The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

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Friday rambling

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How I get in the holiday spirit: I substitute “killer bees” for key lyrics in many beloved Christmas carols. It works in almost all of them.

Commercials I really hate: Okay, I get it, T.J. Maxx. There’s something pumped into the ventilation system at your stores that turns people into insufferable bargain braggarts. Consider me warned.

Oh, and I can’t forget Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry, the bauble outlet of choice for viciously competitive people who weigh love based on brand names.

Future shop: ICv2 runs through some upcoming releases from DC, including the single-volume Shirley from Kaoru (Emma) Mori. If I didn’t already own the entire run in one form or another, I’d also have my eye on the Starman Omnibus, one of my favorite super-hero titles ever. (Okay, writer James Robinson had a tendency to give his pet villainess, the Mist, the full Dark Mary Sue treatment to make her seem threatening, but it was great all the same, and the later issues give you the opportunity to see why many people liked Ralph and Sue Dibny.)

Not dead yet: The fifth volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse) is much better than the fourth, which cheers me. (Again, the fourth was still very good manga, just not what I’d come to expect from the generally stellar series.)

Sir, it’s too good, at least? Mely notes that Stephen Sondheim has given his thumbs-up to Tim Burton’s movie version of Sweeney Todd, which has apparently been nominated for Golden Globe awards before it’s even opened in cinemas. (I’ve always found the Golden Globes to be the least persuasive of movie award programs.) I’m unconvinced. I love Sondheim, and I think he’s brilliant, but he has shown a worrying tendency to roll over for celebrities in the past. (I mean, he rewrote the lyrics to “Send in the Clowns” for Barbra Streisand. I know it’s his song, and he can do what he likes with it, but that song is one of the perfect gems of the musical canon.)

Upcoming 12/12/2007

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The theme of this week’s comic shop arrivals seems to be “new volumes of appealing series,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Dark Horse delivers the fifth volume of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. I didn’t think the fourth volume was quite up to standard, to be honest. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as solid a combination of gruesome mystery and strangely heartwarming comedy. I did appreciate the guest appearance by Reiji Akiba from Yamazaki’s other series, Mail, and I hope he returns.

I find Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX) extremely soothing. It’s so gentle and precise, and it’s really easy on the eyes. The sixth volume arrives tomorrow. (By the way, does the knowledge that this series was originally published in a seinen magazine influence your reading experience in any way? Or that Yotsuba&! Or Azumanga Daioh had similar origins? I was flipping through the latest Comics Journal at the shop last week, and most of the review of Translucent seemed largely devoted to that conundrum.)

Until the arrival of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), Kiyoko Arai’s Beauty Pop (Viz) was the clear leader in the ridiculous shôjo category. It’s still awfully good, even if it’s moved into second place. The sixth volume arrives Wednesday. I also really enjoyed the preview chapter of Kiyo Fujiwara’s mafia princess comedy Wild Ones that ran in a recent issue of Shojo Beat, so I’ll have to move that up in my “to read” pile.

Among the other new series making their debut, Seven Seas offers a new take on Speed Racer, written by Dwayne Alexander Smith and drawn by Elmer Damaso, whose work seems to bear some resemblance to that of Mike Allred. That’s kind of a cool way to go with the material.

Upcoming 11/29/2007

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This week’s ComicList constitutes almost an embarrassment of riches. Maybe it’s because of the extra day before shipment. There’s even a three-way tie for Pick of the Week, with some serious runners-up.

Any week that offers a new title from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is going to be special. This boutique nouvelle-manga publisher has a sterling track record for quality, and I can’t imagine that new work from Jiro Taniguchi will do anything to undermine it. With The Ice Wanderer, Taniguchi seems to be channeling Call of the Wild, offering six man-versus-nature short stories. The subject matter isn’t automatically my cup of tea, but it’s Taniguchi, so it will be gorgeous.

