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Upcoming 9/1/2010

August 31, 2010 by

It’s an interesting week in ComicList terms. Let’s go right to the pick of the week, shall we?

That would be Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, the first result of the Fantagraphics-Shogakukan team-up that’s being curated by Matt Thorn. It’s a deeply glorious book that brims with Hagio’s psychological and emotional insights. I plan on posting a review on Thursday. You can order a signed copy from the publisher.

If that doesn’t slake your appetite for classic manga, Vertical is kind enough to offer Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song in two paperback volumes. It’s an example of deeply crazy Tezuka, with the added bonus of lots and lots of sex. If you can resist that description, you’re stronger than I am.

One of last year’s big books is now available in paperback. David Small’s Stitches (W.W. Norton) offers a beautifully rendered and stunningly bleak look at a miserable childhood. It’s a really great graphic novel.

There are also new issues of three very different and very entertaining pamphlet comics. First is the second issue of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, following the Young Avengers as they search for the Scarlet Witch to the dismay of most of the rest of the residents of the Marvel universe, who seem happy to assume that the longtime heroine is evil and crazy. Next is the penultimate (I think) issue of Brandon Graham’s King City from Image, whose website is so terrible that I won’t even bother trying to find a link to additional information on the comic. And last is the fourth issue of Stumptown, a smart tale of a down-on-her-luck private investigator from Oni.

What looks good to you?

Updated: I forgot one big pamphlet offering, the arrival of Veronica 202 (Archie Comics) and Riverdale’s first openly gay resident, Kevin Keller. I hope I can find a copy so I can be appropriately derisive when conservative groups condemn the comic.

Filed under: Archie, ComicList, Fantagraphics, Image, Marvel, Oni, Vertical, W.W. Norton 3 Comments

Upcoming 8/25/2010

August 24, 2010 by

It’s a mercifully light ComicList this week, which will give me a chance to catch up on the past few weeks of releases.

In fact, there’s a total of one new title on my “to buy” list, and it’s the second volume of Konami Kanata’s Chi’s Sweet Home from Vertical. It’s about a lost kitten adapting to life with her new family, and it’s very cute in a slice-of-life kind of way. It originally ran in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning, and it’s been flipped and colored for publication in English, with the cooperation of the creator. You can watch the equally cute anime on Crunchyroll.

Filed under: ComicList, Vertical 2 Comments

Upcoming 8/18/2010

August 17, 2010 by

It may not look like there’s any new manga of note on this week’s ComicList, but a lot of the stuff that I mentioned last week is actually shipping this week. Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey has a handy run-down, and she also has a timeless warning on Japanese comics to avoid. (How could I have forgotten Pretty Face?) And there are a couple of very promising items due for arrival on Wednesday.

Goldilocks and the Seven Squat Bears isn’t from Japan or Korea, the usual sources for books from Yen Press, but it’s been written and illustrated by Émile Bravo, so it’s likely to be very, very good. Bravo brilliantly illustrated My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, written by Jean Regnaud and published in English by Fanfare/Ponent Mon.

I really enjoyed Aaron Renier’s Spiral-Bound (Top Shelf), and I sometimes find myself wondering when his next book will arrive. The answer is apparently “Wednesday,” thanks to First Second and in the form of The Unsinkable Walker Bean. Here are the details:

“Mild, meek, and a little geeky, Walker is always happiest in his grandfather’s workshop, messing around with his inventions. But when his beloved grandfather is struck by an ancient curse, it falls on Walker to return an accursed pearl skull to the witches who created it—and his path will be strewn with pirates, magical machines, ancient lore, and deadly peril.”

Update: I inexcusably missed this one, but I have to mention the new Vertigo graphic novel Dark Rain because it’s been drawn by the incredibly gifted Simon (Paris) Gane. It’s a thriller set in post-Katrina New Orleans, written by Mat (Incognegro) Johnson. There are some preview pages over at Techland.

Filed under: ComicList, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, First Second, Slave Labor Graphics, Top Shelf, Vertigo, Yen Press 2 Comments

Upcoming 8/11/2010

August 10, 2010 by

Looking at this week’s ComicList, I’m reminded that Viz publishes some of the best manga for grownups through its Signature line. I’m also forced to ask why they feel the need to release so much of it at once. I obviously don’t have to buy it all at once, but still…

If you enjoyed Natsume Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso (and I did), you should pick up Ono’s Gente, which explores the lives and loves of the bespectacled gentlemen who staff the Casetta dell’Orso.

