Upcoming 8/15

Just got back from some work travel, about which the less said the better. I checked in periodically to see if there was any blog spam in the filter, and it all apparently concealed itself for this morning. I tried to look through and see if there were any actual comments in there, but my eyes started to glaze over, so if I dumped anything inadvertently, I apologize.

Now, on to today’s haul.

The pick of the week for me is the sixth volume of the Foglios’ delightful web-to-print fantasy-adventure, Girl Genius: Angela Heterodyne and the Golden Trilobite, now available in softcover. The last volume ended on quite the cliffhanger, so I’m eager to see what happens next. (If you’re interested in the series and want a good starting point, Airship has an omnibus edition of the first three volumes.)

Oni Press delivers the fourth issue of the very funny series Maintenance, written by Jim Massey and drawn by Robbi Rodriguez. It’s one of the few series I collect in floppy form, and it just got optioned by Warner Brothers. (I realize that lots of series get optioned, and that it’s no sign of quality whatever, but I think this property might make for fun viewing.)

Tokyopop has three titles that interest me. The first is the 17th volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket. The series seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern, and the last couple of volumes have only bruised my heart as opposed to ripping it clean out of my chest. I’m fairly confident that it will get back on form soon enough, but the plot really could use a bit of forward motion.

I’ve seen various responses to Fumi Yoshinaga’s Truly Kindly, coming from the Blu imprint, though none of them have been what I’d call negative. I believe it’s been described as “weird,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The title alone is enough to get me interested in Atelier Marie and Elie Zarlburg Alchemist by Yoshihiko Ochi, though I wouldn’t relish typing it very often.