7 ms·
Cyberpunk Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
- evanjrowley 3mo agoCoincidentally, 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.
- stuxnet79 3mo agoPersonally 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 3mo agoI 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-algorithm/ https://kodansha.us/series/the-ghost-in-the-shell-the-human-...
- frmersdog 3mo agoYou'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 3mo agoFor 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 https://appleseed.fandom.com/wiki/Shirow_Masamune
- zgok 3mo agoIt'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.
- krapp 3mo agoA lot of mangaka have done that sort of thing, calling something normal in the industry "infamous" and "corrupting" seems overblown when Tatsuya Matsuki and Nobuhiro Watsuki are grooming children and collecting CP and every other mangaka seems to be shitposting racism.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- frmersdog 3mo agoI called it infamous not because I have a particular problem with it, but because of the way it's characterized by (Western, at least) fans. They snicker at and make jokes about the scenarios he apparently employs. (Admittedly, it doesn't sound like my thing, and I haven't looked too deeply into the material. It could very well be that I'm getting trolled.) I agree that you can find genuinely disturbing things in the manga world and that Masamune's work is relatively benign (though some of his depictions of less-developed adult women might upset some). In general, I find the idea of commercialized erotica amusing, especially when coming from sources with more mainstream claims-to-fame. In these cases, I don't attach a connotation of moral bankruptcy or anything like that to the idea of them being "infamous", though maybe that's just me using the word wrong. I intend it more in the sense of, "Hahah, oh wow, THAT guy did THAT? That's crazy." Kind of like when we found out about Tezuka's softcore furry/snakewomen doodles.
- Animats 3mo agoThe 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".)
- AnonymousPlanet 3mo agoI see every version as a remix of the original material, each done with their own take and philosophy. They're not remakes or reboots. The only version that didn't add anything new was the Hollywood movie, which was an entertaining but shallow derivative of Oshii's animes and not based on the manga at all. I think the original material provides enough ideas to continue spinning off new remixes. It hasn't even been outdated by the recent advancements in AI. Quite the opposite.
- wise_blood 3mo agogood adaptations of GitS: - the first Oshii movie - the two seasons of SAC + SSS - this new one* *so far
- krapp 3mo agoI have decided this mention of Mamoru Oshii is a good enough excuse to recommend STEVEM's continuing retrospective series on his life and work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shxS5YpyK04&list=PLyhSewr7iiMQe_BwDeVFdRqKc-ojGmQXq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shxS5YpyK04&list=PLyhSewr7ii...
- keiferski 3mo agoMost of the new series have nothing to do with the original one, and are original stories.
- chasd00 3mo ago[dead]
- packetlost 3mo agoI 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.
- astrod 3mo agoThe website for the new series; https://www.theghostintheshell-anime.jp/ https://www.theghostintheshell-anime.jp/
- TiredOfLife 3mo ago> style and mood are closely aligned with the original 1989 manga, which is to say it's more cartoonish and light-hearted Did you get your manga the same place they sell the 15 minute long Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction?
- the_af 3mo agoFans of Shirow will probably lynch me, but I didn't like the manga all that much. Not even the art style, which the new animé seems to replicate. To me, Mamoru Oshii's 1995 GitS is THE version, because I'm seldom in the mood for slapstick and I much prefer the introspective mood of the movie, and its cinematic visuals. And the music! I haven't liked any other adaptations since. To me, the movie is almost perfect. I didn't like Innocence much though.
- BLKNSLVR 3mo agoI liked Innocence for the overwhelm-of-ideas. I will say outright that 'i don't entirely get it' but I very much like that it exists and I rewatch it every couple of years to just sit under the waterfall of concepts, no matter how pretentious it all may be.
- the_af 3mo agoThat's valid! I just can't get over how pretentious it is, and also I miss Motoko in it. I mean, the first movie (1995) also toyed with pretentiousness, but this was miraculously curtailed before it had a chance to bog the whole movie down [1], and its awesome mood, soundtrack -- much like with Blade Runner, another favorite of mine, I find it hard to separate the movie from its awesome soundtrack -- and visuals overpowered everything else. Motoko questioning if she was human, and what it mean to be human, it all worked for me. Maybe if she had spent the whole movie doing this, without any payoff, I'd like it less. Innocence has great visuals too, I'll grant you this! [1] mostly because the movie ends :D
- Razengan 3mo agoI gotta resume GANTZ
- m3kw9 3mo agoGANTZ more like scifi in a city setting
- throw4847285 3mo agoI wonder if Pluto by Naoki Urasawa would be considered Cyberpunk? Even if it isn't, it's a must read.
- z3ltr3x 3mo agoThere is also Pluto anime on Netflix
- throw4847285 3mo agoDon't let that stop you from reading the Manga.
- BLKNSLVR 3mo agoThat was a pretty great show. Recommended.