Naoki Urasawa received roughly a dozen Eisner Award nominations this year and didn’t win a one of them. This shouldn’t stop you from enjoying his comics, particularly 20th Century Boys, which is my favorite of his comics to be licensed to date. The tenth volume arrives Wednesday.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to Deb (About.Com) Aoki’s highlights from the “Best and Worst Manga” panel from Comic-Con International, and this is the moment. I do this because I agree with both Christopher Butcher and Shaenon Garrity’s assessments of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ôoku: The Inner Chambers:

Christopher Butcher: “I love Fumi Yoshinaga. I’ve been waiting for this to come out for a long time and I’m sorry, I didn’t like the translation at all. I’m sorry. I can’t deal with this manga the way it’s written. Everyone speaks like friggin’ Thor. It’s terrible. The story is amazing. I fought my way through the first volume, the second volume was just too much for me with all the “thee’s” and “thou’s””

Shaenon Garrity: “Don’t listen to him. Ignore him. Ooku is awesome.”

Unlike Butcher, I’ve managed to look past the Fakespeare for the brilliant concept and intense emotional connections, but it’s a constant struggle. Maybe it’s as clumsy in the original Japanese? I have no idea, but I’m sticking with it. The fourth volume arrives Wednesday.

Filed under: ComicList, Linkblogging, Viz 12 Comments

Upcoming 8/4/2010

August 3, 2010 by

We’ll take a focused look at Tokyopop’s contributions to this week’s ComicList, since they’re releasing new volumes of two of my favorite series.

First up is the ninth volume of V.B. Rose, written and illustrated by Banri Hidaka. It’s about a talented young woman who goes to work for a high-end bridal shop and enters into a tricky romance with the lead designer. I’m very taken with Hidaka’s illustrations, and I like the characters a lot. The book overall, with its appreciation of the transforming power of fashion, reminds me of a kinder, gentler Paradise Kiss, which was recently the subject of a Manga Moveable Feast. It’s not as deep or moody, but it’s got a lot of potent emotional content and some serious sparkle working in its favor. V.B. Rose originally ran in Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume. Hakusensha is a mighty font of shôjo joy.

Ai Morinaga’s funny, sneaky Your and My Secret just about catches up to Japanese release with its sixth volume, which is kind of strange, since this was a series that was originally licensed by ADV, then abandoned, then picked up by Tokyopop and put out at something of a trickle, and the creator took a break from the series for a while. Anyway, it’s about a timid boy and an obnoxious girl who trade bodies and find themselves surprisingly open to the new romantic possibilities. Morinaga has a twisted sense of humor, and I enjoy her comics (like My Heavenly Hockey Club from Del Rey) a lot. This series is running in Mag Garden’s Comic Blade line, which has generally escaped my scrutiny but looks like it runs some endearingly weird books.

It’s already out, but I always like to link to appreciative reviews of Mari Okazaki’s gorgeous Suppli, like this one by Johanna (Comics Worth Reading) Draper Carlson of the recent collection of the fourth and fifth volumes. If the josei category is under-appreciated in general, Suppli is massively and specifically under-appreciated. It was on hiatus for ages, and Tokyopop just resumed publication of this wonderful office-lady comedy-drama that originally ran in Shodensha’s Feel Young.

Filed under: ComicList, Linkblogging, Tokyopop 3 Comments

Upcoming 7/28/2010

July 27, 2010 by

There’s a perfectly mammoth volume to this week’s ComicList, and a lot of it looks really good. I’ll just take things as they come in alphabetical order.

It’s a big week for Del Rey, which has revised its web site and is now seemingly impossible to navigate in terms of finding information about specific books. Let’s head over to the Random House site instead. There you can find details on the omnibus collection of the last three volumes of Mushishi, written and illustrated by Yuki Urushibara. I love this episodic series of environmental folklore stories. It’s been the subject of a Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Ed Sizemore at Manga Worth Reading. I’m a little bit behind on Koji Kumeta’s very enjoyable satire, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, which sees its seventh volume released on Wednesday. And I was pleasantly surprised by the oh-so-formulaic-sounding Code: Breaker, written and illustrated by Akimine Kamijyo.

You can call pretty much any book from Fanfare/Ponent Mon either “eagerly awaited” or “long-awaited.” Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators has been in the pipeline for years, and it’s finally due in comic shops, which is very exciting. It features “[twelve] insightful short graphic stories into the “Hermit Kingdom”, six by European and six by indigenous creators, including award winning Park Heung-yong and “Best Manga 2006” artist Vanyda.” I’m equally excited about the second volume of The Summit of the Gods, written by Baku Yumemakura and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. It’s about mysteries and manly mountain climbers circling around Mt. Everest, and it’s very beautifully drawn. (I know I pre-ordered both of these, yet they don’t seem to be arriving at my local comic shop, which I hope is just a function of warehouse weirdness at Diamond and not something… ahem… local.)

I’m surprised by how much I’m liking Marvel’s Secret Avengers, written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Mike Deodato. It’s always nice to see super-heroes behaving like well-intentioned professionals, and this may be the first time that the “proactive super-team” concept has actually worked. I’m not entirely sold on Deodato’s mildly cheesecake-y art, and Valkyrie’s braids are completely insane, but it’s a minor quibble.

