bendis book, focusing on Laura and O5 Angel, and Laura’s eye color being totally wrong!

Pichelli’s “goth Laura” is just absolutely beautiful! She’s another artist that I would love to see return to X-23, because her art is just Joelle Jones levels of beauty!

The nightclub ANXM issue is hands down some of the best Laura art out there and if it wasn’t for the coloring mistake, she’d probably be higher on the list for me!

10) Juann Cabal

While I don’t always love how Cabal does faces, he is definitely one of the most creative comic artists out there! The detail he puts in and how he stylizes the onomatopoeia is just really engaging! I especially LOVED his work in the “OWL” arc!

11) David Finch

While I am not always a big Finch fan, nor do I always think his art suits every character, I do really like his rendition of Laura. The excess of lines and grittiness just work really nicely with Laura and remind me of Jim Lee or Andy Kubert’s 90’s X-Men, but with a more modern color palette.

12) David Lopez

I really loved Lopez’s art when it first came out but have kind of cooled on it a bit since then. I think part of it is it just doesn’t really “look” like Laura to me. Compared to all the other artists, I just don’t feel like Lopez captures Laura’s “essence” as well as the others.

That being said, Lopez did a great job on “Four Sisters” and the panels in Paris are especially beautiful!

13) Phil Noto

Noto is that artist a LOT of people dislike because all his faces look more or less the same. I will give Noto this- I think his “face” works well for Laura in this instance; there’s just something kind of innocent about it that I like. I also like how Laura is a little more “plain” and “awkward” in his work; she looks like a genuine teenager here. She blends in to the background more.

I know Laura is SUPPOSED to be very attractive, but in some ways I enjoy Noto’s plainer rendition and I often think Noto’s work is in general, better suited for teen books than drawing characters like Emma or Black Widow.

14) Clayton Crain

While I like Crain’s work and think it was a good choice for X-Force…it does sometimes bug me how “CGI”- lite it looks…it definitely hasn’t aged well.

Some panels are absolutely amazing…others…not so much!

While I do think Crain had improved over time, his old work is, for lack of a better word, sometimes kind of clunky!

Those are some of my personal favorites- Let me know if you agree…? Or disagree…?

#x 23 #x23 #laura x 23 #Laura Kinney #wolverine #art #x men #new x men #new xmen #Marvel #Mike Choi #Billy Tan #Will Conrad #Sara Pichelli #Sana Takeda #Marcio Takara #David Lopez #Joshua Middleton #Clayton Crain #Kalman Andrasofszky #Phil Noto #Skottie Young #David Finch

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #18 – Montress Volume 3: Haven by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

I have been reading one volume of this comic a month, in part as a way to force myself to take it a bit slowly and appreciate the issues and volumes as distinct arcs and works in their own right instead of archive binging, and in part because a volume of comic books being more than ~20% of my reading goal for the year feels like cheating. This has accomplished both of those goals splendidly, but it is making it increasingly hard to come up with different ways of talking about the basic premise of the story. So I’m just not going to.

The plot picks up fairly directly where the last plot dropped off – with Maika having escaped the last maratime city-state she’d found refuge in (now wanted fugitive) and settling into the next one. To secure safety for herself and her little crew of misfits (eldritch god-monster her mom bore and raised her to be a host for, adorable fox-child she treats like shit, terrible cat who betrays everyone, improbably hot noble magic assassin whose technically supposed to be murdering her), she’s conscripted by the royal engineer to assist in repairing the ancient magical shield which protected the city during the last war – which, due to her heritage and the aforementioned eldritch god, she might be the only one capable of safely accessing. That (literally) blows up in everyone’s face just about immediately, and the remainder of the arc is spent scrambling to deal.

Dramatically the volume works very well as a self-contained narrative, though a decade of marvel movies have left me kind of incapable of taking a big climax involving an apocalyptic glowing hole in the sky that seriously. Beyond that though, this is definitely a Lore volume, digging deep into the history of the Shaman Empress, her relationship with Zinn, and what the other Montrum are or want. It also, if my memory is right, marks the point where Zinn finishes transitioning from this terrible quasi-unknowable parasite ruining Maika’s life and turning her into a walking atrocity to just, like, Some Guy. They’re a little shit with an improbably amount of flattering amnesia and also murder a bunch of people but like, they’re a character now. They banter with Maika constantly, and also keep fucking up and being wrong about things. Deeply endearing tbh.

This also marks the point where The Doctor and Maika’s paternal family more broadly starts being a lot more plot-relavent which, going to be honest, I’m kind of dreading. Can’t remember any real details but my memories of the whole upcoming arc basically boil down to ‘at least Maika got that badass clockwork prosthetic out of it’.

Kippa and Ren are basically irrelevant to the actual plot this time, which is totally fine because I love them both dearly and would have happily read an entire issue of them going shopping and having a nice day in the market. Kippa, besides being adorable, does actually get some pretty meaty scenes providing the view from the gutter here though – Maika gets scooped up by a scheming vizier engineer as soon as she walks into town, and also hates people, but Kippa is absolutely the sort of person to go wandering through a sprawling refugee camp doing whatever she can to help. Which is both good worldbuilding and characterization and provides some desperately needed grounding to keep the whole story from vanishing entirely into mythic freudian psychodrama.

Speaking of preferring the social and political storytelling – I’m not sure they ever actually matter, but I do love the two bit characters who occasionally get scenes of their desperate heroic spycraft and diplomacy as they try everything they can to prevent another war breaking out. Their little bit in this volume also does a great job illuminating what a broken mess the politics of the Federation is – given the incredibly vague 1930s-East-Asia analogy underlying the story’s geopolitics, I like that the genocidal power about to plunge the world into war is riven with internal contradictions and five minutes away from a coup with the army and navy barely able to stand in the same room without gunfights breaking out).

Anyway yeah, it’s still Monstress. Still good! I probably sound like a broken record saying it at this point, but the character design remains just sublime, even for very thoroughly secondary characters. Speaking of, my favourite one has now shown up!

#book review #comic #monstress #sff #Marjorie Liu #Sana Takeda

[artverso]

Sana Takeda - Monstress

#sana takeda #monstress

[theimaginauts]

MONTRESS

Art by SANA TAKEDA

#sana takeda #image comics #31 days of horror

[donnatroyprincessofthemyscira]

Art Credit to Sana Takeda

#Sana Takeda #Storm #Jean Grey #Rogue #X-Men

[uponashensands]

I was thinking about how like, people will rail on and on about media with very sparse almost nonexistent queerness in it (I like some of that stuff too!) and ignore media with some very explicitly queer content. Anyway go read Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda's Monstress! It goes to very dark places but it's not ambiguous, you can just see sapphic women on page and they're Big MESSY emotionally. It's great. Eventually I'll make more posts about how much I love Maika being an unrepentant mean bitch who kills people, and pushes people away. I love her.

#monstress #monstress comic #image comics #comics #marjorie liu #sana takeda