Upcoming 12/23/2009

I’m sure there’s a lot to delight many people on this week’s ComicList, but I find myself underwhelmed and a little bit relieved by that. My “to read” pile is sufficiently tall to get me through the upcoming holiday, so taking a break from compounding the problem is welcome.

There is one book of particular note this week, though I already own all of the comics collected in it: Evil Twin Comics releases More Than Complete Action Philosophers, written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Ryan Dunlavey. Van Lente and Dunlavey take a wild and wooly approach to educating about the lives and belief systems of some of history’s great philosophers, and the results are always lively and informative. I have a particular nostalgia for this title, as I discovered it at my first visit to a Small Press Expo and got my copies signed by Van Lente and Dunlavey. (“Keep thinking!”) If you enjoyed R. Sikoryak’s marvelous Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly), then this would be an excellent piece of follow-up reading.

If you want something to read right now, here are some links:

  • Kate Dacey runs through the shipping list and tracks some of the recent Best Manga of 2009 lists that are out there. The most recent example is Deb Aoki’s excellent list of Best Continuing Manga of 2009.
  • Writing for CTV News, Reed Stevenson takes a look at Europe’s manga market. Any article that starts with a Van Gogh anecdote and uses Paul Gravett as a source is worth a look.
  • Over at The Comics Journal, Shaenon K. Garrity weighs in on the state of manga translation and the question of authenticity versus readability: “The thing is, you can’t have both.” Let it be known that I favor readability.