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Honorable mentions

January 17, 2008 by

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.

    Filed under: Awards and lists, CMX, Comics in libraries, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second, Oni 4 Comments

    Random Thursday thoughts

    January 10, 2008 by

    I’m in one of those phases where reading comics and writing about them seem to have overtaken me a bit. There are three or four reviews I’ve got drafted in my head, two or three column ideas bouncing around up there, and feedback overload from all of the good “best of 2007” lists floating around. The best thing to do would be to just sit down with these various books and get to writing (after I read Rutu Mordan’s Exit Wounds again, because critical consensus has me feeling like I’m missing brilliance and just seeing general excellence), but I keep getting distracted by new comics that show up.

    As expected, Nextwave: I Kick Your Face (Marvel) was very, very funny, and I’d love to see more of it (collected in paperback). There was one sequence that was kind of jarring, featuring some perhaps-too-astute parodies of the kinds of spandex stylings that normally exhaust me. I recovered, obviously.

    I’m still not quite sure what to think of the preview copy of Hell Girl that Del Rey sent me. It’s shôjo comeuppance theater by Miyuki Eto where terrible things happen to horrible people after good people prone to immediate gratification consign their tormentors to hell with the help of an urban legend with a web site. I think I need to read more of this before I render any kind of verdict, but there are some really discordant things going on here.

    And a whole bunch of Viz books I really like have come out lately. I like Naoki Urasawa’s Monster so much better when it doesn’t focus on plaster saint Tenma, and I’m constantly and pleasantly surprised by Urasawa’s ability to structure a thriller in surprising but entirely coherent ways. I sense a whole lot of Tenma on the immediate horizon, but the book’s pleasures will definitely outweigh the dullness of its protagonist. More Nana more often makes me happy, even when the story itself makes me very, very sad. I love how Ai Yazawa is playing with and rebalancing the naïve/worldly dynamic between her two leads. And the handy thing about having the kind of large, well-crafted cast that has assembled in Fullmetal Alchemist is that you can do an entire volume where one lead barely appears and the other doesn’t show up at all and it will still be riveting.

    And now, some links:

  • Christopher Butcher takes a very thoughtful, well-informed, in-depth look at some of the items from my 2007 manga news round-up.
  • Johanna Draper Carlson rounds up some recent manga news items and offers her own thoughts. (Pop quiz: Does Dark Horse actually publish any shôjo, or just manga titles from other categories that people who like shôjo might enjoy?)
  • The Occasional Superheroine looks at Newsweek’s discovery of women who write comics and finds it wanting. (When I read the piece at Newsweek’s site, there was this horrible sidebar ad about some wrinkle cream showing a woman who had been retouched to look like something just this side of moldering, because physical representations of life experience are apparently to be fought with all the vigor science can muster. It seems to have been taken out of the page’s ad rotation, and while the replacements are surprisingly low-rent for an outfit like Newsweek, none seem to be actively thematically opposed to the page’s main content. Yay?)
    • Filed under: Dark Horse, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, Linkblogging, Marvel, Media, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 1 Comment

    The year in fun (2007)

    January 1, 2008 by

    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.)
    • Filed under: AdHouse, ADV, Awards and lists, CMX, Dark Horse, DC, Del Rey, DMP, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second, Image, Minx, NBM, Netcomics, Quick Comic Comments, Tokyopop, Viz 2 Comments

    Upcoming 12/28/2007

    December 26, 2007 by

    Friday is the last shipping day of 2007, but I learned last year that it’s not to be overlooked. (I posted my “Year in Fun” list, and then Glacial Period came out from NBM. Caution is the theme for this year.)

    And what have we here? The second in the series of graphic novel collaborations with The Louvre, The Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert, by Marc-Antoine Mathieu. You won’t fool me again, NBM. I’m holding out in case of awesomeness.

    New volumes are due for a couple of series I really enjoy: the third of Kairi Fujiyama’s Dragon Eye (Del Rey) and the ninth of Minetaro Mochizuki’s Dragon Head (Tokyopop). Clearly, I would probably also like series called Dragon Nostril, Dragon Earlobe, and Dragon Epiglottis.

