There’s an outrageous quantity of good manga coming out this week, and David Taylor has pulled the manga out for your convenience.
If I didn’t already own it, I would name Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s re-release of Jiro Taniguchi’s sublime Walking Man as manga pick of the week. I think I will anyways. (F/PM is another publisher who could play a mean game of “If you like…” Of course, I think every comic shop should have a spinner rack full of their books. Some of their work is on display in a recent article from Paul Gravett, along with other offerings in the still-too-narrow gekiga category.)
In non-manga offerings, I’m most excited about Dave Roman’s Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery from Slave Labor Graphics.
Chris Butcher goes through this week’s releases, hitting the highlights and making an good point about a couple of current manga series:
“Better still, it’s a lot of fun to compare the 1970s suspense-horror of Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu (essentially: Japan’s Stephen King) to Dragon Head, a more contemporary take on the sub-genre. Drifting Classroom leaves less to the imagination about the fate of the characters and what they face, but it also has the reactions of the characters ratchetted way above Dragon Head to achieve similar effects… You really oughtta be buying and reading both, I think.”
Jog’s rundown of the week’s comics is particularly manga-rich this week. Best line:
“Q-Ko-chan Vol. 2 (of 2): Another model of clarity from writer/artist Ueda Hajime draws to a close. It looks nice!”
What more is there to say?
Dave Ferraro is another Drifting Classroom fan (so am I), and he takes a look at volume 2 in the latest Manga Monday at Comics-and-More, also reviewing Dragon Head 4, Monster 5, and Shojo Beat’s Punch preview.
At MangaBlog, Brigid gives a qualified thumbs-up to the second volume of Boogiepop Doesn’t Laugh; I agree with her that more distinct character design would have helped with clarity. Rereading the first volume before delving into the second was almost essential.
MangaCast keeps the previews and reviews coming. Volume #255 features CMX’s Densha Otoko, Juné’s Close the Last Door, and the second volume of The Great Catsby from NETCOMICS. And MangaCaster Erin F. provides an audio version of the latest Manga Recon column from PopCultureShock. The eclectic collection of titles covered includes the first two volumes of Scott Pilgrim, DMP’s Robot anthology, Ultra Cute, and the excellent Dokebi Bride. Ah, globalism!
Dark Horse’s Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service did well in the Direct Market, and TangognaT thinks it deserves four stars (out of five).
And in this week’s Flipped, I think about the children… the murderous, emotionally disturbed children.
