Cyberpunk Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

(shellzine.net)

137 points | by zdw 7 hours ago

17 comments

  • tangenter 33 minutes ago
    So much of this space has been collapsed into homogenized entertainment. Nowadays, by the time a child is ten years old they have seen every form of the hero’s journey in the cartoons they watch, to the degree where there are tropes and nods to source material or even sometimes derivatives of source. Sci fi, fantasy and other genres are blended in as hooks because cartoons have to keep viewership and eye balls, so they throw everything they can find at it.

    As a result, unfortunately, there is very little “new” material. The old material that took centuries to develop and longer has been flattened and duplicated, over and over again. I sound like a curmudgeon (I probably am), but I stopped watching movies entirely not too long ago because it became a farce of seeing cliche writing. Shows are even worse so as to not even warrant discussing.

  • evanjrowley 6 hours ago
    Coincidentally, there is a new Ghost in the Shell anime that's premiering now on Amazon Prime Video. It's animation style and mood are closely aligned with the original 1989 manga, which is to say it's more cartoonish and light-hearted. I prefer the more adult oriented content the franchise was putting out up until about 2006, but the new anime series gives me hope that we might eventually see a follow-up animation of Shirow Masamune's Man/Machine Interface - what was once considered to be Ghost in the Shell 2 before Mamuro Oshii created Innocence.
    • astrod 53 minutes ago
      The website for the new series;

      https://www.theghostintheshell-anime.jp/

    • stuxnet79 6 hours ago
      Personally I think I'm done with GitS at this point. How many times has it been rebooted, like a dozen times?

      The last one I enjoyed watching was Arise but I lost track after that. I think the series has been done to death and I would love to see some completely new IP from Masamune that is more reflective of the AI and economic upheavals we are experiencing in the 20s.

      • DarKraD 5 hours ago
        I don't think it will be animated any time soon due to Major not having much screen time, but if you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend Human Algorithm[1] manga. It's a bit different art style than the original, more gritty and sterile, in a good way. For me personally that makes it a bit more cyberpunk feel. The first arc is a bit drag at a time but when all plot lines converge, the payoff is awesome.

        [1]: https://kodansha.us/series/the-ghost-in-the-shell-the-human-...

      • frmersdog 5 hours ago
        You're probably not going to get it. And he has decent reasons for not wanting to bother.

        The nature (infamy?) of his activities over the past few years should also be noted. (And maybe chuckled at if you have a bit of a dark sense of humor.)

        • BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago
          For those who don't know, like me: he moved into adult manga, hentai-ish poster book work.

          His popularity may have corrupted him...

          https://appleseed.fandom.com/wiki/Shirow_Masamune

          • zgok 1 hour ago
            It's not corruption. He has stated that there were projects going on behind the scenes, but most of them got scrapped before reaching production.

            The most recent manga he involved with was Ghost Urn, which explores the world of GitS from a different protagonist. He did not do the drawing, but did most of the worldbuilding and mecha design.

      • Animats 3 hours ago
        The article author sure likes Ghost in the Shell. Almost every variant is listed. The article only covers comics, manga, and graphic novels, not anime. So Bubblegum Crisis, which is half cyberpunk and half music videos, isn't listed. Nor is Cowboy Bebop.

        (The site is now intermittently down, with "429 Too many requests".)

    • packetlost 5 hours ago
      I really like the art direction of the new GitS adaptation (I hope this retro style gets used more), but yeah it's completely different in tone from the '95 adaptation and most of what followed.

      I've enjoyed it so far.

  • egypturnash 5 hours ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20260712230824/https://shellzine...

    also go read my comic about a robot lady with reality issues, http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/, it's got cover quotes from three people with seven Hugos between them.

    • nxpnsv 1 hour ago
      Wow, that looks amazing, well done, and thanks for sharing!
  • stuxnet79 5 hours ago
    It might be skirting the edges of what is considered cyberpunk since it has Mecha elements but Patlabor is a fantastic manga/series that should have been included in this list [1]

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patlabor:_The_Movie

    • CobaltFire 3 hours ago
      Patlabor is left out of most lists.

      The new one (EZY) is amazing if you haven't seen it.

  • matheusmoreira 1 hour ago
    I wasn't even aware there were Blade Runner comics, that's awesome.

