19 responses so far ↓

• 1 Tori // Jan 18, 2012 at 5:14 am

  It’s so not part of the Midwest.

• 2 Victor Edison // Jan 18, 2012 at 6:08 am

  Hahaha…
  These strips are great. I never noticed how crazy we foreigners look in those texts. My wife assures me that to her Japanese eyes they don’t look crazy just “strong.”
  I also asked her about the shoulder thing. She insists that it’s not true. She illustrated this by pointing out that she wears tank tops all the time but wouldn’t be caught dead in a mini skirt. I had to admit she had a point, but who knows. I mean, she is married to me, a maniacally grinning foreigner, so other Japanese people probably think she is a slut.

• 3 Adam // Jan 18, 2012 at 6:46 am

  Laughed out loud at the textbook manipulations. Great work man.

• 4 Lars Martinson // Jan 18, 2012 at 7:19 am

  Thanks for the comments, guys!
  Victor: hm, maybe on the mini skirt/shoulder thing I overstated the case a bit. Guess I’ll have to wait til it gets warmer to see if the theory holds up to scrutiny. (Not too many short sleeves this time of year either way!)

• 5 Sean Michael Wilson // Jan 18, 2012 at 7:57 am

  Nice stuff Lars-ification, i like these strips a lot. The mini skirt/shoulder thing is accurate i think – at least in Kyushu. Or maybe the ‘mini skirt/breasts thing’ is more accurate. Here girls wear mini skirts very often, but very seldom show off much from the top half. Why this would be is very interesting, it appears paradoxical – why a dramatic display of one aspect, but not the other? Of course the main functional reason is just falling fashion, but what is the underlying reason? Omoshiroi, ne.

• 6 Steve M // Jan 18, 2012 at 8:04 am

  Actually, the whole idea of Midwest is rather odd. I think it is based on a bunch of colonialists who thought anything not part of the original 13 colonies was west. If we use the Mississippi River, which is about in the middle of the country, as the dividing line, then Minnesota would be Midwest, and Wisconsin would be Mideast ;-)

  Oh, and I’ve been to Oklahoma. The part I saw was totally cows and cowboys – definitely Southwest.

• 7 Ashley G. // Jan 18, 2012 at 2:45 pm

  I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Besides being just downright funny (I’d never noticed how maniacal all the foreigners looked in Sunshine) I was not fooled by your name changes as I know your friends. Which just made it that. much. better.

  Can’t wait to see what comes next!

• 8 trent w // Jan 18, 2012 at 3:26 pm

  great great great . i know as a minnesotan that you are a vikings fan!!! as a wisconsinite your just a sad packers fan . But in oklahoma you just simply like to ride bulls. Me as an ohioan that had a sad face printed on our state would have to agree that i like to look at shoulders and short skirts lol…. i will once again say wonderful larz

• 9 tats // Jan 18, 2012 at 10:50 pm

  I laughed a lot when I read your speculations of the differences of the descriptions between Japanese people and foreigners in the textbook. Foreigners there look hyperactive. Herge, the creator of Tin Tin should have drawn them instead. Looking forward to the next one.

• 10 Charlie // Jan 19, 2012 at 11:34 am

  I’ve always thought of Oklahoma as one of the Great Plains states, along with Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas above it.

  My definition of the Midwest was always sort of limited to the states that had schools in the original Big 10 Conference (Penn State and Nebraska don’t count, as numbers 11 and 12 added later).

  Also, there is apparently a whole community of people out there who argue about such things – the NY Times has a blog called “Borderlines” addressing similar topics, and one of the recent entries was about defining what exactly constitutes “Europe.” Good luck with that.

  BTW, I really enjoy your work. One of my wife’s friends did the JET program like you, and your comics provide entertaining insight into what that experience must be like.

• 11 proof // Jan 20, 2012 at 6:07 am

  http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf

• 12 Filippo Mare // Jan 20, 2012 at 3:11 pm

  Foreigners depicted as devils is a pearl!
  My next step is try to get a copy of your former book Young men of a c.m. even if I don’t live in NORTH AMERICA.. I’ll wake up my American friends to help
  Thank you for free publishing all of these.
  Ciao from Milan, Northern Italy… or it’s Southern Europe?

• 13 Lars Martinson // Jan 20, 2012 at 10:16 pm

  Thanks for all the comments, everyone! (^O^)/
  I finished the script for the next installment and have started drawing it, so should have it up in… two weeks, maybe? I’m trying to find a balance between working on these and working on Tonoharu…

• 14 Walt // Jan 22, 2012 at 5:43 pm

  These are great. Still looking for the next installment of Tonoharu.
  -Walt

• 15 Laurel Ryan // Jan 25, 2012 at 4:27 am

  Check out what this dude has to say about selling comics for e-readers. http://danidraws.com/2010/09/27/digital-comics/

• 16 Becky // Jan 26, 2012 at 4:58 am

  Love it! I`ve been arguing with my fellow students about how many continents there are…..turns out that in lots of parts of the world, the Americas are considered to be 1 continent. No one can explain, though, why the Americas, joined by a tiny isthmus that has a canal cutting it in half, are one continent, while Europe and Asia, with no reasonable dividing line, are considered separate. We don`t have that many discussions about US geography, since I`m the only one here with any opinions on the subject…..though I discovered that a good way to get South Americans riled up is to refer to yourself as an アメリカ人。Works every time.

• 17 Tom O // Jan 29, 2012 at 10:44 am

  I really enjoyed your comic, especially seeing the text book – Sunshine. Oh that Yuki and her naan! And her maniacal friends. As for what is Midwest battle – as a native Nebraskan I know that feeling. I would say the eastern half is farm-land like Iowa, but then it becomes desolate and rocky on the western side. There’s actually a term for our area called “high plains.”

• 18 LQ // Jan 29, 2012 at 7:37 pm

  Yeah, I’m from Missouri and was shocked to find out that many people don’t consider it the midwest. Well, we raise the same crops as the canonical midwestern states — not tobacco, rice, or cotton. We don’t have southern accents. We look more toward Chicago than Dallas. So … midwestern, in my opinion. But yeah, the plains terminology needs to get more airtime.

  Anyway, teaching ESL elsewhere I’ve watched similar arguments happen, between two Korean students over whether a Korean river was a river or a tributary, between two Indian students over whether a certain practice was religious or cultural, etc. Being away from home — what a trip!

  (sorry, love my oyaji gags.)

• 19 Cassie // Jan 29, 2012 at 11:28 pm

  Well, I know Matilda very well, i love how you describe her personality perfectly in the previous one, and i agree, Oklahoma is southl.

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