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Upcoming 7/6/2011

July 5, 2011 by

It’s a big ComicList this week, so let’s get right to it:

I just have to restate my Pick of the Week, Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son (Fantagraphics). After a few delays, we finally get our hands on this acclaimed series about two transgendered kids navigating early adolescence. This debut has already earned a bunch of pre-release acclaim, and I’m really eager to read it.

Kodansha USA kindly continues publication of Koji Kumeta’s Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei with the ninth volume, where Del Rey left off. As things stand, this dense, often scathing satire is probably the most off-kilter thing that Kodansha is publishing, so it’s great to see it return. Now, how about picking up Masayuki Ishikawa’s Moyasimon to continue the trend? I thought the second volume was a significant improvement on the first, which was okay enough in its own right, and I’d love to read more.

Speaking of funny manga from Kodansha, Vertical releases the sixth volume of Kanata Konami’s Chi’s Sweet Home. I reviewed it for the latest round of Bookshelf Briefs. I’m glad to have that venue for shorter reviews, especially when all I basically have to say about a series is that it’s still really good.

I have two highlights from the rather long list of Viz Media releases:

First up is the second volume of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi 3-in-1 collections. I enjoyed the heck out of the first three volumes, and I felt much the same out of the stories collected this time around. It’s just a super-solid, emotionally satisfying shônen fantasy-adventure.

Second is the ninth volume of Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You. I’m a bit behind on this series, but I’m determined to catch up soon, because I love the combination of postmodern and utterly sincere application of shôjo romantic tropes.

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Fantagraphics, Kodansha Comics, Linkblogging, Vertical, Viz 3 Comments

Upcoming 6/29/2011

June 28, 2011 by

Yes, I admit that the Manga Bookshelf crew took a look at the Midtown Comics list and abstained from voting, but the ComicList is always at least somewhat different, and there are two items I wanted to mention.

Isn’t it nice to have a publisher you can blindly trust to publish books that are always worth your scrutiny? I find Fanfare/Ponent Mon to fall into that category, so I ordered Galit and Gilad Seliktar’s Farm 54 without really knowing a single thing about it. It’s an autobiographically informed coming-of-age story set in Israel in the 1970s.

Nobody would ever accuse me of blindly trusting Tokyopop, and the use of the word “maid” in the title of a manga is usually enough to send me running in the other direction, but the readers spoke, so I dutifully ordered the first (and possibly only) volume of Maid Shokun, written by Nanki Satou and illustrated by Akira Kiduki. While I haven’t allowed myself to read his full review, so as not to color anything I may write about the book, I’m relieved to hear that Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney found the book much better than he had expected it would be. This is one of the two preferred outcomes of crowd-sourced comic ordering: a pleasant surprise, or something much worse than even my fevered imagination could predict.

In other Manga Bookshelf news, we’ve offered our views on a variety of relatively recent releases in the latest installment of Bookshelf Briefs. Is anyone else ready for the Straw Hats to come back, or is it just me?

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Linkblogging, Tokyopop 4 Comments

Upcoming 6/22/2011

June 21, 2011 by

Let’s take a quick pass through the current ComicList, then move on to some linkblogging! Diamond’s primary source of goodness this week is Viz, which offers a combination of Signature and Shonen Sunday titles:

I can’t believe we’ve hit the next-to penultimate volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s excellent Fullmetal Alchemist, but that’s the simple fact of the matter. This is probably the best shônen series to be published in English in the last five years, and I’m going to miss it when it’s done. (Update: Sorry about the false alarm. I transposed volume numbers on the list in my head.)

Other appealing Viz arrivals include:

One appalling Viz arrival is their debut of oh!great’s Tenjo Tenge. I detested what I read of it when it was being published by CMX, so I can’t imagine how a more faithful production could change that. Of all of the CMX titles to rescue, I ask you, why this one?

For a look at what’s due at a non-Diamond-dependent comic shop, check out the latest Pick of the Week over at Manga Bookshelf. For the battle robot’s verdicts on some recent releases, click on over to this week’s collection of Bookshelf Briefs. And to learn more about the truly awesome manga that is the subject of the current Manga Moveable Feast, take a peek at Melinda and Michelle’s introductory post.

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Viz 6 Comments

Upcoming 6/8/2011

June 7, 2011 by

As we noted over in the current Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf, this is a positively crushing week for new releases from Viz. As it is at Midtown, so it is with the ComicList. As a result, I’m limiting my Viz picks to one, but it’s a doozy.

