The Manga Curmudgeon

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

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Upcoming 3/12/2008

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First, I must reveal how pitifully easy it is to manipulate me. Echo has a new home! Echo has a new home! Well played, Pedigree. You make Grant Morrison look like Mark Millar.

Okay, now we will move on to this week’s comics, before I become dehydrated from the tears a dog-food company has wrung out of me.

Fortunately, my pick of the week is a wonderful piece of satire that will surely cleanse the palate. It’s the third volume of Adam Warren’s racy, funny Empowered (Dark Horse). For those of you just tuning in, a young super-heroine gets by with a little help from her friends, in spite of a singularly unreliable costume and the sexist contempt of just about everyone else in her line of work. Here’s my review of the first volume.

Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX) concludes with the seventh volume. After the absorbingly languid pace of the previous six books, this one felt almost hyperactive by comparison. It’s still lovely and extremely moving, though.

I really loved the classic feel of the first volume of Yuu Asami’s A.I. Revolution (Go! Comi), so I’m really looking forward to reading the second. A young girl helps prototype robots learn about human behavior in smart, sensitively conceived stories.

Maintenance (Oni) is one of the few series I still buy in pamphlet form, and the ninth issue arrives today. Custodians at a mad-scientist think tank encounter a wide range of mangled genre ambassadors, making for observant, odd workplace comedy. The first trade paperback is available, and the second is on its way. Here’s my review of the first issue.

Suppli (Tokyopop) is a great change of pace, following a twenty-something advertising exec as she tries to cobble together a new personal life after the end of a lengthy relationship. The art is lovely, and the observations are sharp and specific, and I’m looking forward to the second digest. Here’s my review of the first.

I already have the first volume of Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret, from way back in the days when ADV published it. Now Tokyopop has rescued the series from licensing limbo, and I might just love Morinaga enough to buy it all over again just to add one more to the sales column (and to spare myself a hunt through my shelving “system”). Kate Dacey summarizes all the reasons you should give it a try over at Manga Recon.

Upcoming 2/27/2008

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Man, the storm is following the calm this week. Tons of stuff is arriving in comic shops this week (that’s probably already in bookstores) that’s worth a look.

(Dear Borders: Please open a concept store in my area. The area is virtually free of pesky zoning regulations, and big box chains are welcomed with unnerving fervor and gratitude that’s almost pathetic. Just look at the parking lot of the Olive Garden if you don’t believe me. Failing that, please offer a “buy blank for the price of blank minus one,” as I will be in the vicinity of one of your non-concept outlets later in the week and would appreciate a bargain.)

It almost never happens that I come to a manga via the anime, but I’ve seen some episodes of Crayon Shinchan on Cartoon Network and found them hilarious. CMX has picked up the manga, once published by ComicsOne, and will be releasing it in all of its vulgar, adorable glory.

I’ve already gone on about the fifth volume of Kitchen Princess (Del Rey). It shows up in comic shops Wednesday.

Aside from the cheerful bad taste of the acronym you can form from part of its title, I’ve actually heard good things about Kei Azumaya’s All Nippon Airline: Paradise 3000 Feet (Juné).

The tenor has obviously been different, but I’ve also heard really good things about Ulf K.’s Hieronymus B. (Top Shelf). It looks like it should make for a nice change of pace.

And Viz has decided against pacing themselves this week, churning out manga I really like in a great flood. The situation is so serious that I have to resort to the bulleted list.