    Of course, having read the latest issue of Otaku USA, I realize I have some catching up to do on the Tokyopop front: there’s Mari Okazaki’s josei title, Suppli, and Yuki Nakaji’s Zig*Zag. I was very impressed with Nakaji’s Venus in Love from CMX, and I saw that they were doing a cross-promotion for the two Nakaji series, but what can I tell you? Something sparkly must have come into my range of vision and distracted me.

    Filed under: ComicList, Del Rey, NBM, Tokyopop 4 Comments

    Quick comic comments: Formulas

    December 20, 2007 by

    While Del Rey’s X-Men collaboration with Marvel is still a ways down the road, the manga publisher’s Psycho Busters (manga by Akinara Nao, story by Yuya Aoki) accomplishes roughly the same thing. A group of teen psychics is being hunted by a mysterious organization, and they seek out an otherwise average, geeky boy to help them. The most persuasive evidence of their psychic abilities is that they see potential in Kakeru, their dork savior.

    The runaways are all naturally occurring or “wild” psychics. Their pursuers seem to have been grown in captivity by their generically menacing overlords. Since this is shônen, first contact is made by the naked astral projection of the nubile telepath of the group. It’s the first example of some strangely halfhearted fan service that’s sprinkled throughout the book. On the bright side, the fan service is relatively equal opportunity. One foe is a naughty schoolgirl. Another is sexy street trash. You can tell they’re bad because both tend to do suggestive things with their tongues.

    Bits of Psycho Busters are quite appealing. After a thoroughly generic opening that even Kakeru identifies as by-the-numbers manga fodder, there are some interesting battle sequences. With no apparent psychic abilities, Kakeru has to improvise to keep up with his comrades and survive the attacks of the tongue people. On the whole, though, it’s pretty forgettable stuff. The most fun to be had is finding parallels to early Uncanny X-Men stories, and that only goes so far.

    *

    My mental jury is still out on Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut (Viz – Shojo Beat). On the one hand, I’m naturally averse to stories about a girl whose life seems to revolve around finding a boyfriend. (It’s just as tiresome with the genders reversed.) But the girl in this case, former jock Haruna, is just so weird.

    After overdosing on shôjo manga, Haruna has decided to pursue romance with the same vigor and methodology she used to master softball. Her initial efforts are completely unsuccessful, so she seeks out a coach in the form of popular, ruthlessly blunt Yoh. It’s kind of a case of those who can’t do teaching; Yoh’s had a bunch of girlfriends, but he’s driven them all away with his excessive honesty. He reluctantly agrees to coach Haruna, provided she promises not to fall in love with him.

    The obvious conclusion is that she’ll break her promise, but I hope she doesn’t. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but Kawahara seems intent on derailing her own formula. Determination aside, Haruna seems impervious to the kind of improvement Yoh offers. She even finds a dorky soul mate all on her own, to Yoh’s consternation.

    This is where things get tricky. Logical conclusion demands a love match between coach and trainee, but as things stand, that would be utterly unsatisfying. The only way Yoh could emerge as a suitable alternative to Haruna’s other suitor is if the boy (an adorable goof) dies suddenly, to be honest. But I am curious as to where Kawahara is going with all this. If she takes the unexpected path, High School Debut could be a lot of fun.

    (Reviews based on complimentary copies provided by the publisher.)

    Filed under: Del Rey, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 3 Comments

    Uncanny alliance

    December 9, 2007 by

    Oh, man, I’ll be buying my first X-Men comic in YEARS.

    And I try and avoid running press releases, but dude… please… SHOJO X-MEN. (That sound you heard is probably John Jakala renewing his support for Tintin Pantoja’s Wonder Woman proposal.)

    (Full release after the cut.)

    MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT AND DEL REY MANGA ANNOUNCE TWO NEW SERIES BASED ON X-MEN, WOLVERINE

    NEW YORK, NY – December 9, 2007 – Marvel Entertainment and Del Rey Manga, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today plans to publish two new manga series based on Marvel Entertainment’s highly popular X-Men series.