- stuxnet79 3mo agoIt 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patlabor:_The_Movie
- CobaltFire 3mo agoPatlabor is left out of most lists. The new one (EZY) is amazing if you haven't seen it.
- wise_blood 3mo agoif for some reason you, random reader of this comment, decide to start watching Patlabor, be aware that there are two continuities: 1. Patlabor The Early Days (88-89, 7 OVA) -> Patlabor (89, Movie) -> Patlabor 2 (93, movie) 2. Patlabor The TV Series (89-90, 47 eps) -> Patlabor The New Files (90-92, 16 eps) -> Patlabor EZY (26-27, 3 movies)
- cdavid 3mo agoIt is especially strange not to see it in the list given GiTS is heavily featured (according to the comments, I can't access the page or web archive ATM). Patlabor movie 2 was directed by the same director as the original 1995 GiTS animation movie. Both patlabor 1 / 2 have similar themes to GiTS, and are heavily cyber punk in themes and esthetics.
- stuart78 3mo agoThis 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.
- stuxnet79 3mo agoBatman Beyond is also technically cyberpunk although it has more of a Y2K vibe rather than the retro 80s / early 90s aesthetic.
- xoxxala 3mo agoIt 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.
- Fricken 3mo agoIt'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.
- the-mitr 3mo agoAlso Frank Miller's Ronin has some amazing detailed full page artwork panels.
- Barrin92 3mo agoThe 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.
- egypturnash 3mo agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20260712230824/https://shellzine.net/cyberpunk-comics/ 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/ http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/, it's got cover quotes from three people with seven Hugos between them.
- nxpnsv 3mo agoWow, that looks amazing, well done, and thanks for sharing!
- egypturnash 3mo agoThanks <3
- fiatpandas 3mo agoI think the list could include Transmetropolitan.
- mwkaufma 3mo ago... it does?
- fiatpandas 3mo agoOops, yes it does. Scanned too quickly.
- TimorousBestie 3mo agoIt is an excellent comic. It’s a pity bowel disrupters aren’t real, they would certainly keep scrum from running over time.
- roughly 3mo agoWorth noting that Cyberpunk as a genre was at least intended to be a dystopia.
- harimau777 3mo agoIt's interesting to me that most cyberpunk manga isn't Japanese cyberpunk.
- bsenftner 3mo agoRich 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."
- matheusmoreira 3mo agoI wasn't even aware there were Blade Runner comics, that's awesome. Anime counterpart to this article: https://shellzine.net/cyberpunk-anime/ https://shellzine.net/cyberpunk-anime/
- m3kw9 3mo agoBlame!'s manga style is the most unique and it created unforgettable atmosphere not replicated from what I know.
- m3kw9 3mo agoI thought battle angle alita could be cyberpunk
- otherme123 3mo agoIt is on the list, as Gunnm.
- Hikikomori 3mo agoThe series is still ongoing as well.
- leoc 3mo agoNo Judge Dredd (which dates back to 1977) or anything else from 2000 AD?
- riffraff 3mo agoIs 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.
- BLKNSLVR 3mo agoJudge Dredd is mentioned in there lost of cyberpunk movies.
- throw4847285 3mo agoI did a pandemic project of reading Dredd from the start for as long as I could. I made it through about 25 case files volumes, which took me from 1977 to the late 90s (I think). Is Judge Dredd cyberpunk? I don't care. It's an incredible run of comics, that touches on many of the same themes as cyberpunk. There are many people involved in Dredd over the years, but I do think John Wagner has had the rare opportunity among work for hire creators to shepherd a fictional universe over decades of real and in universe time.
- riffraff 3mo agoIn 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Never Not all stories are cyberpunk, but many are. Some are great.
- nocchedure 3mo agoParlare di Nathan Never su Hacker News, siamo davvero al top. Anche Lazarus Ledd (uno dei bonellidi più famosi) ha un certo numero di storie cyberpunk, alcune delle quali molto carine.
- tangenter 3mo agoSo 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.
- left-struck 3mo agoWhile there’s a lot of slop out there that just exist to extract dollars, there are still some great movies being made every now and then. Don’t expect them to be the most popular high budget movies, you have to dig a little. The idea that there’s nothing new that’s worth watching though is clearly wrong and a typical bias that basically every person has to fight against as they age. You might even say it’s a cliche to think all new media is junk.
- navigate8310 3mo agoMight as well provide a method for good discoveries, as the current channels are extremely lifeless
- 3mo ago
- thih9 3mo agoWhat's the current status of color e readers? In particular: is anyone personally using a color eink device that's as practical for .cbr files as kindle is for regular ebooks?
- thih9 3mo agoI guess no answer is also some answer.
- kingkawn 3mo agoYou’re missing the Incal and Metabarons
- Garlef 3mo agoAppleseed missing! But maybe it's more solarpunk?
- agumonkey 3mo agoFunny for some reason the submission title summoned this manga in my mind even though I've never read it only a free chapter in a magazine I was obsessed with.