A new paperback volume of Rick Geary’s A Treasury of Victorian Murder series (NBM) is also cause for celebration. The Bloody Benders might well be subtitled “Deadly Inn on the Prairie” from the solicitation text.

It’s a great week for Del Rey in general, but I have to make special mention of the last volume of Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken. Nothing much has really happened in nine volumes, but the characters are so great that I really don’t care. The charming interpersonal dynamics and the insanely detailed art are more than ample compensation.

As to the rest of Del Rey’s large-ish slate of releases, I’ve gone from really liking Fuyumi Soryo’s ES to absolutely loving it. The seventh volume arrives on Thursday, and the tension ratchets up considerably as Soryo forces just about everyone in her cast into dark and dangerous corners. On the lighter side, there’s the third volume of Ai Morinaga’s very funny anti-sports manga, My Heavenly Hockey Club. I devoted half of last week’s Flipped to Ryotaro Iwanaga’s very promising Pumpkin Scissors, so go take a look if you haven’t already.

I don’t think I’ll ever be inclined to read comics online if there’s a print alternative. Take Morim Kang’s 10, 20, and 30 (Netcomics). I sampled some chapters via the Internet and liked them a lot, then read the first paperback and liked it quite a bit more. Either way you consume it, it’s got charming cartooning and wonderfully rounded characters offering multi-generational slices of life. The second volume arrives this week.

I’m still kind of on the fence about MPD Psycho (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Sho-U Tajima. I read the second volume over the weekend, and while I found it less aggressively lurid than the first, I thought it was a little harder to follow. I’m inclined to give Otsuka a lot of leeway based on his work on The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, so I’ll stay on board for a bit longer.

I was quite taken with the first volume of Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX), a race-for-the-crown fantasy adventure. I’m eager to see what happens in the second installment.

Upcoming 11/14/2007

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So clearly, the release of the week is Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together from Oni. The rest of the comics industry might be forgiven for just taking it easy in the face of such a formidable arrival, but they aren’t.

Heck, even Oni isn’t, and they’re releasing Courtney Crumrin and the Fire-Thief’s Tale from Ted Naifeh. (I’ve really got to catch up on this series, because I’ve loved what I’ve read.)

I’ll be covering it in more detail in next week’s Flipped, but I will say I really enjoyed Yuki Nakaji’s Venus in Love (CMX). It’s a sweet slice of college life about a girl and a guy who are in love with the same guy.

A new title from Fumi Yoshinaga is always worth a look, and Digital Manga offers Garden Dreams. I tend to favor her contemporary stories to her period pieces, but I generally can’t resist either, and I’m intrigued that this one isn’t part of the Juné imprint.

The previous volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) offered the biggest bombshell in a while, and the eighteenth installment promises even more shocks. But really, the whole thing could be nothing but characters talking about their favorite onigiri filling and I’d still buy it.

And yes, I’m still a Shojo Beat junkie, thanks to the inclusion of Honey and Clover and Sand Chronicles. Well played, Viz.

Upcoming 10/10

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Just because Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey) is clearly the must-buy item on this week’s ComicList doesn’t mean it’s the only item worth mentioning.

If it weren’t for the Guide, the pick of the week might be the fifth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s absolutely delightful Yotsuba&! (ADV). Cardboard robot battles! A trip to the beach! Grapes! What more do you need?

Yes, they hunger for brains, but how do zombies really feel? Someone must have already asked this, but nothing comes to mind. This archly emo look at undead eaters of human flesh comes in the form of J. Marc Schmidt’s Eating Steve from Slave Labor Graphics. I’ve heard good things about Schmidt’s Egg Story, and the Eating Steve preview has some nice bits in it.)

