There’s a new Flipped up at The Comics Reporter. I was pleasantly surprised to see some of Dark Horse’s seinen-iest seinen series show up in an early Graphic Book Best Seller List at The New York Times, so I decided the time was (relatively) right to take a look at Hiroki Endo’s Eden.
Stuff wisely
February 18, 2009 by
So the Harvey Awards nomination process is underway, and creative types can make a bid to recognize their favorite peers and works in a wide variety of categories. You may remember me keening and gnashing my teeth over some of last year’s nominations. 
For a change of pace, I thought I’d go the Force Works/Extreme Justice proactive route this year. Instead of recoiling in horror at the prospect of ever seeing the phrase “Harvey Award winner Witchblade Manga,” I’ve decided to take a stab at prevention. Toward that end, here are some books from 2008 that you might consider for the Best American Edition of Foreign Material category:
There. Ten perfectly respectable potential nominations for your consideration. (And everyone should feel free to contribute their own suggestions in the comments.) I should also note that several of these books are also eligible for other awards.
Upcoming 2/18/2009
February 17, 2009 by
Time for another quick look at this week’s ComicList:
It seems like it’s been an awfully long time since Dark Horse released the tenth volume of Hiroki Endo’s Eden: It’s an Endless World! Since the book is dense with character and event, it would behoove me to undertake a quick refresher course before I dive into the eleventh. I’ve got no problem with that kind of homework, as Endo’s comics lend themselves to re-reading. Anyway, for those of you who’ve forgotten: a weird virus has decimated the human population, and after things settle down on the epidemic front, everyone starts scrambling for power. Now, the virus seems to be staging a rather nasty comeback. Should be fun!
My refresher course might have to wait just a little bit, as Viz will be delivering two new comics from Naoki Urasawa of Monster fame. 20th Century Boys promises “a gang of boys who try to save the world.” Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka is Urasawa’s re-examination of one of Osamu Tezuka’s most famous Astro Boy stories, “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” (If you’d like to read Tezuka’s original, Dark Horse can accommodate you.) I bought these at the bookstore over the weekend, because they were there and I have no impulse control. So far, Pluto is kind of like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but with robots, which lands it right in my comfort zone, with the added bonus of no overacting by Vincent D’Onofrio but the loss of Kathryn Erbe’s enchanting way with caustic skepticism.
People have said nice things about Mysterius: The Unfathomable (Wildstorm), written by Jeff Parker and illustrated by Tom Fowler. I liked Parker’s Agents of Atlas (Marvel) mini-series a lot, so I’ll possibly pick up the first two issues if there are any shelf copies at the shop. If not, I’ll just pick up the trade eventually.
While it lasts
February 9, 2009 by
Before the direct market collapses and Diamond’s Previews catalog slims down to the rough thickness of two issues of Entertainment Weekly, let’s take a look and see what the February 2009 edition has to offer, shall we?
Dark Horse offers the fifth volume of Adam Warren’s smutty, hilarious, and heartwarming Empowered. This is truly appalling fan service repurposed for good. I don’t know how to explain or justify that statement, but trust me, the book is terrific. (Page 38, FEB09 0052)
Cherish the “Offered Again” listings while you can. They allow me to rectify the error of not ordering Faith Erin Hicks’ warmly received The War at Ellsmere (Amaze Ink/Slave Labor Graphics). (Page 198, FEB09 4023)
One of the most anticipated graphic novels of the year is due to arrive from Drawn & Quarterly. It’s Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, a massive (840 pages) autobiography from the founding father of alternative manga. (Page 263, FEB09 4254)
First Second offers Dong Hwa Kim’s coming-of-age romance, The Color of Earth, which looks really lovely. (Page 270, FEB09 4289)
It’s a good month for manhwa, as NBM delivers Mijeong, a collection of short stories by Byun Byung-Jun, creator of the marvelous Run, Bong-Gu, Run! (Page 287, FEB09 4402)
Viz offers another volume of culinary treasure Oishinbo, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki. This installment looks at ramen and dumplings. Mmm… dumplings. (Page 311, FEB09 4482)
Upcoming 1/14/2009
January 13, 2009 by
I’ve gotten the year right three weeks in a row. Go, me!
