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Upcoming 10/10

October 10, 2007 by

Just because Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey) is clearly the must-buy item on this week’s ComicList doesn’t mean it’s the only item worth mentioning.

If it weren’t for the Guide, the pick of the week might be the fifth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s absolutely delightful Yotsuba&! (ADV). Cardboard robot battles! A trip to the beach! Grapes! What more do you need?

Yes, they hunger for brains, but how do zombies really feel? Someone must have already asked this, but nothing comes to mind. This archly emo look at undead eaters of human flesh comes in the form of J. Marc Schmidt’s Eating Steve from Slave Labor Graphics. I’ve heard good things about Schmidt’s Egg Story, and the Eating Steve preview has some nice bits in it.)

I’m curious about CMX’s new wave of titles aimed at mature readers, particularly Kanako Inuki’s Presents. The excerpt that ran in a CMX sampler over the summer wasn’t too inspiring, but John Jakala’s review convinces me that it’s definitely worth a look. (But I really love “comeuppance theater.” “Tonight on ‘When Bad Things Happen to People Who Totally Deserve Them…”)

Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings (Drawn & Quarterly) has gotten great reviews all over the place, so I’m sure I’ll take a look at it at some point. I’m guessing it will be all over chain bookstores, and the right convergence of opportunity and discount will arise somewhere down the line.

How have I managed to go this long without reading Lat’s Kampung Boy (First Second), even in the face of universal critical acclaim? And now the follow-up, Town Boy, is due. Must… catch… up! (Not with the help of Amazon, though. They have one of those “buy both” offers that actually allows you to pay about 75 cents more for the two titles than you would if you just added them to your cart individually, which leads me to believe that the buy-two pricing hasn’t caught up with the individual costs.)

Beyond lots of Fruits Basket product (which I hasten to note that I heartily endorse, because the series is very moving and surprising), Tokyopop offers two books that I’m eagerly anticipating. The first is the debut volume of Kozue Amano’s Aqua, which sounds lovely. There’s also the second volume of Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn. The first installment didn’t quite reach the heights of Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX), but it was very solid, and it’s Iwahara, so I’ll happily stick around on the assumption that it will reach those heights eventually.

The excerpt from Yearbook Stories: 1976-78 that ran in Top Shelf’s Seasonal Sampler was extremely likable, so I’ll definitely look for it the next time I’m in a big city with a comic shop with a wide selection. It’s written by Top Shelf honcho Chris Staros and illustrated by Bo Hampton and Rich Tommaso.

Even factoring out the extra volumes of Naruto, Viz sure has a heck of a lot of product moving this week. Some of it, like Strawberry 100%, is resolutely awful, in my opinion. Some offerings, like new volumes of Bleach and Nana, are as welcome as sweater weather.

Yen Press rolls out three licensed titles, all of which sound like fairly standard bookstore fare, and none of which quite grab my attention the way With the Light did. I do like teen detective stories, so I’ll probably give Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning a look. Or maybe not, after reading Katherine Dacey-Tsuei’s take on the book. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of other options.

Filed under: ADV, CMX, ComicList, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second, Slave Labor Graphics, Tokyopop, Top Shelf, Viz, Yen Press 6 Comments

From the stack: Manga: The Complete Guide

October 9, 2007 by

As Chris Butcher noted, there’s a whole lot of manga shipping every week. (Okay, so The Beguiling isn’t exactly representative of the average comic shop or even chain bookstore. It used to be the only place in North America where you could order books from Fanfare/Ponent Mon online.) Still, it’s a crowded field, and it never hurts to have a reference.

So what a handy coincidence that today marks the arrival of the eagerly anticipated, slightly delayed, wonderfully useful and readable Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson (Del Rey). Thompson and some colleagues have assembled a staggering number of reviews of basically every Japanese comic available in English at the time of publication. They’re well-written, succinct, and provide a clear sense of what the title has to offer (or what it fails to deliver).

Beyond that, there are informative pieces on different categories and genres, discussion of the history of manga, and profiles of some of its greatest creators. If Paul Gravett’s Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics is the ultimate introduction to the category (and I think it is), The Complete Guide is the ultimate user’s manual. It’s something that every library could use (and stock on its reference shelf), and it would be a great resource for retailers who want to start stocking more manga but may not know where to start.

It’s also terrific for fans. Aside from making me feel shockingly behind in my reading, it’s provided a potentially financially devastating number of additions to my “to read” list, which wasn’t exactly anemic to begin with. And it’s just plain fun to read. (The only thing I might have added is an appendix that listed books by rating, so that all of the four-star books were name-checked in one place.)

I’ve collected links to interviews, reviews and previews of the book after the jump. If I missed yours, just let me know in comments or via e-mail, and I’ll be happy to add it.

