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Upcoming 3/2/2011

March 1, 2011 by

This week’s ComicList isn’t as loaded as the Midtown Comics version, the source of my current Pick of the Week. Thankfully, Vertical finds a way to make the trip to the comic shop worthwhile.

Redemption comes in the form of the fifth volume of Konami Kanata’s excellent Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical). In this volume, Chi discovers that she doesn’t need to leave the house to have an adventure. Along the way, she also grasps the importance of being able to feign innocence. Anyone who’s ever lived with a cat will nod in rueful recognition at this development.

Of course, Chi also manages to spend some time in the great, suburban outdoors, making a new friend and relying on some old ones when she wanders well beyond her familiar boundaries. Fun as Chi’s adventures are, and lovely as it is to think about a protective community keeping her safe, I’m very much a partisan of the indoor-only feline experience. It makes me reflexively uncomfortable to see a kitten given that much liberty, no matter how charming the fictional results. Of course, this is why I would be a terrible parent to a human child; they’d never know a moment’s unsupervised peace.

As is usual, Kanata sneaks in some extremely moving moments where hints of Chi’s past life intrude on the way she lives now. These interludes really balance out the sweet charm of the more antic, observational sequences, and they make the book work better than it might have without them. In slice-of-life storytelling like this, a variety of experiences and emotions are always welcome, even for a kitten.

(Remarks are based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments, Vertical 2 Comments

Random weekend question: flicks

February 27, 2011 by

It’s Oscar night! Can you feel the excitement? I can’t, but I’m kind of a bad gay in that respect. Still, I’ll take the occasion of the movie industry’s biggest night of self-adulation to ask the following: what comic would you like to see adapted into a film that could claim Oscar gold? Put aside your memories of Astro Boy and your fears about Akira and emphasize the positive, if you can.

I think Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ichigenme: The First Class Is Civil Law (DMP) could be made into one of those independent sleeper films that draw unexpected commercial and critical acclaim. And it has hot, smart gays getting it on and none of that maudlin, problem-movie nonsense of Brokeback Mountain. Of course, I can also imagine Makoto Yukimura’s Planetes (Tokyopop) getting turned into some overblown James Cameron thing that doesn’t really resemble the source material but still makes a ton of money.

 

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, Movies, Random weekend question 31 Comments

The business end

February 26, 2011 by

Here are some of the week’s links that focus on the business end of manga:

At Robot 6, Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson speaks to Vertical‘s Ed Chavez about their new investors, Kodansha and Dai Nippon, and Ed reassures Vertical fans that the publisher will be better able to do the things it loves to do:

If there will be any changes, I think it’s that Vertical will hopefully eventually be the Vertical that everybody is familiar with. It wasn’t until last year that Vertical started producing more manga than anything else, and I’d like to bring us back to being the source of Japanese content in English, because as much as you know I obsess over manga, maybe too much sometimes, I enjoy their novels, I enjoy their nonfiction, I’m a huge fan of Kentaro’s cookbooks. I love the versatility, I love being able to present and be a curator to a catalog like that, and I want to get back to that.

At its blog, Tokyopop talks about some of the realities of the market, particularly as they relate to unfinished titles:

This probably comes as a surprise to a lot of manga fans, since you tend to be a very ’net-friendly bunch, but the percentage of our sales that come through Amazon.com and other online retailers is a fraction of that of the brick-and-mortar stores. There are some notable exceptions (BLU titles, mature titles, and some of our back list), but the vast majority of sales come through physical retail stores, and if something disappears from the shelves, it becomes exponentially more difficult to hit our sales targets.

One of those brick-an-mortar retailers, Christopher (Comics212) Butcher, appreciated Tokyopop’s frankness but questioned the tone:

Some of the finer points are disagreeable to me personally (particularly the enthusiasm for print-on-demand, though that at least is somewhat tempered by describing it as an ‘emerging’ technology) but at the core of the article is a very real problem; the combatative attitude between this Tokyopop employee–and really Tokyopop in general–and their fans. You don’t start off an answer to a frequently asked question on your website by complaining about your customers.

Speaking of publisher-consumer interaction, Fantagraphics shared the cover design of the first volume of Shimura Takako’s eagerly anticipated Wandering Son via their Twitter feed and said that their planned release schedule for the series was two volumes a year. This led to some discussion of the format (hardcover) and price ($19.99), which may be a barrier to entry for people used to paying around $10 for an individual volume. I’m irresistibly reminded of the time that Fantagraphics decided to package Love and Rockets reprints like manga (inexpensively and in paperback) to attract its audience to… you know… good comics.