    The manga, created with the cooperation and consultation of Marvel editors, will take the classic characters from the X-Men series and re-imagine them in a manga style. The first project, scripted by the husband-and-wife team of Raina Telgemeier (writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels) and Dave Roman (creator of the comic Agnes Quill), will focus specifically on the X-Men team. Indonesian artist Anzu will illustrate the two-volume series, which will go on sale in Spring 2009.

    It’s the X-Men as you’ve never seen them before, with the storyline fashioned as a private school shôjo comedy. (Shôjo manga is aimed at girls and often covers popular subjects such as comedy, romance, and drama.) As the only girl in the all-boys School for Gifted Youngsters, Kitty Pryde, a mutant with phasing abilities, is torn between the popular Hellfire Club, led by flame-throwing mutant Pyro—and the school misfits, whom she eventually bands together as the X-Men.

    A second manga series, to be published in Spring 2009, follows the adventures of Wolverine, a breakout member of the X-Men team known for his attitude and unbreakable adamantium claws.

    Dallas Middaugh, associate publisher of Del Rey Manga, says, “The X-Men are some of the most well-known characters in the world, and it’s the strength of those characters-along with strong and unique storylines-that make the X-Men a perfect match for the manga form. It’s an amazing opportunity, and we’re eager to bring new interpretations to the fans through the prism of manga.”

    The X-Men made their comics debut in The X-Men #1 in 1963 and have since become a mainstream pop culture phenomenon with the development of an animated television series, several video games and a blockbuster live-action film trilogy.

    Ruwan Jayatilleke, Vice President of development of Marvel Entertainment, Inc., said “Del Rey Manga has been an innovative force in the manga landscape—-consistently growing the medium and breaking the boundaries of print. We have found a partner who will bring the X-Men and Wolverine into the fastest growing segment of graphic fiction, with superior storytelling and visual fireworks. Comic book fans and manga readers have much to look forward to.”

    Manga, the Japanese term for comics, is a Japanese cultural phenomenon that accounts for nearly half of all the books and magazines sold in Japan. Read by men and women of all ages, manga covers a wide variety of themes including adventure, romance, fantasy, and more. Manga has experienced incredible growth in the US and Canadian graphic novel market in the past few years. According to industry source ICv2 manga sales reached between $170 million and $200 million in 2006.

    About the Creators
    Raina Telgemeier is best known for her work as the writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Eisner, Ignatz, Cybil, and Web Cartoonists’ Choice awards.

    Dave Roman currently works for Nickelodeon Magazine as an associate editor. The co-creator of the Harvey Award-nominated series Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden and the Ignatz award-winning Teen Boat, he also pens his own webcomic, Astronaut Elementary. He is also the creator of the comic Agnes Quill.

    Anzu, a manga artist based in Indonesia, will make her US manga art debut in April 2008 with the first volume of The Reformed, written by Chris Hart. She has contributed to Hart’s bestselling How to Draw Manga series.

    About Del Rey Manga
    Del Rey Books (http://www.delreybooks.com ) was founded in 1977 as an imprint of Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the best of modern fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history. Ballantine Books is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, which is a publishing group of Random House, Inc, the U.S. publishing company of Random House, the trade book publishing division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s leading international media companies. In 2004 it expanded by launching Del Rey Manga (www.delreymanga.com), which has grown to be a major force in the U.S. graphic-novel field. Bestselling titles include Tsubasa, Negima, xxxHolic, and The Wallflower.

    About Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
    With a library of over 5,000 high-profile characters built over more than sixty years of comic book publishing, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios), publishing (via Marvel Comics) and toys, with emphasis on feature films, home DVD, consumer products, video games, action figures and role-playing toys, television and promotions. Marvel’s strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world. For more information visit www.marvel.com.

    X-Men, Wolverine: TM & © 2007 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    Filed under: Del Rey, Marvel, Press releases 2 Comments

    Previews review Dec. 2007

    December 7, 2007 by

    It’s time again for a quick tour through the latest Previews catalog.