Interviews with Jason Thompson:

  • Flipped
  • PWCW
  • Comics in the Classroom
  • The Comics Journal
  • MangaCast
  • Patrick Macias

    • Reviews of the book:

  • Ferdinand at Prospero’s Manga
  • John T. at Mecha Mecha Media
  • Readilbert at MangaCast
  • Matt Blind at Comicsnob
  • Katherine Dacey-Tsuei at Manga Recon
  • Carlo Santos at Anime News Network
  • Steve Raiteri at The Library Journal
  • Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama
  • Erin F. at Manga Recon
  • Julie at Manga Maniac Cafe

    • Other links:

  • Jason Thompson on “Best Worst Manga” (Part One)
  • Thompson on “Best Worst Manga” (Part Two)
  • Thompson on “Top Ten Manga for Newbies”
  • Otaku USA, Thompson’s regular gig
  • Thompson explains the super-hero/shônen connection at Blog@Newsarama
    • Filed under: Del Rey, From the stack, Linkblogging 6 Comments

    Upcoming 10/3/2007

    October 2, 2007 by

    Okay, it’s not entirely in keeping with Obscure Comic Month, but this week does offer a lot of titles that might be classified as under-read, in spite of varying amounts of critical appreciation.

    Dark Horse offers the fourth volume of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, which I really, really enjoy. (Short version: unemployable psychic college students help dead bodies – or parts of dead bodies – with unfinished business in hopes of financial recompense.) There’s also the second volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered, which is simultaneously extremely tawdry, extremely funny, and very sweet. I can see how the tawdriness might easily overwhelm the other two qualities for some readers, but I think Warren keeps things in just the right balance.

    If you missed them the first time around, Fanfare/Ponent Mon gives you another crack at the splendid anthology, Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators, and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Walking Man. Japan collects short works from Japanese and European creators that range from really good to extraordinary. The Walking Man is one of the most serene reading experiences comics have to offer.

    Tokyopop provides the eighth volume of the constantly surprising, sometimes terrifying series Dragon Head, by Minetaro Mochizuki. The seventh volume was probably the most haunting yet, and the relatively long wait between new installments hasn’t diminished my interest in what happens next.

    Viz digs into its back catalog for a new addition to its Signature line. This time around, it’s Junji Ito’s extremely unsettling horror series, Uzumaki. I found the early chapters to be the strongest in the three-volume series, but it’s solid all the way through. It’s just scarier before the pattern solidifies and you aren’t really sure what you’re dealing with.

    And okay, no one would call these obscure or underrated, but I like these series a lot, so I’ll mention new volumes of Ai Yazawa’s Nana (Viz), Kairi Fujiyama’s Dragon Eye (Del Rey), and Tenshi Ja Nai!! (Go! Comi). Alas, this is the final volume of the funny soap opera of cross-dressing pop idols that is Tenshi. I’ll miss you, emotionally unstable and fundamentally dishonest teens!

    Filed under: ComicList, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Go! Comi, Tokyopop, Viz 3 Comments

    Upcoming 8/29

    August 28, 2007 by

    What evil lurks in the heart of the current ComicList? Well, none to speak of. I’m just trying to keep things fresh.

    Aurora releases the first volume of Chihiro Tamaki’s Walkin’ Butterfly. In it, a girl confronts her body image issues by trying to become a model. (I thought models caused body image issues. Help me out here.)

    There’s a lot of Del Rey product shipping this week. Depending on my mood, I’d peg either the sixth volume of Fuyumi Soryo’s ES or the second of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club as the highlight. I’ve already read this installment of MHHC, and it’s as delightful as the first. There are fewer deranged encounters with wildlife, but there’s a chapter where the elite titular team meats a plucky group of paupers out in the sticks that’s just a riot, even by this book’s standards.

    On the down side, I found the first volume of Shiki Tsukai just too packed with inscrutable rules to be very engaging, kind of like Shakugan no Shana (Viz). As Katherine Dacey-Tsuei puts it:

    “Even with the generous assortment of charts, appendices, and sidebars clarifying the nuances of its underlying “power to control the seasons” premise, however, I found this book fiendishly hard to follow, thanks to the characters’ jargon-heavy dialogue.”

    A new release from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is always worth a look. This time around, it’s Tokyo is My Garden, by Frédéric Boilet and Benoît Peeters, with back-up from demi-god of manga Jiro Taniguchi. It’s about a cognac salesman living large in the title city. Having just read Ed Chavez’s enticing Otaku USA column on booze manga, this is a timely arrival.

    As others have noticed, Viz begins its Naruto onslaught this week. Stock in dry goods and bottled water and pre-order those poor books that might get buried in the ninjalanche.

