It isn’t a huge week in terms of new comics arrivals, but there are some choice items.
The one I’m anticipating most eagerly is probably Mi-Kyung Yun’s Bride of the Water God from Dark Horse. It looks gorgeous, its folklore-rich premise sounds intriguing, and any series that starts with attempted human sacrifice is worth at least a look. Manga Recon’s Katherine Dacey-Tsuei thinks very highly of it, which is always a good sign.
Del Rey, Tokyopop and Viz are taking the week off, for the most part, but Go! Comi leaps into the breach with new volumes of four ongoing series. Of them, I’d definitely recommend Setona Mizushiro’s Afterschool Nightmare, which hits the five-volume mark. It’s still providing unsettling, emotionally complex new developments for its cast of identity-challenged teens. Then there’s Hideyuki Kurata’s Train + Train, which has been steadily improving since a rather lackluster first volume. The third ended in a surprising cliffhanger, with the Special Train students visiting a city beset by terrorists. I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out.
Next week, I’ll be in range of one of the best comic shops I’ve ever visited, so I’m sure I’ll be able to browse the four new releases from PictureBox. I’m especially curious about Yuichi Yokoyama’s New Engineering, though I suspect I’ll be more interested in “Public Works” than “Combat.” Chris Mautner picked it as his “book of the show” from SPX, a show that always seems to yield a number of amazing books.