I generally don’t read the text pieces in Diamond’s Previews catalog, but the latest issue reveals that the distributor has declared March 21-27 “Women in Comics Week.” I’ll need to collate my thoughts on how Diamond has chosen to celebrate this particular event, so that’s really just a note to me at the moment. Let’s move on to the highlights of this installment, shall we?
The best news of the month is that Simon & Schuster is releasing a volume of new terrific comics by Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! Tweenage Guide to Not Being Popular (page 290): “In Jimmy Gownley’s first original volume in two years, Amelia and company rise and fall through the ranks of nerd, geek – and cheerleader? – in a daring attempt to not be unpopular.”
Should I be excited about Yumi Unita’s Bunny Drop from Yen Press (page 306)? It’s josei, so I feel like I should be. It’s about an immature bachelor who adopts his grandfather’s illegitimate little daughter. In a shônen context, that would probably be super gross, but I think we’re on much safer ground with a josei approach. It was originally published by Shodensha in Feel Young, and it’s been published in French by Delcourt.
There’s no question as to whether or not I should be excited about the arrival of the first print volume of Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves (Page 301), one of the inaugural series from Viz’s SigIKKI initiative. It’s a wonderfully odd story of a down-on-his-luck samurai who finds himself mixed up with a gang of seedy but alluring kidnappers. You can sample it online here. If I’m going to be totally honest, the other SigIKKI launch, Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books, lands somewhere in the middle of the pack in my list of SigIKKI favorites. It’s a strong pack, though, so that’s not really a criticism. It’s a funny, sentimental, episodic look at why and how people love comics. You can sample it online here. (Page 301.)
And now for a quick sampling of new volumes of some terrific series: