I was raised on analogue and tactile media. I still love vinyl records, cassette tapes, physical books, and despise kindle. I miss when movies were shot on film, and when animation was hand drawn with pencil and ink. I don't know if I'm crazy, but I struggle so hard to connect with digital work...
Please hear me when I say I get it, and I appreciate what digital has allowed so many artists to achieve, myself included. I'm not poo-pooing it. It has value.
But as we start to lose physical media, transition to an economy where we own less and less, everything is a subscription or a lease, and AI is flooding our eyeballs with ghastly abominations, I feel like something very important is being lost, and it feels worth fighting for. To me, it's existential.
So - with that said...can we start a discussion about our favorite tactile animation, manga and webcomics? Not just looking at the past, but specifically looking at modern artists today who are reviving the feeling? Even if they are using digital tools, but still pursuing that organic, vintage look and feel?
A few recent examples I love are Goodbye, Lara, Go for It, Nakamura-kun!!, Look Back, Cocoon, and The Girl from the Other Side. All very different, but there's something about the texture, imperfect linework, and organic quality that I find so much more compelling. I'd love to discover more artists working in this direction, especially independent manga and Webtoon creators! Which are your favorites?
Thank you in advance for sharing your picks!
-❤️L
