GELATIN 2010 Summer なつ

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Gelatin Summer 2010 issue was a bit lackluster. I wasn’t a fan of the cover art by CHAN X CO compared with the covers from previous issues. It’s cute, but it’s not a style that would get me to buy anything.

This color comic magazine continues with the pin-up illustrations that started in the previous volume. There’s a finished version of CHAN X CO’s cover art work on a pin-up. The other two feature art work by Takamichi and 2D, marking 2D’s first Gelatin appearance. There’s already been a drop in the quality for the pin-up works, however. They switched to a card-stock, textured page, instead of the art print paper that was in the previous issue.

BUNBUN is back this issue, with a 12 page comic called “Komoribi” with a lovely fox girl. Sou has an 8 page cat-and-mouse tale called “Kitchen & Cat & Mouse“. And Murasaki Hisato brings us a story of a school girl who just needs to take a break.

Yuu, who worked on RubiconHearts‘ Neko to Shoujo, shows up in this issue with a very similarly styled comic. “Okaerinasai” is 8 pages and all color.

TNSK premieres in the issue with an 8-page comic titled “Cream“. Mebae has another comic with“Scale Model 1”. And Yomogi Kashiwamochi has a short 5 page comic with the characters used in previous issues. Shin Hashimoto is also in this issue again, with a 6 page color comic. Aka Ringo has a full comic, although it’s only 4 pages.

Ryo-timo is this issue’s focus for the Creator Maniax section. There’s a walk through for the illustration above as well as an interview. It’s also interesting to see that Ryo-timo (Ryousuke Sawa), plans his scene composition quite differently from other artists.

Houden Eizo’s series “STRAW” continues (4-pages), and Jyuu Ayakura has another ‘extraordinary day’ comic that’s 10 pages. Fuyuno Haruaki has a 10 page school girls and swimsuits comic. It’s drawn in a more sketchy, cross-hatch shaded style than he usually uses. It’s a nice change. There’s only one monochrome comic in this issue, and it’s a 16 page one by Hitori.

Toi8 does another one shot comic, the lengthiest so far at 20-pages. Yuugen and Takashi Tensugi round out the volume with a 6 page and a 10 page comic each, respectively.

VOFAN does another visual comic in this issue called “Love Photographer” with no text, just pictures. It’s really fitting, too, because the story itself is about a girl telling her a story with just pictures.

The “History of the Man” section is about the cover artist, CHAN X CO, with illustrations and an interview. VOFAN and Fuyuno Haruaki’s re-vamped style were the highlight of this issue for me, so it’s really not bad overall.