 

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, Fantagraphics, Linkblogging, Tokyopop, Vertical 2 Comments

Upcoming 2/23/2011

February 22, 2011 by

We’re back to a more substantial ComicList this week. You can click here for my Pick of the Week.

As for this week’s arrivals, there’s the third volume of 7 Billion Needles (Vertical), Nobuaki Tadano’s manga homage to Hal Clement’s novel, Needle. I’ve been enjoying the series for its balance of character development and monster mayhem, but the proportions seem a bit off in this installment.

Our sulky heroine Hikaru now finds herself host to not one but two powerful entities. Seeing as those beings have been acting in opposition forever, I was hoping for some focus on the new arrangement. Unfortunately, the triad is forced to adapt almost instantaneously, as outside forces demand their attention. Benevolent Horizon and malignant Maelstrom seem to have spun off and are causing evolutionary mayhem. This invites the intervention of a third powerful entity and drives our heroine and her tagalongs to try and set things right before the world is changed forever.

In short, there’s too much mayhem and not enough moping. I was enjoying Hikaru’s emotional progress, and it felt like that was shoved into the background in favor of incursions of instant monsters. It’s not devoid of emotional moments, but they tend to be drowned out in favor of the more visceral events. I’m hoping the fourth and final volume strikes a better balance, but, even if it doesn’t, this will have amounted to a very appealing series overall. And, if your reaction to either of the earlier volumes was that there wasn’t enough mayhem, this is a good opportunity to reintroduce yourself to the series.

(Comments are based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

Other highlights for the week include:

What looks good to you?

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, From the stack, Marvel, Vertical, Viz, Yen Press 2 Comments

Random weekend question: comebacks

February 19, 2011 by

I’m seriously considering selling my copy of Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth (DMP). Copies are going for a small fortune on Amazon, and opportunism may overcome my tendency to hoard. This leads me to ask which books you’d like to see back in print from the sad limbo of licensed titles that have faded from active publication.

I’d have to go with Viz’s Four Shôjo Stories, a collection featuring the work of Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, and Shio Satô. Copies are expensive, and it seems like something that should be more readily available. In fact, there are a fair number of really interesting, old Viz books that I’d like to see make a comeback, but this one tops my list.

What’s your choice?

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, Random weekend question 41 Comments

Lean week linkblogging

February 15, 2011 by

The ComicList is sufficiently lean that I don’t really have anything to add beyond what was covered in the Pick of the Week over at Manga Bookshelf. If you’re still hankering for something new to try, why not check out the Manga Monday hashtag over on Twitter?

If you’d like to focus your attention on a single title, keep your eyes on the link archive for the current Manga Moveable Feast, featuring Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen (Last Gasp). It’s being hosted by Sam (A Life in Panels) Kusek.

And if you feel like throwing your favorite titles some love, you’ve got plenty of time to vote in the 2011 About.com Manga Readers’ Choice Awards. Genial host Deb Aoki provides a breakdown of the nominees.

And if you just feel like reading comics instead of reading about them, there’s always Viz’s SigIKKI site with new chapters of a wide range of titles. The most recent chapter of Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books is all about a series that also inspired a license request.

Update: Just missed this one, but I always enjoy Erica (Okazu) Friedman’s looks at various Japanese magazines for MangaCast. This time around, she considers Shogakukan’s Big Comic and its confidently mature pursuits.

Filed under: Anthologies, Awards and lists, ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Digital delivery, Last Gasp, Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast, Viz 4 Comments

Random weekend question: the classics

February 13, 2011 by

I’m having a very classic-manga weekend. I just finished drafting a post on Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen (Last Gasp) for this week’s Manga Moveable Feast. I’m due to participate in a podcast on Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako (Vertical) this afternoon. And I’ve been catching up on recent volumes of Tezuka’s excellent Black Jack (Vertical).

So I’m curious: what are your favorite manga classics that have been published in English? My list would probably be topped by Tezuka’s Dororo (Vertical), Susumu Katsumata’s Red Snow (Drawn & Quarterly), and Kyoko Ariyoshi’s Swan (CMX).

And what classics would you like to see published in English? Now that Tezuka’s Princess Knight is in the pipeline courtesy of Vertical, my most feverishly anticipated property would have to be Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles.

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, Random weekend question 30 Comments

Win some, lose some

February 9, 2011 by

My latest experiment in crowd-sourced Previews ordering has come to an unexpected conclusion. I feel compelled to order both of them.

