I’m not going to lie to you. There’s plenty of good stuff arriving at the comic shop this week, but the bulk of my anticipatory energy is reserved for the final book in the Harry Potter series. I’m not going to dress up as a Death Eater and head to the bookstore at midnight, and I’m not going to hunt down purported spoilers on-line, but I’m a big nerd all the same.
(I haven’t seen the fifth movie yet, because I’m waiting for the crowds to die down. I am really happy to hear from various reviews that the actor who plays Luna is spot-on. I love Luna. That probably means she’s going to die in the last book, doesn’t it? No! I can’t let myself believe that!)
Okay, now that that nerd-splosion is out of the way, on to the ComicList for Wednesday. And really, there are some delightful books on offer. Since the site itself seems to have exceeded its bandwidth, I’ll point you straight to Diamond instead.
Jeff Smith’s Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil (DC) has been a real pleasure to read, and it concludes today with the fourth issue. It’s been an extremely clean, purposeful book, and by “clean” I don’t mean “family friendly,” though it’s that, too. I just mean that all of the elements of Smith’s work are neatly and effectively in synch. (For those of you who passed on the individual issues, DC already has information up on the deluxe hardcover, due in October.)
I’m still looking forward to Byun Byung Ju’s Run, Bong-Gu Run! (NBM), which is set to arrive at the local comic shop today.
It’s a good week for fans of Fumi Yoshinaga, who has two books arriving: Don’t Say Any More, Darling (Juné) and the third volume of The Flower of Life (Digital Manga Publishing). I don’t really know much about the former, but it’s hard to go too wrong with this particular manga-ka.
Of course, I’ve been posting about the latter ad nauseum, because it’s awesome. It’s like the high school down the block from Bakery Antique, with Yoshinaga operating on all cylinders and creating a lovely, funny world of exuberantly odd youth. No one quite occupies the same narrative turf as Yoshinaga, gently intersecting young and old, wise and foolish, and funny and sad. It’s just exquisite.