    Anime counterpart to this article: https://shellzine.net/cyberpunk-anime/

  • riffraff 1 hour ago
    In Italy (and sometimes abroad, I recall dark horse translated it in English at some point) Nathan Never has been publishing as a monthly comic for a few decades.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Never

    Not all stories are cyberpunk, but many are.

    Some are great.

  • stuart78 5 hours ago
    This is a bit of an idiosyncratic list. Two of my favorite additions from my own youth: Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow and Batman: Digital Justice. The latter now reads like a bit of a corny cash grab for the early '90s cyber fad, but I still love the time capsule of some if its art.
    • the-mitr 4 hours ago
      Also Frank Miller's Ronin has some amazing detailed full page artwork panels.
    • xoxxala 5 hours ago
      It took me twice as long to read Hard Boiled as it should since I spent so much time looking at Geof Darrow’s intricately detailed art. Great story, but the illustrations are on another level.
    • stuxnet79 5 hours ago
      Batman Beyond is also technically cyberpunk although it has more of a Y2K vibe rather than the retro 80s / early 90s aesthetic.
    • Fricken 5 hours ago
      It's not that idiosyncratic a list, those were the first two graphic novels that came to my mind when opening up the website. Geoff Darrow's art Hardboiled is incredible. I was a huge batman fan as a young teen and digital justice came out at peak Batman hype, and it was much hyped itself, but it wasn't very good.
  • throw4847285 6 hours ago
    I wonder if Pluto by Naoki Urasawa would be considered Cyberpunk? Even if it isn't, it's a must read.
  • leoc 1 hour ago
    No Judge Dredd (which dates back to 1977) or anything else from 2000 AD?
    • riffraff 59 minutes ago
      Is Dredd considered cyberpunk? I know the definition is fluid but I wouldn't think so.

      OTOH, robocop is ok on the list, so probably it should be there too.

  • bsenftner 1 hour ago
    Rich Veitch, he and Alan Moore. As Moore would later write:

        "The One ... is a kind of landmark; a pulling together of obsessions and ingenious storytelling ideas into a coherent whole ... Its revisionist superheroics, while conceived at roughly the same time, predate Watchmen and Dark Knight in terms of publication, as does its packaging. Its political and humanist preoccupations were voiced before such sentiments became chic. Its deranged, culture-conscious humor offers an alternative and an antidote to today's rather gloomy trend of pessimistic, post-modern ultra-humans... Whatever it is that the comic books of the 1980s turn out to be remembered for, The One was right there in the thick of it, carving out a niche in the mainstream for dangerous ideas long before dangerous ideas became box-office certainties."
  • harimau777 3 hours ago
    It's interesting to me that most cyberpunk manga isn't Japanese cyberpunk.
  • roughly 3 hours ago
    Worth noting that Cyberpunk as a genre was at least intended to be a dystopia.
  • Razengan 6 hours ago
    I gotta resume GANTZ
    • m3kw9 1 hour ago
      GANTZ more like scifi in a city setting
  • fiatpandas 4 hours ago
    I think the list could include Transmetropolitan.
    • TimorousBestie 3 hours ago
      It is an excellent comic. It’s a pity bowel disrupters aren’t real, they would certainly keep scrum from running over time.
    • mwkaufma 4 hours ago
      ... it does?
      • fiatpandas 3 hours ago
        Oops, yes it does. Scanned too quickly.
  • m3kw9 1 hour ago
    I thought battle angle alita could be cyberpunk
    • otherme123 31 minutes ago
      It is on the list, as Gunnm.
  • m3kw9 1 hour ago
    Blame!'s manga style is the most unique and it created unforgettable atmosphere not replicated from what I know.
  • Barrin92 5 hours ago
    The one I'd highlight from the list is Hiroki Endo's Eden: It's an Endless World, it's my favorite manga. It's beautifully drawn and incredibly grounded in tone and oddly relevant.

    The overarching story is about a pandemic that starts as a backdrop and becomes more important and metaphysical and religious as the story goes on but the core of it revolves around crime bosses in Latin America, the lives of prostitutes, a Uyghur rebellion in Xinjiang, political conflict and organized crime all done in a very real way. It's completely devoid of any (manga) tropes or genre aesthetics.