I’m curious about CMX’s new wave of titles aimed at mature readers, particularly Kanako Inuki’s Presents. The excerpt that ran in a CMX sampler over the summer wasn’t too inspiring, but John Jakala’s review convinces me that it’s definitely worth a look. (But I really love “comeuppance theater.” “Tonight on ‘When Bad Things Happen to People Who Totally Deserve Them…”)

Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings (Drawn & Quarterly) has gotten great reviews all over the place, so I’m sure I’ll take a look at it at some point. I’m guessing it will be all over chain bookstores, and the right convergence of opportunity and discount will arise somewhere down the line.

How have I managed to go this long without reading Lat’s Kampung Boy (First Second), even in the face of universal critical acclaim? And now the follow-up, Town Boy, is due. Must… catch… up! (Not with the help of Amazon, though. They have one of those “buy both” offers that actually allows you to pay about 75 cents more for the two titles than you would if you just added them to your cart individually, which leads me to believe that the buy-two pricing hasn’t caught up with the individual costs.)

Beyond lots of Fruits Basket product (which I hasten to note that I heartily endorse, because the series is very moving and surprising), Tokyopop offers two books that I’m eagerly anticipating. The first is the debut volume of Kozue Amano’s Aqua, which sounds lovely. There’s also the second volume of Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn. The first installment didn’t quite reach the heights of Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX), but it was very solid, and it’s Iwahara, so I’ll happily stick around on the assumption that it will reach those heights eventually.

The excerpt from Yearbook Stories: 1976-78 that ran in Top Shelf’s Seasonal Sampler was extremely likable, so I’ll definitely look for it the next time I’m in a big city with a comic shop with a wide selection. It’s written by Top Shelf honcho Chris Staros and illustrated by Bo Hampton and Rich Tommaso.

Even factoring out the extra volumes of Naruto, Viz sure has a heck of a lot of product moving this week. Some of it, like Strawberry 100%, is resolutely awful, in my opinion. Some offerings, like new volumes of Bleach and Nana, are as welcome as sweater weather.

Yen Press rolls out three licensed titles, all of which sound like fairly standard bookstore fare, and none of which quite grab my attention the way With the Light did. I do like teen detective stories, so I’ll probably give Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning a look. Or maybe not, after reading Katherine Dacey-Tsuei’s take on the book. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of other options.

Dead of winter

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The new Previews is out, with lots of offerings to get your mind off the gray chill.

The first product of DC’s partnership with Flex Comics arrives in the form of Daisuke Torii’s Zombie Fairy (CMX) which seems to start with a visit to a Japanese version of Antiques Roadshow and follows up with pesky ghosts (Page 100).

There seems to be a new global manga publisher in the Previews listings, Demented Dragon, or maybe I just haven’t noticed them before. There are solicitations for first volumes of The Phoenix Chronicles by Kenyth Morgan and Melissa Hudson, A Steel Wing Shattered by Chris Hazelton, and Stray Crayons by Yoko Molotov. Here’s their web site. (Page 265.)

Go! Comi goes global with the release of animator Aimee Major Steinberger’s Japan Ai – A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. It’s a journal of Major Steinberger’s travels in Japan and her “passion for all things cute.” (Page 295.)

Houghton Mifflin, the publisher of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, offers Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters. It’s a memoir about the creator’s relationship with an HIV+ mother and son. (Page 296.)

NBM releases the softcover version of Rick Geary’s ninth Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Bloody Benders. I’m crazy about these books, but I always wait for the paperback version. Yes, my love is cheap. (Page 312.)

Tokyopop drops the first volume of Kozue Amano’s much-admired Aria, with a new cover and “refreshed translation.” (ADV published it a while back.) It’s one of those books that’s always been on my “to try” list, and this seems like a good opportunity to start from the beginning. (Page 333.)

I just mentioned this book a couple of days ago, and voila, here it is in Previews: Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell (Top Shelf). I dug out my copy of The Book of Boy Trouble (Green Candy Press) to refresh my memory about Hartzell’s style, and his story is really funny in a mortifying, slightly perverse way. (Page 342.)