Comics by Osamu Tezuka are always a welcome pleasure, and that certainly includes his episodic medical melodrama, Black Jack, about a mercenary surgeon dealing with more bizarre maladies than House could ever have imagined. The 12th volume arrives Wednesday.

Viz offers quite the mixture of titles from along the quality spectrum, so I’ll focus on the good and/or promising. Personal highlights include the 20th volume of Hikaru no Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, and the fifth volume of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, written and illustrated by Karuho Shiina. On the confirmed debut front is Bakuman, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by the aforementioned Obata. This one’s by the creators of Death Note, which is still selling tons of copies ages after the series concluded. That series was about using a notebook to rule the world. This one’s about using a sketch pad to make lots of money: “verage student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?” If anyone should know, it’s these two.

Filed under: ComicList, Del Rey, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Linkblogging, Marvel, Vertical, Viz 3 Comments

Upcoming 7/21/2010

July 21, 2010 by

Some of the books I thought were coming out last week are actually coming out this week, but they’re still worth a look, so hop in the wayback machine to double-check. I’ll note that there have been a lot of fun-looking events around the release of Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, so go look at Kevin Melrose’s round-up at Robot 6. I can’t wait to read this book, and I’m grateful to everyone who’s resisted posting spoilers to those of us who don’t live near a shop that felt it could host a release party.

Not counting stuff that I mentioned a week early, this Wednesday’s highlight is the fifth volume of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip from Drawn & Quarterly, which “features the final strips drawn by Tove Jansson and written by her brother Lars for the London Evening News, before Lars took over both the art and the writing.”

The manga highlight of the week is the 23rd volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s excellent Fullmetal Alchemist from Viz. This one wraps up in the 25th 27th volume, and I’m really going to miss it. It’s one of the best action-fantasy series I’ve ever read.

Filed under: ComicList, DramaQueen, Linkblogging, Oni, Viz 1 Comment

Upcoming 7/14/2010

July 13, 2010 by

It’s a momentous, manga-influenced week for the ComicList! Let’s take a look.

I can’t do any better than Oni in describing the sixth and final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s wonderful Scott Pilgrim Series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour:

“It’s finally here! Six years and almost one-thousand pages have all led to this epic finale! With six of Ramona’s seven evil exes dispatched, it should be time for Scott Pilgrim to face Gideon Graves, the biggest and baddest of her former beaus. But didn’t Ramona take off at the end of Book 5? Shouldn’t that let Scott off the hook? Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn’t, but one thing is for certain — all of this has been building to Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!”

O’Malley could be said to embody one version of the dream of creators who list manga among their influences. He’s got a hugely successful series, critically and commercially, with a major movie adaptation about to hit theatres. Another enviable outcome went to Felipe Smith, who first saw print as one of Tokyopop’s Original English Language manga creators with MBQ. He then went on to secure a spot in Kodansha’s Morning Two line-up with Peepo Choo. The three-volume series is now being released in English by Vertical, and the first volume arrives in comic shops tomorrow.

I read a review copy from the publisher, and I wish I liked the book’s narrative as much as I like the story behind the comic. It falls into the category of comics that aren’t really for me. It’s about a young American otaku who wins a dream trip to Japan. The kid has romanticized Japan beyond all proportion, picturing it as an Eden of manga- and anime-loving cosplayers who can all get along by virtue of their shared love for a particular character. Little does the kid know that he’s going to be mixed up with vicious gangsters, assassins, brutal teen starlets, and the far-less-idyllic reality of indigenous otaku.

Smith shows terrific energy as a creator, and I appreciate his satirical intent, but Peepo Choo is a little coarse for my tastes. I know that’s weird to say, given how much I love Detroit Metal City and Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, but Peepo Choo doesn’t quite have the precision with which those books use their gross-out material. The vulgarity doesn’t say as much as it could, and the satire is a little too broad to be as effective as I’d like. Still, this book should have no trouble finding an audience of comic fans who like to see their hobby tweaked and their fandoms punked, and it’s amazing that Smith has been published in a highly regarded manga magazine by a major Japanese publisher.

Over at the Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi is running a mid-season poll on the year’s best new manhwa so far. I’m hoping that I can include Youngran Lee’s There’s Something About Sunyool (Netcomics) on this list, as it looks really promising. Here’s what Melinda had to say:

“Born the illegitimate child of a big-time politician, Sunyool has been accepted officially into her father’s household as an adult and thrown straight into negotiations for arranged marriage. While the premise seems rife with cliché, the execution (so far) is anything but. What could easily be a typical rags-to-riches or fish-out-of-water story actually appears more likely to be a thoughtful, wry look at two young people from vastly different backgrounds learning to make a life together within the cold world of politics. Sunyool’s smart (occasionally cruel) sense of humor and self-awareness make her a very appealing female lead, while her pragmatic young husband is still a bit of a mystery.”