Time again for a quick look at this week’s ComicList:
Okay, now how exactly did this title slide under my radar? Ghost Talker’s Daydream (Dark Horse), written by Saki Okuse and drawn by Sankichi Meguro, triggers both my “not for me” alarm and my “this is too bizarre to not at least sample, even if I’ll never feel clean again” alarm. An albino virgin dominatrix who sees dead people? It’s like Lady Heather from CSI crossed with The Ghost Whisperer. Reviews have been mixed, but morbid curiosity threatens to overpower good sense on this one. The third volume is due out this week.
In much more familiar territory, Viz unleashes a hailstorm of some of its best shôjo titles, from Nana (volume 14) to High School Debut (volume 7) to Sand Chronicles (volume 4) to a bunch of others that are regarded very warmly by fans and critics but that I have yet to sample in depth because there are only so many hours in a day.
Upcoming 1/7/2009
January 7, 2009 by
The comics industry still seems to be getting back up to full speed after the holidays, but there are still a couple of very notable items on this week’s ComicList:
First is the eighth volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and drawn by Housui Yamazaki. I don’t know what else I can say about this series, other than that it’s delightfully quirky and cheerfully morbid and you should all buy it.
Second is the soft-cover version of Rick Geary’s The Lindbergh Child, from his Treasury of 20th Century Murder series (NBM). Do you remember when you were a kid in school and you wanted to do something cool with a reporter or project, and you thought it would be really fun and entertaining and educational, all at the same time? Geary’s crime histories always turn out like the cool project you envisioned (instead of the night-before reality).
Coming attractions
December 29, 2008 by
Some highlights from the January 2009 issue of Diamond’s Previews catalog:
It’s been quite some time since the second volume came out, so it’s good to see the third volume of Mi-Kyung Yun’s beautifully drawn Bride of the Water God listed by Dark Horse (page 60). Soapy doings among the gods, which was really the point of mythological pantheons in the first place, if you ask me.
I can’t remember for the life of me who it was, but someone was really excited that Deux Press had licensed Tetsuzo Okadaya’s The Man of the Tango (or Tango, I guess). It’s listed on page 230, promising hunky men “drawn into the seductive beat of a Latin dance,” etc. Why not?
This month’s “fascinating coss-cultural experiment that could actually tear the internet in half” would have to be Del Rey’s two manga-fied takes on Marvel’s mutants: Wolverine: Prodigal Son, by Anthony Johnston and Wilson Tortosa, and X-Men: Misfits, by Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman and AnZu. Wait, Telgemeier and Roman are collaborating on the X-Men book? How did I miss that? (Page 267.)
Fanfare/Ponent Mon takes a break from Japanese comics to release Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo’s My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill. It’s received serious Angoulême love in 2008. Here’s my Comics Reporter neighbor Bart Beaty’s take on the book. (Page 281.)
Debuting this week: Yōkaiden
November 26, 2008 by
Nina Matsumoto’s Yōkaiden (Del Rey) has a lot of things working in its favor, but the one that really sells it for me is its wry authorial voice. The peppering of sly, smart humor elevates what might otherwise be a fairly generic folklore tour.
Yōkai are spirits that range from benign to mischievous to deadly, and Hamachi is crazy for all of them. The orphaned boy wants to learn and teach about the spirits and prove to suspicious humans that everyone can get along. The people of his village think he’s kind of simple, and they’re kind of right. When Hamachi’s surly grandmother dies, apparently at the hand of a yōkai, Hamachi sets off for their dimension to find out the truth.
