It’s not a huge week for new comics, but there are plenty of potentially enjoyable arrivals on the ComicList.
It’s a very good week for fans of Kathryn Immonen. She’s got a new mini-series at Marvel called Heralds, illustrated by Tonci Zonic, which features a group of super-heroines dealing with a threat posed by a not-quite-dead-yet female herald of Galactus. I liked her work on the Hellcat mini-series, and in spite of its awful covers and insulting marketing, I liked Zonic’s work on Marvel Divas, which featured a number of the same characters. I’m also looking forward to seeing Hellcat and Valkyrie fighting side by side, as they were mainstays of The Defenders back in the day. I have no idea why any of these women would attend a birthday party for Emma Frost, or why Cyclops would think they’d want to do so, but…
Kathryn Immonen teams up with gifted illustrator Stuart Immonen for Moving Pictures (Top Shelf). The publisher describes it as “the story of the awkward and dangerous relationship between curator Ila Gardner and officer Rolf Hauptmann, as they are forced by circumstances to play out their private lives in a public power struggle. The narrative unfolds along two timelines which collide with the revelation of a terrible secret, an enigmatic decision that not many would make, and the realization that sometimes the only choice left is the refusal to choose.”
Viz does its usual first-week flood with tons of shônen and shôjo. The two most interesting-sounding debuts are Library Wars: Love and War, story and art by Kiiro Yumi, original concept by Hiro Arikawa. It’s about militarized librarians protecting books and preventing censorship. You can find approving early reviews at Manga Worth Reading and The Manga Critic.
On the shônen front, there’s Toriko, written and illustrated by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. It follows the titular “Gourmet Hunter,” who must “hunt down the ferocious ingredients that supply the world’s best restaurants.” I suppose this technically counts as food manga, so I feel obligated to read it. MangaBlog’s Brigid Alverson thinks it fulfills its aims admirably.
Elsewhere in Viz’s listings is the final volume of Chica Umino’s lovely Honey and Clover and a bunch of new volumes of Eiichiro Oda’s excellent One Piece.