  • Beauty Pop vol. 6, by Kiyoko Arai: ACK! Get that horrible child off of the cover!
  • Gin Tama vol. 5, by Hiroaki Sorachi: Really, really smart comedy about really, really dumb characters. Many try to pull this kind of thing off, but few succeed.
  • High School Debut vol. 2, by Kazune Kawahara: I thought the first volume had tons of potential, and I’m assured that Kawahara realizes that potential in really interesting ways.
  • Honey and Clover vol. 1, by Chica Umino: Sweet and hilarious stuff about a group of art students.
  • Nana vol. 9, by Ai Yazawa: I’m a selfish ass, so I’m just glad that this book is coming out more often. It looks as though things get even more uncomfortable in this volume, which is just as it should be in soap opera.
  • Naruto vol. 28, by Masashi Kishimoto: I’m pretty much a Naruto newbie, so when Viz sent this volume my way, I was curious to see how it functioned as a starting point for someone who was basically ignorant of everything that went before. It works well, and it’s a very entertaining comic in its own right. Also, Sakura splits the earth open with her fist and does a variety of other impressive things, and I am instantly smitten.

    • But seriously, was that level of quantity and quality strictly necessary?

    Upcoming 2/20/2008

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    Some picks from the ComicList for Wednesday, Feb. 20:

    Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s very entertaining mini-series, The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite (Dark Horse), concludes with its sixth issue. If you’re coming in late and are curious, the trade paperback is available for pre-order.

    A new volume of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse) is always cause for celebration. The sixth tankoubon arrives tomorrow, promising new business rivals for the afterlife entrepreneurs.

    I really need to catch up on Tomomi Yamashita’s Apothecarius Argentum (CMX), which is already up to its fourth volume. It’s very attractive, features appealing leads, and offers fun bits of trivia about medicinal and/or lethal substances.

    After four volumes of dealing with the somewhat generic machinations of snotty classmates, the orphan heroine of Natsumi Ando and Miyuki Kobayashi’s Kitchen Princess (Del Rey) gets slapped right in the face with actual adult duplicity in the fifth installment, and holy crap, is it good.

    If you’re craving tales of weird, malevolent, otherworldly organisms turning humans into death machines but find Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte (Del Rey) a little too old-school, the publisher also offers a more modern take on the same subject matter with Tadashi Kawashima and Adachitoka’s Alive. I like both, but Alive is the one with a new volume arriving tomorrow.

    It’s Signature week from Viz, which is always exciting, but I find myself distracted by the latest issue of Shojo Beat, infused as it is with lots of Bryan Lee O’Malley.

    Still, it’s hard to get too distracted to note that Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, now in its thirteenth volume, has become a really spectacular thriller. Watching Urasawa keep his multiple narrative threads from becoming a hopeless tangle is quite breathtaking.

    Grading on a curve

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    Having read the third volume of Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop), I find myself wondering when optimism reaches its expiration date. I’ll be the first to admit that Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX) left me with absurdly high expectations for the creator’s work because of his ability to enliven familiar genre elements with terrific characterization and clever plotting. At the halfway point, King of Thorn is still a collection of set pieces.

    For those of you just tuning in, the story follows a small group of people afflicted with a deadly virus. They were placed in suspended animation until a cure could be found, but they woke to find themselves abandoned in a dilapidated facility overrun with monsters. They try to survive the perils of their former sanctuary and figure out what happened while they were asleep.

    This kind of stuff can work brilliantly. Take Mochizuki Minetaro’s Dragon Head, also from Tokyopop. Minetaro uses roughly the same recipe of survival set pieces and unanswered questions, but the essential difference is characterization. I care what happens to the characters in Dragon Head, as they’re rendered with layers and quirks. Their actions have the capacity to surprise and move me. I don’t feel like I’ve even met the ragtag group from King of Thorn, aside from their familiarity as archetypes.

    In the third volume, the Tough and Secretive Loner urges the Meek Girl Who Becomes More Resourceful to trust him. It’s configured to be one of those turning-point moments where readers care whether the heroine chooses between sense and faith, by Iwahara hasn’t earned that level of investment yet. Neither has inner life enough for her choice to matter; the decision is going to seem under-informed either way.

