It promises to be another crowded Wednesday of comics arrivals.
The second issue of Jeff Smith’s Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil arrives from DC, as does the fifth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting from Fantagraphics. Part of me feels like both of these would read better in collection, but that part is shouted down by the heftier portion that doesn’t want to wait.
I enjoyed reading the back and forth between comics retailer Alex Cox and Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter on the Shazam book’s appeal to young attendees of the New York Comic Con, and young readers in general, as it touches on a lot of questions that have been floating through my head. The first involved whether or not the per-issue cost of the series would be prohibitive for younger readers. The second centered on what quantity of casual readers made it into NYCC given the fact that tickets for some days sold out before the event began. (It’s probably incorrect, but I tend to place kids in the category of casual readers, in spite of how obsessed I was with comics from about age six and up. Maybe I just hope I was abnormal at that age and that other people have a healthier range of interests.)
Anyway, back to the ComicList.
The second-to-last volume of Chigusa Kawai’s subtle and surprising La Esperança ships via Juné. Maybe someone will hold hands with someone else in a non-platonic fashion this time around? It probably won’t matter to me if they don’t.
Viz has tons of stuff set to arrive. The battle of the stylists continues in the third volume of Beauty Pop. Suspense among obsessive sales figure watchers mounts as both vol. 10 of Death Note and vol. 13 of Naruto arrive on the same day. Which will emerge victorious in Diamond’s graphic novel sales for March? The first volume of The Gentlemen’s Alliance ┼ brings one of the weirdest casts I’ve ever seen in a shôjo manga set in a high school, which I find to be an unquestionably good thing.
Last and perhaps least from Viz is the fourth volume of Yakitate!! Japan. Don’t get me wrong. I like it in the way I like most quirky, young-men-with-a-dream shônen that has perhaps a bit more fan service than I like. But I’m starting to wonder if the bread-baking is making me overlook the fact that it’s… kind of average. (For those of you who’d like a shot at securing all four volumes in one easy shot, ChunHyang has thrown them all into an auction lot, along with some other tempting combinations.)