I’m so confused by this week’s shipping list. Things seem to have reappeared in spite of having shipped a while ago, or at least they were listed as arrivals on previous weeks. Ah well.
Surely the pick of the week will be the second volume of Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat (Pantheon). The first collection of this series was my introduction to Sfar’s work, and it was love at first sight. I can’t wait to catch up with the philosophical feline.
Has the third volume of Yuki Urushibara’s splendid Mushishi (Del Rey) been in bookstores for a while and is just now arriving in comic shops? Possibly. I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago, and I recommend it to anyone who likes smart, heartfelt science fiction and fantasy.
While I don’t feel any urgency to run out and pick up the new volume of Kanako Inuki’s Presents (CMX) the day they come out, I always pick it up eventually. Aside from its old-school horror charms, this series is an excellent palate cleanser. The short stories of gifts gone wrong and horrible things happening to terrible people are very pleasant diversions to enjoy between chunkier series.
Speaking of pleasant diversions, Shin Mashiba’s Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun (Viz) certainly counts. It’s certainly not the best paranormal-investigator manga you could select, but given how many entries there are in that category, that’s hardly a damning criticism. People plagued with bad dreams turn to Hiruko for help, though they shouldn’t expect any sympathy, and Mashiba turns out some amusing, generally effective episodes as a result. Mashiba’s beautiful, detailed artwork is the strongest selling point for this series.