    Rom com

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    One of the things that was confirmed for me when I started reading manga in earnest was that I’m a big sucker for romance in the comic form. I’d always been more inclined to the soap operatic elements of super-hero comics than the adventure end of things, and many manga series allowed me to forego the flying fists entirely. With the imminent arrival of Valentine’s Day, here are some of my favorites:

    Antique Bakery, by Fumi Yoshinaga (DMP): Okay, it’s more about coping with the challenges of adulthood in general than romance in particular, but I think Yoshinaga is at her funniest, sharpest, and most generous when she examines the bittersweet qualities of interpersonal relationships. It’s almost all sighs instead of swoons, but a story doesn’t have to offer anything resembling “happily ever after” to be romantic in its own way. All four volumes are available.

    Emma, by Kaoru Mori (CMX): On the other hand, this one is all swoons, all the time, and it is glorious. It follows the fraught-with-obstacles romance of a housemaid and a member of the upper class (though tellingly, not the aristocracy), rendered with breathtaking emotional precision and lush, detailed illustrations. Only one more volume is due from this series.

    Fake, by Sanami Matoh (Tokyopop): You’ve got to either embrace or ignore the wooly-headed stupidity of the police procedural aspects of this tale of detectives in lust, but it’s worth it. It’s a seven-volume pas de deux between bisexual Dee and undecided Ryo, fighting (snicker) crime and finding their way towards each other. Don’t think; just read.

    Genshiken, by Kio Shimoku (Del Rey): Like Antique Bakery, this one isn’t a romance, per se, but some of the undercurrents kill me. Shimoku plays me like a fiddle with a will-they-won’t-they-probably-not subplot that runs throughout the nine volumes of the series.

    Love Roma, by Minoru Toyoda (Del Rey): This one presents high-school romance in all of its goofy glory. This review at Sleep is for the Weak tells you everything you need to know about the book’s considerable virtues. All five volumes of its run are available.

    Maison Ikkoku, by Rumiko Takahashi (Viz): Fifteen (thanks, Jun) volumes of romantic misunderstandings and near-misses should be exhausting, but it isn’t. Takahashi keeps her options open and populates her fictional boarding house with a likeable (and likeably awful) cast of characters that keeps things hopping. It’s heartfelt and funny in equal measure, a real classic.

    Paradise Kiss, by Ai Yazawa (Tokyopop): Creative passion and young lust clash in this sexy soap about student designers and their muse, a gawky grind who discovers her inner supermodel (and lots of other stuff). If you’ve been enjoying Yazawa’s Nana (Viz), you owe it to yourself to give this one a look. (And if there was ever a series that begged for a glamorous, done-in-one omnibus treatment, it’s this one. Or maybe Antique Bakery. Or both.)

    So what are your swoon-worthy choices?

    Edited to add one more, because I can’t believe I forgot it:

    Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, by Rica Takashima (ALC): This is perhaps the most adorable backlash comic ever. After growing seriously weary of the often tragic outcomes of most manga tales of lesbian love, Takashima decided to take a more lighthearted, positive approach. The result is this charming story of the budding romance between a young innocent and the not-much-older-but-certainly-wiser woman she meets in Tokyo’s gay district.

    Upcoming 2/13/2008

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    I need to just abandon introductory paragraphs on these things and come up with some lazy boilerplate, because they’re becoming increasingly feeble. Something like…

    Some picks from the ComicList for Wednesday, Feb. 13:

    Dark Horse offers the third volume of Kazuhiro Okamoto’s Translucent, a coming-of-age comedy about a girl you can see right through. I know, it sounds like it will pound your skull to jelly with the metaphor hammer even if you manage to find protective headgear, but it’s really sweet, often very funny and populated by charming, quirky characters.

    I was instantly smitten with the first volume of Yuki Nakaji’s Venus in Love (CMX), a slice-of-life college comedy about a girl and a guy in love… with the same guy. The second volume arrives Wednesday, and I’m really looking forward to it.

    I’m not entirely sold on Lewis Trondheim’s Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella (NBM), but I’m willing to be convinced. The pages posted at the blog NBM has erected are absolutely gorgeous, though it’s hard to get a handle on the general subject matter and tone. I guess what I’m asking is if it’s good mundane or bad mundane?

