Color of the Supreme King

Hi everyone! Have you ever wondered if there’s a band that is a physical manifestation of that song that goes, “you and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals // so let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel?”

Gettin horny now!

Anyway… I found them! I found that band I was talking about! And they’re called… FARTBARF!!!

Synthesizer rock… ape masks… potty humor… oh god, am I already in heaven?! Did you make these beautiful men just for me???

I drew the linework of the image up top during their Saturday set at Vine in Long Beach, and painted the colors that night. Vine rarely disappoints, but this was really one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. Fart Barf! Fart Barf! Fart Barf! This week’s soundtrack is brought to you by Fart Barf.

What’s for dinner?

Recently I’ve had the desire to ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*beautify*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ pages that start out as a small note. Here’s this week’s grocery list. ↑

I have several unfinished pieces going right now. The first one started out with this sketch: ↓

Which I then decided to turn into something bigger. ↓ I don’t really have a plan for how I want this to turn out, so I’m just trying to enjoy being surprised as it comes along.

The inspiration behind this is both sci fi mumbo jumbo (seen in Dr. Strange vs Dr. Doom by Matías Bergara) and arcane geometry (seen in rk post’s Karn, Living Legacy). ↓

I also have this dragon drawing that’s been sitting here, waiting to be painted for a couple of weeks. ↓

Anyway this week Joel and I reached volume 100 of One Piece, titled…

THE COLOR OF THE SUPREME KING!

Joel introduced me to One Piece in 2010, when we were in fifth grade. Wow. Kind of crazy to type out loud, isn’t it? I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve grown up with One Piece.

One Piece is a manga by Eiichiro Oda that has been serialized almost every week in Shonen Jump Magazine since 1997. If you’ve heard anything about One Piece, it’s probably that it’s really long, or that the boobs get bigger over time, or that it’s really long…

Wait, WHAT?!

Here’s what I will say about One Piece: It is, and continues to be, by far the best thing I have ever read. Also, here’s Usopp:

And here’s Usopp getting pulled by his nose.

What is One Piece about?

At the surface level, One Piece is a manga about pirates. There are sailboats, and peg legs, and sabers, and barrels of rum. But you’ll notice that mysteriously, the main cast does very little looting or pillaging. Manga panels read right to left, top to bottom.

This is because One Piece is actually a story about… friendship. I know. Friendship. Snore.

One Piece is technically written as a shonen manga, meaning “for boys.” Many shonen manga target Japanese boys in elementary and middle school, and feature flashy fights, interesting superpowers, and a hot-headed protagonist.

One Piece certainly has all these pieces. But what makes it so good is that underneath its shonen set dressing, the emotional core of the story is about the power of friendship. Whether faced with slavers, evil pirates, dictators, or the military industrial complex, Luffy’s unconditional love and compassion for his friends is what keeps me coming back chapter after chapter.

Dammit… I’m not crying… you’re—you’re cutting onions or something! Seriously! Stop that!

Why is it so long?

The most common complaint people who have not read One Piece will have about One Piece is that it’s too long. One Piece is certainly long today, but this wasn’t the case when Oda began its serialization in 1997. Like many other manga, One Piece released each week, but could be cancelled the next.

But over time, the series became extremely popular. And thanks to this popularity, and the relative security that comes with it, Oda has been able to create a singular world more extensive than almost any other you’ll encounter.

The best part about such a long runtime is that Oda has an opportunity that very few writers ever have: he gets to introduce secrets and then wait literally twenty years to reveal them. Seriously. After 27 years of weekly publication, after over 1,000 chapters of story, we still do not know what the “one piece” even is.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “what the heck… he’s never gonna finish this thing!” But what if I told you that One Piece is in the final phase of it’s story, and that Oda has had the ending in mind almost since the beginning?

By the way, as a kid I predicted the ending would include Luffy getting ripped in half. I know, yeesh…

Let’s start the SBS!

Each chapter of the manga comes with a fan mail section called the “SBS Corner.” Oda is very old school, so “mail” is literal in this instance. He’s kept every piece of fan mail since the beginning of One Piece, to the point that the floor of his mail storage room began to give out.

The question becomes, what questions to include in the SBS? Sometimes, the SBS is completely for laughs. Sometimes, it’s playfully… lecherous? Sometimes, Oda answers thoughtful questions about the world of One Piece. But usually, it’s all of these at once. ↓

The SBS also has several ongoing series, including readers requesting to see characters as different ages, genders, etc. than what is shown in the manga.

Many times, someone will ask exactly the question you had, and Oda himself will answer! Other times, he won’t answer… and then you have to wonder how long you’ll have to wait to find out! ↓

Even though the SBS corners account for less than one tenth of the page count, they make up the heart and soul of One Piece!

What makes it different than other stories?

I think I have already given some answers to this question, but I’ll provide a few more examples.

The balance between comedy and drama in One Piece is very special. Anyone who has sat next to me while I’m reading One Piece will attest that at each chapter I’m gasping, laughing, exclaiming, crying…

I talked about The Power of Friendship earlier, but it’s not just that the manga is about friendship, and it’s not just that Luffy is the protagonist because he is the best at friendship; One Piece is probably the manga most about friendship, and Luffy and friends are probably the characters who care the most about friendship.

I also love that every single character, no matter whether they are on screen for 100,000 panels or 1, has an individual costume, haircut, body type, face, and expression. There are probably 100s of characters that have names, relationships, and backstories that Oda has written, but only appear in one panel of the manga. The only way you’ll get to learn about them is in the SBS!

By the way, I wasn’t joking when I joked about crying earlier. I have cried at least once during every every single major arc of One Piece. Out loud. Ugly tears. I have cried more times at One Piece than about anything else in life, probably ever.

I think part of this is that the characters in One Piece cry more than anyone else, and they cry with such gusto that you can’t help joining in.

Lastly, One Piece is basically entirely by one guy. One guy! As an artist, I have so much respect for the sheer amount of love Oda has poured into One Piece. I hope that in the future, I’ll be able to look back and feel the same way he does when I look at my own work.

I’ll close with two messages from Oda, in the backs of volumes 100 and 101. I hope you can feel his sincerity as much as I do. Thank you for reading my posts each week, and I hope you will consider giving One Piece a try.

Oh, by the way, most public libraries have copies of almost every volume of One Piece. If you’re looking for a way to read online, shoot me a message and I’ll tell you where to look.

That’s all for this week. See you later!