    In Andi Watson’s Princess at Midnight (page 140), a sheltered, home-schooled girl becomes a capricious, adorable despot when the lights go out. The story was one of the highlights of the first Mammoth Book of Best New Manga, and now Image is publishing a stand-alone version. I’m half-heartedly debating whether ten new pages merit buying it again, but I think I will for two reasons. One, if sales are strong, Watson might be more inclined to do a follow-up, and two, it seems like a reasonable enough way to thank Image for publishing Glister. (I’d thank them even more wholeheartedly if I could ever find anything on their website.)

    I try and resist mentioning new volumes of ongoing series when I do these things, but when the series is as good as Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! (volume six on page 191, ADV), I weaken.

    The same flexible ethics apply to Fuyumi Soryo’s ES (volume 8 on page 250, Del Rey). This is great, character-driven science fiction. (Does anyone know if this is the last volume in the series?)

    Sometimes a premise sounds so delightfully idiotic and tacky that I’m unable to resist. That’s the case with Kei Azumaya’s All Nippon Airline (Juné, page 265):

    “ANAL – All Nippon Air Lines – is a unique airline company. All of its employees are beautiful gay men. On top of that, relationships between employees, or even between passengers and employees, are highly encouraged!”

    I’m not proud.

    It’s been running in Shojo Beat, and now the first collection of Chica Umino’s sweet, hilarious Honey and Clover (Viz, page 357) will be available for people who pass on the magazine.

    The premise sounds really familiar (Wild Adapter Junior, maybe), but the full-page ad for Saki Otoh and Nakamura Tomomi’s Switch (Viz, page 359) is really eye-catching and clever.

    Okay, and since I’m indulging in mentions for ongoing series, I’ll note that the second volume of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child (Yen Press, page 363) is due. It’s a really admirable series, executed well, and it’s unlike pretty much anything else in the manga category, though I wish it weren’t.

    Filed under: ADV, Del Rey, Image, Juné, Previews, Viz, Yen Press 6 Comments

    Upcoming 11/29/2007

    November 27, 2007 by

    This week’s ComicList constitutes almost an embarrassment of riches. Maybe it’s because of the extra day before shipment. There’s even a three-way tie for Pick of the Week, with some serious runners-up.

    Any week that offers a new title from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is going to be special. This boutique nouvelle-manga publisher has a sterling track record for quality, and I can’t imagine that new work from Jiro Taniguchi will do anything to undermine it. With The Ice Wanderer, Taniguchi seems to be channeling Call of the Wild, offering six man-versus-nature short stories. The subject matter isn’t automatically my cup of tea, but it’s Taniguchi, so it will be gorgeous.

    A new paperback volume of Rick Geary’s A Treasury of Victorian Murder series (NBM) is also cause for celebration. The Bloody Benders might well be subtitled “Deadly Inn on the Prairie” from the solicitation text.

    It’s a great week for Del Rey in general, but I have to make special mention of the last volume of Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken. Nothing much has really happened in nine volumes, but the characters are so great that I really don’t care. The charming interpersonal dynamics and the insanely detailed art are more than ample compensation.

    As to the rest of Del Rey’s large-ish slate of releases, I’ve gone from really liking Fuyumi Soryo’s ES to absolutely loving it. The seventh volume arrives on Thursday, and the tension ratchets up considerably as Soryo forces just about everyone in her cast into dark and dangerous corners. On the lighter side, there’s the third volume of Ai Morinaga’s very funny anti-sports manga, My Heavenly Hockey Club. I devoted half of last week’s Flipped to Ryotaro Iwanaga’s very promising Pumpkin Scissors, so go take a look if you haven’t already.

    I don’t think I’ll ever be inclined to read comics online if there’s a print alternative. Take Morim Kang’s 10, 20, and 30 (Netcomics). I sampled some chapters via the Internet and liked them a lot, then read the first paperback and liked it quite a bit more. Either way you consume it, it’s got charming cartooning and wonderfully rounded characters offering multi-generational slices of life. The second volume arrives this week.