    Upcoming 1/23/2008

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    Okay, I just have to say this. There’s no grief quite as unsettling and, frankly, often distasteful as nerd grief. To me, at least.

    Now, on to this week’s comics releases.

    AdHouse delivers the third issue of Fred Chao’s delightful Johnny Hiro, featuring a night at the opera and 47 Ronin Businessmen.

    I don’t know how I’d feel if the protagonist of Masashi Tanaka’s Gon (CMX) actually ate baby penguins. He hasn’t (yet), so I’m looking forward to the third volume of this beautifully drawn manga. It promises vengeful baby wolf cubs, hungry piranha, and possibly psychedelic mushrooms.

    Wow, two pamphlet comics in one week! The second comes from Fantagraphics in the form of the 10th issue of Linda Medley’s enchanting Castle Waiting. And hey, the revised Fantagraphics site has reasonably useful permalinks!

    Wait, make that three floppies, all of which I love! The 19th issue of Jimmy Gownley’s funny, observant Amelia Rules! arrives via Renaissance Press.

    Honorable mentions

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    Okay, back on the subject of the Young Adult Library Services Association’s 2008 choices of Great Graphic Novels for Teens: It’s been too long since I was a part of the teen demographic for me to pretend to know what they might like, but I think it’s a really good list of recommended reading for adults, so it makes me happy.

    Instead of picking through the list of selections, I thought I would look back at the nominations and see what didn’t make the cut. I was kind of startled to find some of my very favorite books in that category (because I’m egotistical), so I thought I’d put together a runners-up list of books that I think are well worth a read:

  • Abouet, Marguerite, Clement Oubrerie. Aya. Drawn and Quarterly. My review here.
  • Chantler, Scott. The Annotated Northwest Passage. Oni Press. My reviews of the paperback installments of the series here, here and here.
  • Morinaga, Ai. My Heavenly Hockey Club. Del Rey. My review of the first volume here.
  • Sfar, Joann. The Professor’s Daughter. Roaring Brook Press / First Second. My short review of the book here.
  • Tanaka, Masashi. Gon. DC Comics, CMX. My review here, and a much more persuasive critique here.
  • Vining, James. First in Space. Oni Press. My review here. (Honestly, I can see how there was only room for one “innocent animal shot into space” story on the list, and I’m sure Laika is brilliant, but it looks like the kind of book that would depress me for weeks.)

    • And a couple of books that I haven’t read yet, but really should:

  • Lat. Town Boy. Roaring Brook Press / First Second.
  • Shiga, Jason. Bookhunter. Sparkplug Comics.

    • I think I’m taking the Lat books for granted, knowing that I can almost always swing by a Barnes & Noble and pick one up. As for Bookhunter, I’m hoping an upcoming trip to a city with a good comics shop will allow me to correct that particular lapse. I’m sure I’ll be able to snag a copy of Sidescrollers, too, which did make the 2008 cut.

    Upcoming 1/4/2007

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    For the first shipping day of 2008, it’s not especially auspicious in terms of debuts, but there are plenty of new installments of some of my favorite ongoing series.

    Every time I see a mention of Kanako Inuki’s Presents (CMX), I think of John Jakala’s lovely phrase, “comeuppance theater.” The second volume of this kind of creepy, kind of funny, old-school horror series arrives Friday.

    If you didn’t read it in hardcover or pick it up the first time it was released in paperback, NBM is giving you another shot at Rick Geary’s The Fatal Bullet, part of the Treasury of Victorian Murder series. This is one of my favorites, and it examines the assassination of James A. Garfield. It’s totally riveting, particularly for the gruesome coverage of medicine at the time.

    Okay, so there is one auspicious debut, though it’s really more of a rescue re-release, but if Kozue Amano’s Aria is as pretty and soothing as Aqua (both from Tokyopop), it will be quite an arrival regardless of its pedigree. (I don’t need to worry about one being the prequel to the other, do I? I mean, it isn’t exactly rich in plot.)

