The new Previews is out, with lots of offerings to get your mind off the gray chill.
The first product of DC’s partnership with Flex Comics arrives in the form of Daisuke Torii’s Zombie Fairy (CMX) which seems to start with a visit to a Japanese version of Antiques Roadshow and follows up with pesky ghosts (Page 100).
There seems to be a new global manga publisher in the Previews listings, Demented Dragon, or maybe I just haven’t noticed them before. There are solicitations for first volumes of The Phoenix Chronicles by Kenyth Morgan and Melissa Hudson, A Steel Wing Shattered by Chris Hazelton, and Stray Crayons by Yoko Molotov. Here’s their web site. (Page 265.)
Go! Comi goes global with the release of animator Aimee Major Steinberger’s Japan Ai – A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. It’s a journal of Major Steinberger’s travels in Japan and her “passion for all things cute.” (Page 295.)
Houghton Mifflin, the publisher of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, offers Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters. It’s a memoir about the creator’s relationship with an HIV+ mother and son. (Page 296.)
NBM releases the softcover version of Rick Geary’s ninth Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Bloody Benders. I’m crazy about these books, but I always wait for the paperback version. Yes, my love is cheap. (Page 312.)
Tokyopop drops the first volume of Kozue Amano’s much-admired Aria, with a new cover and “refreshed translation.” (ADV published it a while back.) It’s one of those books that’s always been on my “to try” list, and this seems like a good opportunity to start from the beginning. (Page 333.)
I just mentioned this book a couple of days ago, and voila, here it is in Previews: Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell (Top Shelf). I dug out my copy of The Book of Boy Trouble (Green Candy Press) to refresh my memory about Hartzell’s style, and his story is really funny in a mortifying, slightly perverse way. (Page 342.)
I’ve read a couple of chapters of Hinako Ashibara’s Sand Chronicles (Viz) in Shojo Beat and found them really effective and moving. The first collection is solicited in this issue. (Page 365.)