GELATIN 2010 Spring はる

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Quarterly GELATIN magazine celebrates its one-year anniversary, so I guess they decided it’s a good time to shake things up. Gone is the almost impossible to unfold poster of the cover art work. In its place are three pin-up illustrations by three different artists. I think I like this magazine more with this new addition. I’d guess most people would appreciate some extra art work as well.

The pin-ups are B5-size, like the magazine, and printed on a sturdy, yet flexible paper. This issue’s pin-ups feature the cover art by Redjuice. New art by Mebae, and a non-Touhou illustration by Aka Ringo also feature.

The artists on the pin-ups don’t have a comic in this issue. However, the photo and interview section for the cover artist (Redjuice) is still in along with an illustration step-by-step guide.

Comics are lovely as usual, with both GELATIN regulars and newcomers. Nanakusa, the artist for Shinigami no Ballad has the first comic in this issue. It’s the 12-page short “VS MODE”. Next up is another new artist, Yuugen, with a 6-page original comic about a witch. Cencoroll designer Uki Atsuya appears again in this issue, with a 10-page comic featuring a science experiment with interesting results!

I think this is Matsuryu’s first appearance in GELATIN. The comic is “Papemape”, presumably short for Puppet Master, as the English subtitle reads. Kamo pays homage to Range Murata with his comic. Taiwanese artist VOFAN has another illustration-only 7-page comic.

Houden Eizo‘s “STRAW” appears again as well as another original comic by Shin Hashimoto. Fuyuno Haruaki continues the fighting school girl theme from the last issue. Hiroki Tsukiyoshi contributes one of the two black and white comics for this issue.

More new art work by Shigeki Maeshima so soon after his art book release is great. This also marks the return of “DRAGONFLY” which has been absent from recent GELATIN issues. Also noticeably absent is Miggy’s usual pencil drawing contribution.

More of the same from Takamichi this issue. I really feel like his comic style doesn’t even come close to what he’s capable of illustrating. I’ve really lost interest in that one. The other black and white comic belongs to a team consisting of Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi. Mota, GELATIN‘s mascot designer, also has a couple of pages of art in this issue.

I don’t think I mentioned everyone, but if you like this much, you’ll enjoy the issue. I’ll end this post the same way I did my last GELATIN one. Range Murata ANIME WORKS 1998-2006, according to this advertisement, comes out this month. That’s a full year after it was initially slated to release. I’ll believe it when I see it.