>Hugz<

For last month, my article about Pontaro was the most popular one among my posts. See the link. Click the link That's why I decided to post another article on Pontaro . I found that he draw covers of Samson , a Japanese gay magazine, all through 2003 and 2004. I could not find wikipedia page of his in Japanese wikipedia so all I could find about him is from Doujinshi & Manga Lexicon. I guess that he chose his penname ' Pontaro ' from a Japanese word, ぽん太郎(written as pontarou, but sounded as pontaroː with long "o"), meaning a fool, as a joke.

I found this gorgeous illustration while surfing Jiraiya. The illustration is from Brute & Brawn . (Click to visit the site.) I don't know how to call him but his work is magnificent. He is kind enough to post his drawing and painting steps. Go and visit his blog from the link.

George Michael (1963-2016) He's gone too soon. I couldn't believe that he's gone. He will be remembered by his beautiful songs and performances. Even though he was outed by accident, since then he was so visible as a gay artist. I will miss him.

Huntersmell, definitely a pseudonym, is an aspring Korean comic writer/illustrator. I assume this person as "he." He recently posted a short comics on a famous Korean gay portal site, Ivancity. As you can see from the following picture, he is sooo talented. I hope to see more works of his and wish him a successful career. (C) Huntersmell (source: his personal twitter)

Ramunne Ikki(ラムネイッキ) is a now out-of-print short stories compilation of Sansuke Yamada(山田参助). Some of his previous works are newly published by major publishers after he got more famous after his Areyo Hoshikuzo . But this one is not yet. Ramune refers a bottled lemonade widely sold throughout Japan. Ikki means "at once" or in this context, "bottoms up," I guess. The book is described as "hard cover" in Amazon Japan. And one of the customers reviewed that "cover is not the only thing that is hard..." Maybe Japaneses also refer something extreme as "hard" as Koreans do. This is how "Ramune" looks like. By the way, I want the book so badly. Maybe Mr. Yamada re-release the book.

Recently I had a chance to read some of Howard Cruse's works. He is renowned for his work, Stuck Rubber Baby , but instead, I grabbed From Headrack to Claude , thinking short stories would be easier to understand, which turned out to be a huge mistake. The stories were somewhat hard to get it. I didn't know where to laugh and why the stories went that way.. I found some hard time to relate to the stories. Anyway, it was a pleasure to see each frame. He used dots to express shades and it could have taken some time, I suppose. Unique. This time, I am thinking of trying Wendel, one of his comic strip series.

One Korean publisher recently released the work of Gengoroh Tagame for the first time in Korea.  It is the "Brother's Husband" of Tagame, which runs in a non-gay comic magazine in Japan.  Considering his previous works, very few Korean could expect that any of his works could be officialy released in Korea.   

Recently I came to know a webcomics site where only gay-themed comic strips are posted. It's called Kaman Bongji, which means black (plastic) bag literally.  m.kkatoon.com I don't know it is universal or not, Koreans use black plastic bag when to carry purchased items which they want to hide.  Maybe this site is named such as a metaphor for Korean gays who are closeted.  Anyway, Gom Kim is a one of the comics writers on the site.  His comics is based on his interviews with gays who had come out.  I like the way he portrays the interviewees' lives and I love his artwork so~~~ much. 

Massive keeps on its collaboration with Jiraiya.  This is one of them, a swimsuit.