Yes, at long last, it’s time for the 57th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s smashing pirate adventure, One Piece. When we last joined would-be greatest-pirate-in-the-world Luffy, he was desperately trying to save his older but considerably less ambitious brother from execution. Along the way, he inadvertently staged a massive prison break and raised pirate-navy tensions to perhaps their highest pitch in the history of the series. An alternate title to this book could be “How to Succeed in Chaos without Really Trying.” As always, I’m enjoying it enormously, but I miss the heck out of the rest of Luffy’s crew and am eager for their return.

Vizalanche aside, there are a couple of pamphlets I’m eager to purchase. First is Adam Warren’s second Empowered Special which asks Ten Questions for the Maidman from Dark Horse. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, Maidman is one of the few peer superheroes who treats our titular heroine with anything resembling courtesy and respect. I fully expect another outing packed with equal parts satire and sincerity, plus a reasonable amount of equal-opportunity cheesecake.

There’s unlikely to be any cheesecake in Veronica 207, the first issue of the Kevin Keller miniseries created by Dan Parent for Archie Comics. Kevin, as you may recall, is Riverdale’s first openly gay character. As Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson noted in this piece for Publishers Weekly, Kevin is one of the reasons that Archie has reasserted its relevance over the past couple of years and become, dare I say it, kind of cool for possibly the first time in its sturdy but fairly safe-and-steady history. I just like comics about gay people, provided they aren’t Chick Tracts.

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: Archie, ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Dark Horse, Linkblogging, Viz 2 Comments

Upcoming 6/1/2011

June 1, 2011 by

I love to travel, but I hate just about everything related to airports. Let’s just leave it at that and move on to this week’s ComicList, which is made bountiful by the presence of a single book.

It’s the English-language debut of Kaoru Mori’s A Bride’s Story from Yen Press. Many people, myself included, expressed an obsessive love for Mori’s Emma (CMX), and I think it’s safe to say that all of those people have been chomping at the bit to read Mori’s new series. I know I featured it in a license request seconds after I learned it existed, and early word seems to confirm that our anticipation will be rewarded. The sure-to-be beautiful period piece about an arranged marriage is currently running in Enterbrain’s fellows!

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Yen Press 3 Comments

Upcoming 5/18/2011

May 17, 2011 by

The current Pick of the Week was a tough one, as there are three titles I like very much in the Midtown mix. Fortunately, Kate and Michelle had my back. As for the rest of the ComicList, well, let’s see what looms on the horizon, shall we?

Sticking to the Viz Signature neighborhood, the second volume of March Story ships through Diamond. I was unimpressed with the first half of the first volume of this latest display of comeuppance theatre, but the back half was more interesting. Kate’s review of the second volume indicates that my reservations about the series may stay in place:

For all the skill with which March Story is executed, I haven’t yet fallen under its spell. It’s certainly one of the best-looking titles in the VIZ Signature line, but it has a slick, synthetic quality that prevents the reader from feeling the characters’ pain or appreciating their peril — something that no amount of blood-soaked flashbacks or tearful confessions can solve.

Elsewhere, Oni Press offers up more work by Ted Naifeh, which is always welcome. In this case, it’s Courtney Crumrin Tales: The League of Ordinary Gentlemen #2. Now, when is that Polly and the Pirates sequel coming out? I’m not getting any younger.

On an unrelated but very exciting note, the next Manga Moveable Feast is right around the corner. The Panelists will be hosting a sure-to-be-lively-and-enthusiastic discussion of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game (Viz), a series about which I’m always happy to rave at possibly counter-productive length.

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast, Oni, Viz Leave a Comment

Upcoming 5/11/2011

May 10, 2011 by

After last week’s bonanza and Free Comic Book Day over the weekend, it’s tumbleweed time on the Comic List. This drove the Manga Bookshelf crew to an alternative approach to our Pick of the Week, but there are tons of relatively recent books under the microscope in the current Bookshelf Briefs.

Of course, if you depend on Diamond for your manga needs, there is a piece of good news: the seventh volume of Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica arrives from Vertical. This series gets better and deeper as it goes along, and it was pretty darn good to start. As a bonus, this volume is about a hundred pages longer than average, and it’s fairly packed with character development and event. Highlights include a summer visit to heroine Asumi’s home town, a training exercise set in a prison, and lots of little revelations about our quintet of would-be astronauts. If forced to identify a failing in this series, I would have to say that Kei (the gung-ho, “energetic” girl of the group) is overdue for some serious examination. She’s still functioning as bossy, easily flustered comic relief, and she needs some nuance.

Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you the results of my latest boys’-love blind date: like so many of us sometimes do, I’ve cast aside my usual standards in favor of looks. Yes, in spite of my aversion to BL where the “boys” is literal, I’ve cast my lot with Puku Okuyama’s Warning! Whispers of Love (DMP) based almost entirely on its lively, attractive cover. Thanks to everyone who put in their two cents!

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, DMP, Linkblogging, Vertical , , , , , 5 Comments

Upcoming 5/4/2011

May 3, 2011 by

It’s ComicList time! First, go take a look at the Manga Bookshelf crew’s Picks of the Week, then peruse the latest installment of Bookshelf Briefs, in which I gush about an arriving shôjo volume that makes me as happy as another makes me sad.

This week also brings the fourth and final volume of Nobuaki Tadano’s Eisner-nominated 7 Billion Needles (Vertical). I’ve enjoyed this series throughout its run, mostly for the evolution of its heroine, Hikaru, a grieving teen who’s forced out of her isolated state by the arrival of warring interstellar entities Horizon and Maelstrom. Their destructive, survival-of-the-fittest squabbling puts the people around Hikaru in danger and forces her to acknowledge the fact that she cares about them. Emotionally speaking, the conclusion is essentially Hikaru’s victory lap, her chance to prove how far out of her shell she’s come. In an odd way, that lowers the finale’s stakes and forces Tadano to inflate the science-fiction mayhem to almost incoherent levels.

It’s easy enough to ignore the twaddle about weaponized evolution, though, as Hikaru is still compelling, even though her personal journey is pretty much over before the story begins. She’s held the series together this long, and it’s nice to see her put the things she’s learned into action, even if that action doesn’t make much sense at all.

The only thing not covered above that I look forward to reading is the eighth volume of Karuho Shiina’s consistently delightful Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Viz). The good shôjo arriving this week certainly overpowers the bad.

What looks enticing to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments, Vertical, Viz 7 Comments

Upcoming 4/27/2011

April 26, 2011 by

It’s one of those weird weeks on the ComicList where all of the highlights have already been mentioned elsewhere, so let’s use the lull for some linkblogging!

Okay, I will just remind the Diamond-dependent that the third volume of Natsume Ono’s Eisner-nominated House of Five Leaves arrives in comic shops on Wednesday. It’s one of the books discussed in the latest round-up of Bookshelf Briefs. One other SigIKKI arrival worth noting is the third volume of Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books, which Johanna Draper Carlson reviewed at Manga Worth Reading.

The dearth of new comics arrivals did not deter the denizens of the Manga Bookshelf from offering a Pick of the Week (or four). We just piggybacked on the Rumiko Takahashi Manga Moveable Feast for a themed list of recommendations. Speaking of the feast, today’s list of links indicates that this will be a lively installment of this always enjoyable effort.

The Toronto Comic Arts Fetival continues to develop as a highly desirable manga event with the announcement that Fantagraphics will debut Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son there.

But enough about manga that we can already or will soon be able to read. Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney looks at the top properties lists of the big three Japanese publishers to see what we have, what we don’t, and to examine the likelihood that we’ll get the rest.

 

Filed under: ComicList, Conventions, DAILY CHATTER, Fantagraphics, Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast, Viz 1 Comment

Upcoming 4/20/2011

April 19, 2011 by

After you’ve taken a look at the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week, we’ll tiptoe through the current ComicList.

Are you back? Great! I’m so excited! Sort of! Also frightened! Because this week sees the arrival of my first chosen-by-committee dubious manga! For those of you who have forgotten, the “winner” was Arata Aki’s The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High from Digital Manga. It’s about a girl who likes girls whose mother sends her to an all-boys’ school so that she’ll start liking boys. I’ve tried to refrain from reading early reviews of the book, partly not to color my own opinion and partly to stave off the ominous despair that Wednesday may bring, but even quick glimpses at these analyses suggest that the book is kind of terrible. We’ll soon find out! (Oh, and please help me pick between the two titles left standing in the last round of this exercise in horizon-expanding masochism.)

Perhaps I’ll turn to Digital Manga to recover from that reading experience, as they’re kindly also delivering the fifth two-volume collection of Kaoru Tada’s totally adorable Itazura na Kiss. I’m not quite caught up with this series at the moment, but it’s nice to know that more volumes are out there, waiting to provide the healing power of snarky shôjo romance.

While Midtown is a week ahead of Diamond in terms of new Viz releases, those dependent on the distributor can at least count on the arrival of the 14th volume of Naoki Urasawa’s excellent, Eisner-nominated 20th Century Boys. This is possibly my favorite Urasawa series to be published in English.

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, DMP, Linkblogging, Viz 7 Comments
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