I also might have to pick up a copy of the Young Avengers Ultimate Collection (Marvel), written by Alan Heinberg and penciled by various people, mostly Jimmy Cheung, just so I can have all those stories in one convenient package. I really enjoyed the first issue of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade that came out last week, mostly for the adorable gay super-hero boyfriends being adorable with each other, and also because a Marvel character finally suggested that there might be more to the Scarlet Witch’s behavior than her just having a bad case of babies rabies and not being able to handle her powers because, well, chicks. Also, no one suggested killing the Scarlet Witch, though her fair weather friend Ms. Marvel seems like she’d be more than happy to do so. Shut up, Ms. Marvel.

Filed under: ComicList, Linkblogging, Marvel, Netcomics, Oni, Quick Comic Comments, Vertical 8 Comments

Upcoming 7/8/2010

July 7, 2010 by

As we dive into this week’s ComicList, I’ll remind you that I’ve already named a pick of the week (the second volume of Kou Yuginami’s Twin Spica from Vertical), but there’s lots of other interesting material on its way.

I was a big fan of Chigusa Kawai’s dreamy, intense La Esperança (DMP), so I have high hopes for Kawai’s Alice the 101st (also DMP). It’s about an elite music school that admits an out-of-nowhere prodigy at the violin. Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey gave it a provisional thumbs-up, noting that it’s “haping up to be a very entertaining series about a young musician learning the hard truth: there’s only one way to get to Carnegie Hall.”

If Young Avengers had come out with any regularity, I might not have abandoned Marvel entirely after the systematic trashing of the character of the Scarlet Witch. Young Avengers creators Alan Heinberg and Jimmy Cheung reunite for Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, which features the teen super-team searching for the Scarlet Witch and teases the possibility that one of the company’s first major heroines might be repaired and redeemed. It’s nine issues long and will be released bi-monthly, which is kind of frustrating, but it’s not exactly onerous in terms of cost, just patience.

I’m always game for one of Rick Geary’s Treasury of XXth Century Murder offerings. This time around, he tells the undoubtedly gruesome tale of The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans, which promises “Nights of terror! A city awash in blood! New Orleans right after the First World War. The party returns to the Big Easy but someone looks to spoil it. Grocers are being murdered in the dead of night by someone grabbing their axe and hacking them right in their own cushy beds!” It sounds perfectly charming, doesn’t it?

It’s a big week for Viz, so I’ll focus on two books. My Viz shônen pick of the week would have to be the 54th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece. I’m a little behind on the recent volumes, but it won’t take me very long to catch up.

My Viz shôjo pick of the week would have to be the 21st volume of Ai Yazawa’s gorgeous NANA, sexy rock-and-roll soap opera that should appeal to anyone who might like that sort of thing, because it’s really one of the best examples. Speaking of Yazawa, her English-language debut, Paradise Kiss (Tokyopop), will be the next subject of the Manga Moveable Feast.

Last, but not least, I’m always up for a new volume of Time and Again (Yen Press), sly supernatural comeuppance theatre from JiUn Yun.

What looks good to you?

Filed under: ComicList, DMP, Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast, Marvel, NBM, Viz, Yen Press 2 Comments

Upcoming 6/30/2010

June 29, 2010 by

Poor Chi looks nervous about this week’s comic-shop debut! Yes, the eagerly-awaited first volume arrives Wednesday, though it may already be in bookstores. And if you would like to try and win a volume or two, you have until midnight (EST) tonight!

Speaking of eagerly awaited volumes, Tokyopop unveils a combined four-and-fifth-volume collection of Mari Okazaki’s Suppli, a series I discussed at length here.

The masochist in me will sometimes emerge when Marvel tries one of its hundreds of new takes on their Avengers properties. I really didn’t care for the self-referential and -congratulatory script and even less for the kind-of-ugly art on adjective-free Avengers, and while I thought Stuart Immonen’s pencils for New Avengers were terrific and witty, I had no patience for the script. (Um, Luke, do you have any idea what your property taxes will be like on a Fifth Avenue mansion? Not to mention the utilities? Tony Stark didn’t do you any favors.) I’d love it if Immonen was drawing Ed Brubaker’s Secret Avengers, as I like the set-up and cast a lot. I don’t dislike Mike Deodato’s pencils, but I do find them a little Swimsuit Issue for my tastes. They aren’t objectionable enough to keep me from checking out the second issue, because the first was written well, and I can’t believe it took someone this long to put Valkyrie and the Black Widow on the same team.

Filed under: ComicList, Marvel, Tokyopop, Vertical 1 Comment
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