    I’m still kind of on the fence about MPD Psycho (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Sho-U Tajima. I read the second volume over the weekend, and while I found it less aggressively lurid than the first, I thought it was a little harder to follow. I’m inclined to give Otsuka a lot of leeway based on his work on The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, so I’ll stay on board for a bit longer.

    I was quite taken with the first volume of Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX), a race-for-the-crown fantasy adventure. I’m eager to see what happens in the second installment.

    Filed under: CMX, ComicList, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, NBM, Netcomics 4 Comments

    From the stack: Aventura

    November 11, 2007 by

    Shin Midorikawa’s Aventura (Del Rey) falls into the category of what I call “If you say so” manga. By that I mean that the underlying mythology is generally impenetrable to me, no matter how carefully the manga-ka tries to articulate it.

    In this case, it’s magic. The series takes place in a school dedicated to the subject where students are divided into two categories – wizards and swordspersons. Scruffy redhead Lewin Randit is on the hack-and-slash track, though it’s not his first choice. Unfortunately, he seems to have no magical aptitude whatsoever outside of some minor pyromaniac tendencies.

    In spite of the segregation, he meets a budding witch and wizard in the school library, and they form a solid friendship. Yes, it’s three youngsters, two male and one female, navigating magic school together, and Lewin has an odious, Draco Malfoy-esque rival, though the similarities to Harry Potter pretty much end there.

    For one thing, Aventura is a lot more sincere. There’s nothing particularly antic going on, and daily life seems to consist of lots of long talks about following dreams and being true to yourself. The magical content is beyond my ability (or desire) to fully comprehend as well, much more theoretical than practical. I think it has something to do with earth, wind, fire and water, but it seems vastly more complicated.

    It’s gorgeous to look at. Midorikawa’s illustrations are eye-poppingly detailed and generally flow well. I just wish they were in service to a more gripping story.

    (Review based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

    Filed under: Del Rey, From the stack 2 Comments

    Monday linkblogging, etc.

    October 22, 2007 by

    J.K. Rowling has revealed that one of the characters from her Harry Potter series of books, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, was gay. It’s nice, but I’d have been more impressed if she’d actually revealed that in the text, ideally before the character died.

    On the one hand, she seldom devoted any space to the private lives of the Hogwarts faculty unless it was essential to the narrative (Snape) or factored heavily into a thematically linked subplot (Hagrid and Madame Maxim). On the other, it seems like his one relationship was pretty punitively disappointing. On another hand, I still think poor Tonks was the biggest beard in the fantasy canon, and that anyone who thinks Sirius and Lupin weren’t totally in love is kidding him- or herself.

    *

    While not everyone agrees on the tenor of that Tigra sequence from New Avengers #35, there does seem to be general consensus that Matt Brady’s Newsarama interview with writer Brian Bendis was the kind of tounge-bath seldom seen outside of the cozy, secluded nests mother cats create to welcome their newborns. Here’s one of my favorite responses, and probably the most comprehensive.

    *

    So I don’t seem completely grumpy, I’ll like to two reviews of books published by Dark Horse that made me happy, both the books and the reviews. First is Greg McElhatton’s look at Kazuhiro Okamoto’s far-more-interesting-than-it-sounds Translucent, and second is Ken Haley’s praise for the first two volumes of Adam Warren’s better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be Empowered.

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    I love this sauce. I think it would be good on just about any kind of protein, and probably many vegetables as well. (Maybe someday I’ll point you to a healthy recipe. Don’t hold your breath.)

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    Speaking of cooking, wow, I gave up too quickly on Kitchen Princess (Del Rey). I thought the first volume was pretty uninspiring, but I caught up with more recent installments via complimentary copies, and it definitely picks up steam. It’s still not life-changing, but there are lots of pretty pictures of food and some reasonably moving story material.

    Filed under: Dark Horse, Del Rey, Food, Linkblogging, Prose 1 Comment
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