I’ve read a couple of chapters of Hinako Ashibara’s Sand Chronicles (Viz) in Shojo Beat and found them really effective and moving. The first collection is solicited in this issue. (Page 365.)

Upcoming 9/19/2007

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This isn’t one of those weeks where you can complain about the overwhelmingly mainstream nature of the manga market. (I guess you could, but there are sufficient counter-examples to undermine your position.)

Yen Press releases the eagerly anticipated first volume of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child. (Okay, it’s eagerly anticipated by me, but I’m sure I’m not alone.) Isn’t it time that Yen or Hachette built a web site for its graphic novel line? I can’t even find information on the book on the Hachette site. Edited to note that I didn’t look hard enough: Connie from Slightly Biased Manga pointed me toward Yen’s starter site. The logo looks kind of funereal to me.

Fans of Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra… (and I’m one of them) will be happy to see the arrival of the first volume of Andromeda Stories from Vertical. Fans of Keiko Takemiya who happen to live in Vancouver will be even happier, as she will be paying a three-day visit to the University of British Columbia Sept. 19-21. Details are here. Once again, I find myself wishing I were in Canada.

For as long as Viz runs Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover in Shojo Beat, I will recommend you pick up the new issue of Shojo Beat. I already got mine at a bookstore, but the Umino-enriched magazine shows up in comic shops tomorrow.

Okay, this next one runs right down the middle of the bookstore aisle, but that doesn’t mean Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX) isn’t a promising and engaging fantasy series debut.

I really enjoyed the first issue of Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro, sent to me by AdHouse. It’s funny, imaginative and sweet, and the second issue arrives in some comic shops tomorrow. (Chao has a delightful blog with lots of sketches, pages and designs.)

Upcoming 9/12

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This is one of those weeks at the comic shop that doesn’t look especially overwhelming at first glance, but becomes a buffet upon closer scrutiny.

In fact, I couldn’t really select a Pick of the Week, though I think I’d have to give DC the Publisher of the Week. How do they accomplish this, you ask? Variety.

First there’s a new volume of Kaoru Mori’s Emma, which is a bit late but no less welcome for it. Then there’s the first release in the second wave of Minx books, Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Aaron Alexovich. M. Carey contributed the script for the excellent Re-Gifters, easily my favorite book in the line, so this will definitely merit a read. And while I found DC’s last effort at reviving the franchise completely incomprehensible, John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad stands as one of my favorite super-hero team books ever (though it rarely featured any actual heroes). I don’t see any obvious deterrents to coherence in the solicitation for the new mini-series featuring Ostrander’s cast, so I might have to give it a try.

That said, DC has Viz hot on its heels, and the manga publisher seems to be going for the “massive show of force” technique. Yes, lots of Naruto is on the way, but there are also new volumes of excellent ongoing series like Beauty Pop and Gin Tama, and a really, really lovely treatment of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkonkinkreet, with three volumes of weirdness packed into a satisfyingly hefty package. I’m about halfway through it, and it’s pretty amazing.

If the Suicide Squad thing tempts me sufficiently, I’ll be picking up three whole floppies this week. The other two are the eighth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting (Fantagraphics) and the fifth issue of the endearing Maintenance (Oni).

And last but not least, Tokyopop reminds me that I don’t need to lead a life void of Meca Tanaka manga just because Omukae Desu is done. The third volume of Pearl Pink is out, which puts me only one volume behind. (I know. That’s how it starts.) Because I’m not reading enough quirky comedies about would-be teen idols.

Stormy adolescences

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You would think one manga about teens facing mysterious, murderous parasites would be enough for a given publisher, but the more I read Alive, the more I realized there was plenty of room at Del Rey for both it and Parasyte.

And while it might not be one of CMX’s more newsworthy upcoming releases, I enjoyed The Key to the Kingdom a whole lot. (I might just be going through fantasy saga withdrawal, but I don’t think so.)

Anyway, I go into needless detail on both in this week’s Flipped.