This is primarily because Tsuta Suzuki’s Your Story I’ve Known (DMP) has been revealed to not be the kind of comic I’d like to include in these experiments. Enough people who should know have spoken highly of Suzuki’s work to the point that I actually just want to order it because I’d like to read it. Basically, a known quantity that may have qualities I enjoy a lot has crept into the roster of candidates due to my failure of due diligence. This cannot stand.

So, that means the winner by default is Maid Shokun, written by Nanki Satou and illustrated by Akira Kiduki (Tokyopop). Disqualification aside, I was much moved by Erica (Okazu) Friedman’s eloquent plea, and I was frankly unnerved by Tokyopop editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl’s favorable comparison of the book to Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover (Viz). In my experience, Lillian is completely reliable and further evidence that Tokyopop should let its editors write its marketing text.

This one’s backfired rather badly on me. Fun, though.

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, DMP, Previews, Tokyopop 7 Comments

Upcoming 2/9/2011

February 8, 2011 by

It’s a huge week for Viz via Diamond, though some books have already shipped through other venues. (See my pick of last week and my pick of this week, and bask in the bafflement!) If you buy your manga shopping via Diamond-dependent comic shops, you have many, many choices, at least according to the ComicList.

Had Viz not sent me a review copy of the second volume of The Story of Saiunkoku, adapted from Sai Yukino’s light novels by Kairi Yura, I probably would have camped out at the local bookstore and repeatedly mispronounced the title as I asked if it had arrived yet. Such was the force of my reaction to the first volume. But does the second hold up? Yes, it certainly does. While not the same kind of revelation, I still ran to my computer to make sure there are more volumes to come. (There are.)

This was a concern, since the first two volumes form what must be an adaptation of Yukino’s first novel in the series. Having established the leads, seemingly feckless emperor Ryuki and his frugal, forceful tutor, Shurei, Yura and Yukino put them in danger in the form of palace intrigue. To be entirely honest, the details of the scheme are much less interesting than Ryuki and Shurei’s individual and collective responses to it. But their shifting but well-balanced relationship is still a complete treat, and the prospect of reading about their next encounter is pure, happy anticipation.

If you like stories about smart, feisty girls sparring with deeper-than-they-seem boys, this series can be injected directly into a vein for that sweet, sweet rush of shôjo romance between the very different but equally matched.

In other Viz news, there’s the seventh volume of the always welcome Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, written and illustrated by Karuho Shiina. This one promises lots of holiday activity, which is always fun.

There’s also the less welcome but still potentially intriguing second volume of Genkaku Picasso, written and illustrated by Usumaru Furuya. I wasn’t especially impressed with the first volume, but I find Furuya kind of fascinating, so I’ll probably succumb at some point.

What looks good to you?

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 4 Comments

Men or maids?

February 6, 2011 by

It’s time again for you to help me choose a title from the current Previews catalog. Here are this month’s candidates:

Your Story I’ve Known, written and illustrated by Tsuta Suzuki, Digital Manga (page 278):

High-school student Matsumoto Haato has fallen in love with his abusive mother’s ex-boyfriend, yakuza Shibusawa, who was nice to him in the past. When he has nowhere left to go he turns to the gruff but kind older man. A three chapter love story that details the changing relationships between the two men over the years.

I admit that I don’t find this description entirely problematic. I do tend to like to investigate yaoi titles fairly thoroughly to see if they meet my rather specific standards (which are very similar to Melinda Beasi’s), and I’m not familiar with this one, its creator, or the magazine from which it springs (Takeshobo’s Reijin).

Maid Shokun, written by Nanki Satou and illustrated by Akira Kiduki, Tokyopop (page 311):

This slice-of-life manga is a lovely exploration of the inner workings of a Maid Cafe, filled with laughter and romance, joy and heartbreak. Maybe you’ve wondered what the ‘maids’ are like before or after work? Or perhaps you’ve wondered how they deal with a job where pleasing the customer is their top priority? Well, let’s introduce you to an adorable, delicate, attractive girl who gets drawn into such a job – and see this unusual story, filled with warmth and pathos, unfold!

I like slice-of-life manga! I like stories set in eateries! I’m utterly indifferent to maid panties. Also, boobies. Also, the Japanese cover to the third volume has to be seen to be believed. Also, Tokyopop’s solicitation text is sometimes singularly useless in evaluating a book’s true nature and the likelihood that I’ll enjoy it. Maid Shokun originally ran in Comic Gum from Wani Books.

So there are your choices. Please vote in the comments, either because you think I’ll be pleasantly surprised or because you want to see me suffer.

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, DMP, Previews, Random weekend question, Tokyopop 32 Comments
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