    Two that shouldn’t be overlooked, also from Viz, are Kiyoko Arai’s pricelessly silly Beauty Pop (now in its fifth volume) and the second volume of Hideaki Sorachi’s quirky, action-packed Gin Tama (discussed here already). I wouldn’t go so far as to say all of the same people would like both, but they share an off-kilter sense of humor that serves each really well.

    Filed under: Aurora, ComicList, Del Rey, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Linkblogging, Viz 6 Comments

    Stormy adolescences

    August 14, 2007 by

    You would think one manga about teens facing mysterious, murderous parasites would be enough for a given publisher, but the more I read Alive, the more I realized there was plenty of room at Del Rey for both it and Parasyte.

    And while it might not be one of CMX’s more newsworthy upcoming releases, I enjoyed The Key to the Kingdom a whole lot. (I might just be going through fantasy saga withdrawal, but I don’t think so.)

    Anyway, I go into needless detail on both in this week’s Flipped.

    Filed under: CMX, Del Rey, Flipped Leave a Comment

    Upcoming 8/1

    August 1, 2007 by

    With San Diego behind us all, it’s back to the weekly Wednesday routine.

    Meca Tanaka’s funky, charming Omukae Desu (CMX) ends with its fifth volume. Will Aguma get over her crush on a dead guy? Will Madoka break through her veneer of hostility? What will the theme days be?

    Debuting from CMX is Makoto Tateno’s King of Cards. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by game-based manga in the past, and the idea of a shôjo take on the subject is kind of interesting conceptually. That said, the preview didn’t grab me. Card-game enthusiasts might like it, though I have no idea if the game Tateno has invented bears any resemblance to actual games of this nature. I couldn’t really follow the rules, so dramatic reversals in matches might not be generating the proper level of excitement.

    It’s a big week for Del Rey, with new volumes of lots of series and a debut, Alive, by Tadashi Kawashima and Adachitoka. Now this preview did grab me. After a somewhat shaky opening sequence, Kawashima gets down to business with a creepy tale of a suicide virus that cuts a chunk out of the population and leaves a group of schoolmates in terrible danger. The highlight here is the cinematic pacing, with tense cuts between simultaneous terrors. There’s also lots of mystery, a solid cast, and plenty of promising material to cover in future volumes.

    My personal picks among the already-in-progress series are the second volume of Mushishi, a beautifully drawn supernatural travelogue of sorts, and the tenth volume of Nodame Cantabile, a quirky soap opera about music students.

    In case you missed it the first time, NBM offers you another crack at Nicolas DeCrécy’s Glacial Period. I’ve run out of ways to summarize how unique and entertaining this book is, so I’ll just point you to this old review.

    It’s not a huge week for Viz, but it is a fairly eclectic one, with new volumes of The Drifting Classroom (#7), Fullmetal Alchemist (#14), Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (#4), and Naoki Urasawa’s Monster (#10). If I had to choose only one, I’d probably be in trouble, though I have to admit that I’d ultimately go with Fullmetal. Drifting is hyperactive and crazy, Inubaka is sweet, and Monster has its many odd charms, but Fullmetal is crack.

    Filed under: CMX, ComicList, Del Rey, NBM, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 4 Comments

    Upcoming, 6/27

    June 26, 2007 by

    Another Wednesday approaches, bringing some fun stuff with it.

    The fact that I probably prefer it in collection doesn’t keep me from really enjoying individual issues of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting (Vol. II #7 this week from Fantagraphics). I just wish they were longer. In this case, that’s a compliment. One of the very small handful of titles I still collect in floppy form.

    I’ve really been enjoying the individual issues of Jim Massey and Robbi Rodriguez’s Maintenance (Oni), a workplace comedy about janitors in a mad scientist think tank. Not every joke scores, but more than enough do to make the first collection worth a look.

    One of my favorite features in the first issue of Otaku USA was Jason Thompson’s interview with novelist Tou Ubukata. A manga version of one of Ubukata’s works, Le Chevalier D’Eon, illustrated by Kiriko Yumeji, begins its English-language life courtesy of Del Rey. Gender bending, demon fighting action in pre-Revolution France, and a heroine whose outfit makes you think a tiny bit more kindly about all of those swimsuits and high heels from Marvel and DC.

    Vertical delivers the concluding volume of Keiko Takemiya’s science-fiction classic To Terra… I’m really curious as to how the story will wrap up, as it seems like things could end very badly for… well… everyone involved. Is it terrible that I’m kind of hoping for an unhappy ending? It’s not that I wish the characters, human or Mu, ill. It just seems like such an enticing alternative. (And if you know how it turns out, and you probably do, please don’t spoil it for me.)

