The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Editor's Note: Yep, our pick for offbeat review of the week, ut with so many BE,SM and Giant Robot reviews recently, we feel the anime genre has relevance.

Did you ever hear a line somewhere that you want to use but you hold off until the precise point to use that line? I came across a line years ago that is so fairly obscure in origin that it would make Dennis Miller take a step back. Back in 1991 a song was on the airwaves and a got quite a bit of airplay on MTV. The song was called "Pop Goes The Weasel" by a group called Third Bass. In that there was a line that became an analogy the current state of non-musicians, non-lyricists, etc. taking over the music industry. The line went, "Ever hear of a chef that can't cook?" I tucked that line in back of my memory for future use and finally found myself blowing the dust off of it and putting it to use.

Dabbling in the arts and watching Anime flicks have always been a passion of mine. I never really tried to make a career of it, but it is along the lines of celebrities who do art for charity. I myself, do art as a form of release. Anyway, I was always interested in drawing Anime-styled cartoon characters just as a unique experience. Occasionally, I would look in hobby shops, comic shops and even art stores to see what I might be able to pick up. Finally, one day I asked a clerk at a local comic store what may be available. He told me he's never seen such a book but would look into it and would get my phone number in case something like that did come up. A few weeks passed and I got a phone call one evening telling me he could order such a book for $20, so I took him up on his offer. The day the book arrived, I was so excited I paid the clerk and headed out. When I got home and started looking through the book I saw how bad it truly was.

The book is so poorly assembled it makes absolutely no sense. Let me quote one of the two paragraphs of the introduction, "To sum up Japanimation its(it) is cute, powerful, sexy, militaristic, modern and Ancient." What???????? These things have nothing to do with one another. This is a description that you would give Sean Connerey holding a puppy at a feminist gathering not Japanimation! The art in the book is also so poor that Sally Struthers will have to start a fund up for it. It looks as if they found an 8th graders sketchbook on a bus and added bad captions to it. There is absolutely no continuity in the book; you'll get one character that you are told to draw one way and the next page they'll show you something totally different.

This book definitely goes to show there are "Chefs who can't cook". If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the publishers please let me know. If they let the authors, who obviously can't draw, write this book maybe I could pitch to them a few other suggestions. Maybe Mike Tyson can do a book on public speaking, maybe President Clinton can do a book on being a loyal spouse, and the list could go on and on.

In summary, a review should be graded on what the authors set out to do versus whether they were successful at doing it. The authors of this book attempted (if you can call it that) to make a book about drawing anime and failed miserably to the point of embarrassment. Don't waste you hard-earned cash on this one, if you want to blow

Style: 1 (Unintelligible)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

How to Draw Japanimation
Author: Gary & Al Category: A How To Book(Drawing) Company/Publisher: Great Sky, Inc. Albert Occhino, Publisher Line: none Cost: 19.95 Page count: 64 ISBN: 1-55601-974-2 Capsule Review by Grover Penn on 08/16/99. Genre tags: Anime	Editor's Note: Yep, our pick for offbeat review of the week, ut with so many BE,SM and Giant Robot reviews recently, we feel the anime genre has relevance. Did you ever hear a line somewhere that you want to use but you hold off until the precise point to use that line? I came across a line years ago that is so fairly obscure in origin that it would make Dennis Miller take a step back. Back in 1991 a song was on the airwaves and a got quite a bit of airplay on MTV. The song was called "Pop Goes The Weasel" by a group called Third Bass. In that there was a line that became an analogy the current state of non-musicians, non-lyricists, etc. taking over the music industry. The line went, "Ever hear of a chef that can't cook?" I tucked that line in back of my memory for future use and finally found myself blowing the dust off of it and putting it to use. Dabbling in the arts and watching Anime flicks have always been a passion of mine. I never really tried to make a career of it, but it is along the lines of celebrities who do art for charity. I myself, do art as a form of release. Anyway, I was always interested in drawing Anime-styled cartoon characters just as a unique experience. Occasionally, I would look in hobby shops, comic shops and even art stores to see what I might be able to pick up. Finally, one day I asked a clerk at a local comic store what may be available. He told me he's never seen such a book but would look into it and would get my phone number in case something like that did come up. A few weeks passed and I got a phone call one evening telling me he could order such a book for $20, so I took him up on his offer. The day the book arrived, I was so excited I paid the clerk and headed out. When I got home and started looking through the book I saw how bad it truly was. The book is so poorly assembled it makes absolutely no sense. Let me quote one of the two paragraphs of the introduction, "To sum up Japanimation its(it) is cute, powerful, sexy, militaristic, modern and Ancient." What???????? These things have nothing to do with one another. This is a description that you would give Sean Connerey holding a puppy at a feminist gathering not Japanimation! The art in the book is also so poor that Sally Struthers will have to start a fund up for it. It looks as if they found an 8th graders sketchbook on a bus and added bad captions to it. There is absolutely no continuity in the book; you'll get one character that you are told to draw one way and the next page they'll show you something totally different. This book definitely goes to show there are "Chefs who can't cook". If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the publishers please let me know. If they let the authors, who obviously can't draw, write this book maybe I could pitch to them a few other suggestions. Maybe Mike Tyson can do a book on public speaking, maybe President Clinton can do a book on being a loyal spouse, and the list could go on and on. In summary, a review should be graded on what the authors set out to do versus whether they were successful at doing it. The authors of this book attempted (if you can call it that) to make a book about drawing anime and failed miserably to the point of embarrassment. Don't waste you hard-earned cash on this one, if you want to blow Style: 1 (Unintelligible) Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

How to Draw Japanimation