    In other Tokyopop, there’s a new volume of still-welcome-but-just-barely Sgt. Frog, and the fourth volume of Meca Tanaka’s Pearl Pink. I’m a big fan of Tanaka’s work on Omukae Desu (published by CMX), and I enjoyed the first volume of this, but I’ve fallen woefully behind.

    Okay, so there are more debuts than I thought. Viz rolls out Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut, and while I was a little uncertain based on the first volume, I’ve heard enough enthusiasm about the series from different sources to keep reading.

    And oh my god, you guys, the first volume of Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles is here! When I started picking up Shojo Beat for Honey and Clover, I was stunned by how good and surprising this series is. It’s got real emotional punch.

    And just to prove that my life isn’t entirely consumed by shôjo, I’m also excited by the imminent arrival of the fourth volume of Hideaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama and the eleventh of Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata’s Hikaru no Go.

    Okay, back to shôjo. I’m sure lots of people miss its monthly presence in Shojo Beat, but I’m so glad that Ai Yazawa’s Nana is out of rotation and that digests are coming more quickly.

    The year in fun (2007)

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    From a fun comics standpoint, 2007 was absolutely awesome. You know how I know? I had a hard time keeping the list below to 26 items. Okay, it’s an arbitrary number, and I could have just listed everything, but I thought I would make a stab at some pretense of discernment.

    I’m not saying these are the best comics of 2007, though I’d put several in that category. I’m never entirely comfortable with that label, because I haven’t read everything and worry that my tastes are too narrow to make a reasonable stab at such a project anyways. But I have no trouble telling which comics I had a lot of fun reading, so here they are.

    (Doesn’t the jump create a breathtaking level of suspense? Well, doesn’t it?)

    (Updated because I can’t keep my years straight.)