Since Hamachi is so well-informed about and enamored with yōkai, Matsumoto has no trouble introducing the various types either in the narrative or in end-of-chapter pages from Hamachi’s journal or in the form of excerpts from “Inukai Mizuki’s Field Guide to Yōkai.” (Mizuki is Hamachi’s inspiration and predecessor in human-yōkai diplomacy.)
Applying a consistently light-hearted tone, Matsumoto presents varied encounters between Hamachi and the objects of his obsession. He saves one from a trap, avoids having the skin of his feet removed by another, protects a surly, talking lantern from bullying, and so on. The individual episodes are fine, but it’s Matsumoto’s wit that really carries things along.
Hamachi is never smarter than he should be, and Matsumoto is able to maneuver him in and out of trouble with imaginative little flourishes. She gives the yōkai amusingly distinct personalities, peppers the dialogue with tart anachronisms (from schadenfreude to Kelsey Grammer), and is game for the occasional, amusing digression. (When the villagers learn of grandma’s fate and Hamachi’s quest, they engage in a discussion of just what kind of irony the situation embodies.)
Matsumoto has a solid visual sense as well. Her character designs, human and yōkai, are varied and charming, and her storytelling and layouts are clear and energetic.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
Now, here are some other highlights from this week’s ComicList:
Upcoming 10/29/2008
October 28, 2008 by
This week’s ComicList offers a happy hodgepodge of choices, from cross-cultural curiosities to comic strips to creepy classics. (It also allows for a lot of alliteration.)
First and foremost is the fourth volume of Adam Warren’s razor-sharp but still endearing super-hero and fan-service parody, Empowered (Dark Horse). Rarely is the enduring fortitude of the human spirit celebrated with such enthusiastic bad taste.
I can rarely resist a travelogue comic, and Enrico Casarosa’s The Venice Chronicles (AdHouse) looks like an extremely pretty one.
A new volume of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s old-school horror manga, Parasyte (Del Rey) is always a welcome arrival, and the fifth installment shows up Wednesday.
As much as I enjoy Vertical’s manga releases, I’ve missed the design genius of Chip Kidd. I can kind of get over it thanks to the arrival of Kidd’s Bat-Manga! (Pantheon).
While I strongly suspect The Venice Chronicles will be much more to my narrative-friendly tastes, I’m sure there will be much to admire in Yuichi Yokoyama’s Travel (PictureBox).
I’ve heard nothing but raves about the anime adaptation of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and I keep meaning to put it in the queue, but I’m just not that much of an anime geek. And besides, I tend to like to read the manga first. (Except in the case of Inu Yasha, because that series is like 75 volumes long, so I’ll stick with the animated version for now.) But thanks to Yen Press for launching the series this week. Yen is also delivering the second volume of Satoko Kiyuduki’s four-panel fairy tale, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro. I really enjoyed the first volume, so this is another welcome arrival.
Lip curls, eyes roll, heart reluctantly races
I was going to make a New Year’s resolution to try and stop sneering at Oku Hiroya’s Gantz (Dark Horse), but the only way I could fulfill it would be to not read Oku Hiroya’s Gantz at all, and I’m not quite sure I’ll be able to do that.
You guys, seriously… the buckets of manly tears, the lovingly drawn violence, the dialogue (“This isn’t a manga!”), the boob sock bonus shots, the philosophical questions that seem sprung from the reject pile of a junior-high-school literary magazine… It’s like almost everything I came to hate about Marvel and DC’s super-hero comics distilled into an essential oil.
That said there’s a hard-to-fault lack of cynicism to the whole affair, which just about absolves it. Gantz may be disgusting, but it’s not joyless or coy. The ultra-violence is at once inexcusable and genuinely exuberant, and the philosophizing may be half-witted at its absolute best, but it at least reads as sincere.
I don’t believe that Gantz will ever cohere into something artistically successful or remotely meaningful, but it certainly manages to deliver “I cannot believe I just read that” moments with enviable frequency. So I will continue to sneer, and I will refuse to feel badly about it. I mean, a sneer is part of a smile, right?