Time for a perfunctory look at this week’s ComicList. Bleak industry tidings aside, there’s still cause for enthusiasm and better inducement than ever to actually buy the stuff.
DMP gets things off to a good start with the second volume of Itazura na Kiss, written and illustrated by Kaoru Tada. I was really charmed by the first volume of this series in spite of the fact that its dumb-girl-loves-prince-type dynamic has taken many a dark, gross turn in subsequent comics. It’s funny and charming, and it reminds me that I don’t really need to endorse the central potential couple to enjoy a romantic comedy.
Beyond shock at the news and sympathy for those affected, I was particularly disappointed to hear that Eric Searleman was among those who lost their jobs in the recent layoffs at Viz. Aside from being an enthusiastic, helpful guy, Eric has worked very hard on Viz’s SigIKKI initiative, which lets readers sample ambitious, diverse comics for free. Two comics from that initiative debut in print this week.
I’ve already written a bit about Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments, so I’ll point you to Kate Dacey’s lovely review of the book:
“Saturn Apartments is many things — a coming-of-age story, a set of character studies, a meditation on man’s place in the greater universe — but like all good space operas, its real purpose is to affirm the truth of T.S. Eliot’s words, ‘We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.’ Highly recommended.”
The other SigIKKI debut is Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, which I’ve also covered and also like, though for very different reasons. Sometimes your dreams don’t come true.