    Filed under: ComicList, Del Rey, Fantagraphics, Oni, Vertical 8 Comments

    My sides (and sinuses) hurt

    June 5, 2007 by

    This week’s Flipped takes a look at some new and upcoming comedy series and measures their respective guffaw quotients.

    One thing I neglected to mention about Gin Tama (Viz – Shonen Jump Advanced): the first volume also features a really spiffy back-up story, “Dandelion.” It’s basically a less benevolent take on the same material covered in Omukae Desu (CMX), but with a healthy dose of cynicism and a strangely successful gangster vibe.

    Filed under: Del Rey, Flipped, Viz 1 Comment

    Quick comic comments: Fourths

    June 1, 2007 by

    Not long ago, I posted a list of my favorite comics created by women. Not long after that, an Amazon shipment showed up containing fourth volumes of two series that could be added to the list if they keep building on their strengths.

    The first is Marley’s Dokebi Bride (Netcomics), which neatly invests magic-girl storytelling with shockingly raw adolescent angst. For those of you who haven’t been following the series, it’s about Sunbi, granddaughter of a village shaman who is forced to move to Seoul after her grandmother’s death. Sunbi has inherited the maternal line’s ability to interact with spirits, but she’s untrained in the responsibilities and dangers of a shaman’s existence. Between the abilities she neither wants nor understands and a reintroduction to a father she barely remembers (not to mention his new wife and stepdaughter), Sunbi’s adjustment to her new circumstances is going fairly poorly, to say the least.

    Sunbi doesn’t want to acclimate to either the supernatural or the everyday. What little mastery she’s achieved of her shamanistic heritage is used to keep people at a distance, no matter how benevolent their intentions may be. (And it’s to Marley’s credit that characters like the stepmother aren’t one-dimensional obstacles; she recognizes that negative reactions to her brittle heroine are natural, even reasonable.) But the sense that Sunbi must reconcile the disparate elements of her life is pervasive. She’s at a dangerous crossroads, and watching her navigate the territory is very compelling.

    Then there’s Fuyumi Soryo’s ES (Del Rey), which combines a character-driven sensibility with science-fiction suspense. Brilliant but socially awkward Dr. Mine Kujyou has found herself in the middle of a cold war between two mysterious, powerful creatures. Isaac and Akiba are the results of genetic engineering, invested with chilling psychic powers and nothing resembling conventional morality. Akiba takes a benignly curious view of humanity, for the most part, but Isaac views them with a sociopath’s disinterest, playing brutal games that accentuate (and punish) the uglier aspects of human nature.

    As the fourth volume begins, Akiba has recognized the threat Isaac poses, though their shared origins leave him ambivalent. Kujyou is out of her depth, both scientifically and interpersonally, but her efforts to gain understanding on both fronts are compelling to watch. And Isaac’s hostility towards humanity is almost understandable, given the cruelty of the circumstances of his creation. Soryo carefully explores the triangle that they form, probing the emotional and philosophical questions it poses.

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

    Upcoming

    May 30, 2007 by

    After a couple of weeks of relative famine, the ComicList offers a big old feast this week.

    You want classic manga? Jocelyn Bouquillard and Christophe Marquet go seriously old school with Hokusai, First Manga Master (Harry N. Abrams):

    “More than a hundred years before Japanese comics swept the globe, the master engraver Hokusai was producing beautiful, surreal, and often downright wacky sketches and drawings, filled with many of the characters and themes found in modern manga. These out-of-context caricatures, which include studies of facial expressions, postures, and situations ranging from the mundane to the otherworldly, demonstrate both the artist’s style and his taste.”

    Dark Horse releases the second volume of Tanpenshu, collected shorts from Hiroki Endo. I’m kind of running out of patience with Endo’s Eden, but the first collection of these shorts was very satisfying reading.

    Readers who are already feeling separation anxiety over the imminent conclusion of Death Note might consider Fuyimi Soryo’s ES (Del Rey) as a replacement. It’s not as outrageously suspenseful, but it’s a compelling and intelligent thriller with a surprising amount of heart. Debuting from Del Rey is Ai Morinaga’s hilarious My Heavenly Hockey Club. If you hate sports, don’t worry. Morinaga goes to great comic lengths to avoid any actual displays of athleticism with really delightful results.

    Houghton Mifflin releases a paperback version of Allison Bechdel’s wonderful Fun Home, for those of you who held off on the hardcover.

    I haven’t read any of them, but kudos to NBM for making sure lots of their Nancy Drew graphic novels are available to retailers before the movie debuts.

    Viz delivers a whole bunch of stuff. Highlights for me include the fourth volume of Kiyoko Arai’s very funny makeover comedy, Beauty Pop, and the sixth volume of Ai Yazawa’s lovely look at young singles, Nana.

    Filed under: ComicList, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Houghton Mifflin, NBM, Viz 2 Comments
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