I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: 魔法少女になり隊 [MAHOUSYOUJO-NI-NARITAI]-“Re-bi-te-to (floating magic)” (2014).

Mahousyoujo-ni-naritai (which translates roughly as I Want to be a Magical Girl) are, no surprise, from Japan.  And, since I am talking about them, they must be pretty unconventional.  Their bio explains: “Formed in 2014 as a five-piece commercial and creative team, this genre-less band travels the world to not only to have the vocalist become a magical girl, but also to entertain audiences wherever they go.”

This song begins with some skittery dancey noises.  It quickly (12 seconds) turns into a raging rocker (with the same skittery bits).  By 37 seconds the female singers (auto tuned) begins singing a verse and by 48 seconds, the song turns into thrash metal as a guy with scary growly vocals take a verse.  By 1 minute the chorus enters with a sweetly poppy super fast vocal line by the female singer.  And by 1:15 the whole business repeats.  At around 2 minutes there a new section, a bridge, that is somewhat calmer, and the music even fades out into a kind of pop heavy metal guitar solo, before returning to the chorus.  By 2:30 the growly vocal guy sings backing vocals under the poppy chorus.  And the last 30 seconds is a high energy instrumental version of everything you just heard.

I am exhausted listening to it, and can’t even imagine what it looks like live.

The band have an EP out.  I can’t find this song anywhere online except this NPR site.  But here’s a live video of another song (which isn’t quite as insane, but is still pretty nuts).

Enjoy!

[READ: March 26, 2015] Soda Pop Comics

I deal mostly with books from Latin American countries.  Which means most of the books I see are in Spanish or Portuguese.  And while I’d love to say that I read all of the cool books that come by in those languages, I can’t read either language well enough to enjoy anything.  But once in a while I get some books from these countries in English.  Sadly most of them are about human rights or crop rotation.  But this week I received a pile of comic books from Puerto Rico that were in English!  Better yet, they were published by a small press.  And better better yet their slogan is “Comics made by girls for everyone.”

Soda Pop Comics is a small comic book publishing company created by Carla Rodríguez and Rosa Colón.  And on the inside of their first issue they say “We did not make this new ‘Comic Company’ in order to fill the void left by Veronica Mars…”  They created it “in order to motivate more girls into making and publishing their own comics.”

They have a website http://sodapopcomicspr.com, where you can get all of the comics listed below as well as some cute crafts like magnets and plushies with mustaches.

There appear to be 15 comics available at their store.  I was lucky enough to read three of them (and to get 4 of their mini-mini bundles).

• $19.95 (November 2007) is a cute comic about a girl who really wants to buy a comic book called Walking Corpse.  But it costs $19.95. What is she to do?  She makes cherry babies, which are a plush toy (but surprisingly not for sale at their shop!) and sells them on the street.  But he mom still thinks comics are for boys.  Oh no!
• Gingerbread (May 2011) is another cute story with a dark twist.  It’s an original Fairy Tale (“Seriously, what is up with [fairy tales]? I know you can believe things won’t get better but telling that dwarf that he can have your first born in exchange for some paltry spell is very irresponsible!”  This story involves a witch, a baby and cookies.  There’s a twist at the end, and it doesn’t end with a fiery cauldron!
• A Taste of Soda Pop Comics (August 2012) is a small collection of bits and pieces that Rodríguez and Colón have whipped together.  There’s lots of cool one page drawings.  And there’s also a series called Cupcake Graffiti which is a cute collection of stories featuring a cupcake.  It turns out that Rodríguez is a born baker and has her own business (Little Treats).
• Paracosm (September 2013) is a joint project with Mondo Bizarro: Arte & Comics.  The story takes place in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico and they decided that “the images should tell the story without the help of any type of dialogue.”  This is a neat story in-which a woman finds an old Polaroid camera on the street.  When she starts taking pictures, the images that come out are totally bizarre–full of alien creatures and crazy objects.  A picture of a chair and table comes out looking like flying jellyfish.  And when she takes a self portrait…  The end is a cool twist (although I hope everyone is okay!).

The Mini-Mini Bundle are envelopes with 4 tiny comics in them.  Each is 4 pages long and is created in a totally clever way.  The paper is folded and glued to make it easy to read.  I love the creativity!  The stories are slight (4 pages after all) but sweet.

• Mini-Mini Bundle #1 = Lone Astronaut ; Too Cute ; Playtime ; A Sunny Day (sadly I didn’t get this bundle).
• Mini-Mini Bundle #2 = Sucktastic (about a vampire) ; Best Friend (about pandas!); Gossip (never leads anywhere, right?) ; Garage Sale (cool finds for cheap).
• Mini-Mini Bundle #3 = Zombie Cupcakes (yuck!) ; Lucky Day! (every time you find money the universe smiles) ; Born to Derby (about roller derby, duh); Parasol (this was my favorite, it’s very funny).
• Mini-Mini Bundle #4 = Mew Mew (powerpuff cats) ; Pizza Puffs (a delicious sounding recipe) ; Joanna’s Pig (you really can’t dress up a pig) ; Walking Corpse (a sweet zombie apocalypse).
• Mini-Mini Bundle #5  = Spores (mushroom can grow new friends) ; Fox Jump (watch him hunt in the snow) ; Howlin’ (wolves love the moon) ; Cielito Lindo Dip or Happiness? (another recipe for what looks like a seven layer dip).

I am charmed by these books and by the company.  And I hope they keep going and that more girls make comics for them.  And now I’m off to order a plush zombie for Easter.

For ease of searching, I include: Carla Rodriguez and Rosa Colon.