  • 10, 20, and 30, by Morim Kang (Netcomics): Korean josei, basically, following three women of different ages and temperaments as they manage romance (or the lack of it), work (or the lack of it) and family (or an excess of it).
  • Aya, by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie (Drawn & Quarterly): In my defense, this came out really early in 2007, so I must have been confused and thought it was on last year’s version of this list. Because seriously, it’s one of the best graphic novels of the year and delightfully fun to boot. A sensible, ambitious young woman in the prosperous Ivory Coast of late 1970s keeps her head as the people around her leap into amusing, romantic misalliances.
  • Azumanga Daioh Omnibus, by Kyohiko Azuma (ADV): It’s tough to pick which delights me more: the resumption of publication of Azuma’s Yotsuba&!, or this big fat bargain collection of his very funny comic strips about a group of high-school girls and their eccentric teachers.
  • Black Metal, by Rick Spears and Chuck BB (Oni): Antisocial metal-heads discover their secret destiny while playing old vinyl backwards. Very funny, with appropriately and appealingly crude visuals.
  • Bloody Benders, The, by Rick Geary (NBM): I should probably feel some kind of regret that Geary will never run out of gruesome tales to fuel his Treasury of Victorian Murder series. I don’t, because they’re consistently brilliant, informative, insightful, and unsettling. For the high-minded voyeur in all of us.
  • Empowered, by Adam Warren (Dark Horse): Warren is amazingly skilled at walking a thin, frayed tightrope between lurid spandex cheesecake and a witty repudiation of the same. Terrific characters and genuinely funny, imaginative takes on potentially repetitive scenarios make all the difference.
  • Flower of Life, by Fumi Yoshinaga (Digital Manga): When people bemoan the fact that so many manga titles center on the trials and tribulations of high school students, they can’t be talking about this one, can they? I’m just going to come right out and say it: it’s every bit as good as Antique Bakery, which means it’s absolutely great.
  • Gin Tama, by Hideaki Sorachi (Viz): This one’s all about attitude: coarse, goofy, hyperactive attitude. A fallen samurai takes odd jobs in a world that’s handed the keys to alien invaders. There’s enough canny satire to balance out the low-brow antics, making this book a very pleasant surprise.
  • Glister, by Andi Watson (Image): A really delightful combination of fantasy, manor-house comedy, and singularly British sensibility. This book manages to have a warm heart and a tounge planted firmly in its cheek.
  • Honey and Clover, by Chica Umino (Viz): Okay, so this goofy, romantic tale of students at an art college is still being serialized in Shojo Beat and hasn’t come out in individual volumes yet. It’s hilarious.
  • Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao (AdHouse): In a year that offered more genre mash-up comics than I can count, this was probably my favorite for the underlying realism of the young couple at its center. Giant monsters and ninja sous-chefs are just part of the challenges urban life presents to Johnny and Mayumi.
  • Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Book Two, by Tove Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly): Everyone knows these strips are timeless, international treasures, right? And that Drawn & Quarterly deserves some kind of cultural prize for getting them back in print? Okay, just checking.
  • My Heavenly Hockey Club, by Ai Morinaga (Del Rey): Under the flimsiest pretext of sports manga lurks a goofy love letter to two of my favorite deadly sins, sloth and gluttony. Easily the best screwball comedy that came out last year.
  • Northwest Passage: The Annotated Collection, by Scott Chantler (Oni): A handsomely produced collection of one of my favorite comics of 2006, featuring treachery and adventure in colonial Canada.
  • Parasyte, by Hitoshi Iwaaki (Del Rey): Okay, so the art is dated and, well, frankly just plain bad in a lot of ways. (Many of the high-school girls in the cast look like they’re pushing 40.) But there’s just something about a boy and the shape-shifting parasite that’s taken over his hand that warms my heart.
  • The Professor’s Daughter, by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert (First Second): There are certainly better, beefier works by Sfar, but this is still charming, beautiful stuff, with Sfar’s endearingly cranky voice getting a lovely rendering from Guibert.
  • Re-Gifters, by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel (Minx): A snazzy little story of romance, martial arts and self-esteem that avoids every single Afterschool Special pitfall through solid characterization, tight storytelling and spiffy art.
  • Ride Home, The, by Joey Weiser (AdHouse): I have yet to find a gnome living in my car, but maybe it just knows I’m on to it thanks to this charming, all-ages adventure about embracing change.
  • Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni): This series of a young slacker in love just gets better and better, which hardly seems possible. Great characters, a spot-on kind of magical realism, and plenty of twists and turns to keep things fresh and moving.
  • Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, by Jeff Smith (DC): The Mary Marvel sequences are enough to put this on a Decade in Fun list, but Smith’s re-imagining of the origin of Captain Marvel is delightful from top to bottom.
  • Shortcomings, by Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly): Not all comics about whiny losers who are unable to sustain interpersonal relationships are intolerable. Some, like this one, are absolutely delightful and have what may be the year’s best dialogue.
  • Suppli, by Mari Okazaki (Tokyopop): Damnation, how did this one slip under my radar for so long? In this beautifully drawn josei title, an advertising executive throws herself into work after the end of her seven-year relationship. It’s exactly the kind of book tons of people have been begging for: funny, intelligent, moving and grown up.
  • Umbrella Academy, The: Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse): It’s hardly the first comic to portray the super-team as a dysfunctional family, or maybe even the 50th, but it’s a clever, fast-paced, wonderfully illustrated example all the same.
  • Venus in Love, by Yuki Nakaji (CMX): Aside from the novelty of its college setting (as opposed to the shôjo standard, high school), this book has ample low-key charm. A straight girl and a gay guy become friendly rivals when they realize they have a crush on the same classmate.
  • Welcome to the N.H.K., by Tatsuhiko Takimoto (Tokyopop): I can take or leave the manga this novel inspired, but the source material is tremendously appealing reading. It’s like if David Sedaris wrote a novel about straight, dysfunctional Japanese people.
  • Wild Adapter, by Kazuya Minekura (Tokyopop): Charismatic, emotionally damaged boys pose their way through the stations of the noir cross. Mostly style, but what style, and a reasonable amount of substance to keep you from feeling entirely frivolous. (If frivolity isn’t a worry, you can easily ignore the substance.)