- genezeta 3mo agoA recent (2023) finding: from Guillaume Singelin, Frontier [0]. Fitting it into "cyberpunk" may need a bit of a push, but since the limits are kind of blurry I don't really care. The narrative is not perfect perhaps falling into wanting to say a lot more than the page limit allows, but all in all it's a good enough read. [0] https://www.magnetic-press.com/frontier/ https://www.magnetic-press.com/frontier/
- teroshan 3mo agoI'm vouching for Frontier as well, as well as "Carbon & Silicon" [0] from Mathieu Bablet. All of his work is gorgeous, I love his art. If you liked Frontier's theme and are into video games I recommend you check out "Citizen Sleeper" [1] illustrated by Guillaume Singelin as well. It's a 7 hour narrative text-based adventure that really hooked me one week-end. Your choices depend on how you "spend" your dice, dice that are cast at the beginning of every single day on the station so you get to pre-plan your actions somewhat. Gameplay wise it's mostly reading, but I liked exploring the station they created. [0] https://www.magnetic-press.com/carbon-and-silicon/ https://www.magnetic-press.com/carbon-and-silicon/ [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1578650/Citizen_Sleeper/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1578650/Citizen_Sleeper/
- brador 3mo agoEverything is a clown. There is no more serious deep content out there. If there is, it's incredibly difficult to find.
- wise_blood 3mo agoas someone who loves Astro Boy (and everything else Tezuka made): Atom The Beginning was a disappointment. But I also believe that Pluto sucks too (some smaller stories, like the pianist, were great). The Ghost In The Shell: Global Neural Network features one story by LRNZ. His work Geist Maschine (in italian only) is amazing. Among the Cyberpunk 2077 comics, Big City Dreams is also very good.
- sim04ful 3mo agoI've honestly not ever considered Ghost in the shell to be under the cyberpunk genre. It's too clean and the characters too ingrained in the working of the system. And the system "works", it's not a sanitised depiction, gits society feels much like our own with a detailed techno-realism it's a society still at the transitional point to something more radical; exemplified by humans still doing very manual things - take for example that classic scene from the 1995 film, where the man uses multiple fingers to extremely fast into a terminal, this would seem impressive but pales in comparison to a direct cyberbrain connection, they still have terminals because this is a world still in transition. Another of my favourite but less known scenes is this scene from gitsac: https://paul.kishimoto.name/2017/01/barcodes/ https://paul.kishimoto.name/2017/01/barcodes/
- genezeta 3mo agoBut the point about the multi-finger fingers -xD- was not about transitional technology, but about explicitly avoiding direct brain connection as an additional layer of security.
- Krasnol 3mo agoIf someone is interested in a rare gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_(comic_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_(comic_book) It is by the same illustrator as Thorgal, Grzegorz Rosiński. (PS. in Rosiński's home land, Poland, those comics have been know under the name "Yans" because Hans was too German for that time)
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- d--b 3mo agoI am somewhat surprised not to find any Jodorowsky in there. Maybe the incal world doesnt really qualify as punk and more like regular scifi or perhaps bordeline new-agey, but it doesn’t strike me as fundamentally different from Akira in story style.
- newsclues 3mo agoAnyone have recommendations for cyberpunk enthusiasts who love William Gibson? I can’t believe they cancelled the tv show :(
- taude 3mo agoI remember collecting original Shatter when it came out. The big novelty was that it was 100% created on a computer. Pixels and all in the output.
- everyone 3mo agoCyberpunk seems less charming now that we actually do live in a techno-feudalist dystopia.
- varjag 3mo agoNo mention of Lone Wolf 2100.
- BLKNSLVR 3mo agoTheir separate lists of movies, shows, and games are also worth a peruse. A few things to add to my ever-growing list.
- akurtzhs 3mo agoNothing by Adam Warren? He took the Dirty Pair comics somewhere very cyberpunk in the last three volumes.
- AdmiralAsshat 3mo agoThe article should add the excellent Marvel Graphic Novel adaptation of Neuromancer: https://archive.org/details/william-gibson-s-neuromancer-vol.-01-us/page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/william-gibson-s-neuromancer-vol... It was a shame it never finished covering the entirety of the first novel.
- lukaszkorecki 3mo agoGhost Rider 2099 is sadly missing from this list
- corimaith 3mo agoIt's interesting how genre coding have become much more enforced these years. Back in the early 2010s we would call most of these just "sci-fi", because the influence and aesthetics of cyberpunk has already bled into the wider genre that you'd be more hard pressed to find a story without some influence on it. But despite the author's veneration of 90s and 2000s, I'd argue the works from the late 2000s and early 2010s are just as sophisticated and arguably more relevant to our modern world; Project Itoh (Genocidal Organ, Harmony), Gatchaman Crowds, Beatless, alot of their themes were prescient; Because the frontier isn't hardware, it's ontology and semantics.