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Koontz, Chan team for OGN from Del Rey

May 17, 2007 by

News comes from the Del Rey Manga Newsletter that Dean Koontz (aided by Queenie Chan of The Dreaming fame) will join Avril Lavigne in the imprint’s original graphic novel roster, bringing Koontz’s Odd Thomas to OGN life.

(Press release after the cut.)

DEL REY TO PUBLISH GRAPHIC NOVEL
STARRING DEAN KOONTZ’S “ODD THOMAS”

NEW YORK, NY — May 15, 2007 — Del Rey Manga, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today that it has acquired an original graphic novel starring Odd Thomas, perhaps the most memorable and beloved character Dean Koontz has ever created. The charismatic young fry cook from Pico Mundo, California has appeared in three New York Times bestselling novels: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, and Brother Odd, which was one of Koontz’s fastest-selling hardcovers. Odd, who has the ability to communicate with the dead, has inspired more readers’ letters than any other of his characters, according to Koontz.

Koontz’s characters — including Odd, his girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn, Pico Mundo Chief of Police Porter, the ghost of Elvis Presley, and many more — will be drawn by one of the top original-English-language manga artists working today, Queenie Chan. Chan, author of the popular mystery-horror series The Dreaming, will script the story as well. Publication is planned for Summer 2008.

The graphic novel will follow Odd’s race to solve the murder of a young boy whose killer appears to be stalking a second child. It is set in the time before Odd Thomas and takes place in Pico Mundo. The book will be edited by Del Rey editor-in-chief Betsy Mitchell.

Says Dean Koontz: “I’m delighted that Odd Thomas will come to life in manga, that the enormously talented Queenie Chan’s beautiful art will define his world and the desert town of Pico Mundo, and that the project is being guided by such capable hands as those at Del Rey.”

Queenie Chan comments: “It’s an honor to work with Dean on this project, and I’m glad he’s chosen me for this new story of Odd Thomas. I read his novels when I was in high school, and never did I imagine that I would have the chance to work with such a well-known and established author today.”

ABOUT THE CREATORS:

Dean Koontz is the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers. He lives with his wife, Gerda, and their dog, Trixie, in Southern California.

Queenie Chan was born in 1980 in Hong Kong, and migrated to Australia when she was six years old. She began drawing at the age of 18, and in 2004 began drawing a mystery-horror series called The Dreaming for Los Angeles-based manga publisher Tokyopop. Since then, the series has been translated into four languages, with the third and final installment arriving in November 2007. Apart from her professional work, she also draws a number of online manga strips on her personal site: www.queeniechan.com.

ABOUT DEL REY MANGA

Del Rey was founded in 1977 as a division of Ballantine Books 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, alternate history and manga. 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 the summer of 2003, Random House joined together with Kodansha in a creative partnership to bring some of Kodansha’s top properties to the United States, making Random House the first major trade book publisher in the United States to do so.

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Something for almost everyone

May 1, 2007 by

Time for the weekly stroll through the ComicList. It’s a big ‘un.

Dark Horse rolls out the seventh volume of Hiroki Endo’s Eden: It’s an Endless World! It’s an intriguing and solidly executed series, but I’m starting to wonder how long we’re going to spend with the gangsters and prostitutes. It makes a certain amount of sense that the drug and sex trades would survive near-apocalypse relatively unscathed, but I’d rather the focus turned back on things that have changed.

I can say with little fear of contradiction that there will probably be no prostitutes and that any gangsters who do appear will be unlikely to be the type to mutilate in the third issue of Jeff Smith’s Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil. The presence of either mutilating gangsters or sex workers would indicate a rather drastic change in the thus-far delightful series.

It seems inevitable that episodic series will lose some of their charm as ongoing subplots start to take prominence, but I’m not finding that to be the case with Meca Tanaka’s Omukae Desu (CMX). I’ve already read a preview proof of the fourth volume, which comes out this week, and the evolving romantic entanglements are balanced nicely with the restless ghosts who keep the cast gainfully employed.

Del Rey is moving an unusually high volume of manga this week. You already know what I think of the first volumes of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte and Yasunori Mitsunaga’s Princess Resurrection, and I’d also recommend the ninth volume of Tomoko Ninomiya’s charming musical josei, Nodame Cantabile, and the second volume of Yuki Urushibara’s moody, quirky supernatural series, Mushishi. Yes, I like Del Rey’s manga catalog a lot. Why do you ask?

I found an awful lot to like in James Vining’s First in Space, which arrives this week from Oni. It’s a fact-based portrayal of Ham, the chimpanzee who paved the way for human space exploration in the U.S.

Sure, Kindaichi Case Files (Tokyopop), by Kanari Yozaburo and Satoh Fumiya, is formulaic, but it comes out so infrequently that it does really matter to me. The fifteenth volume promises another cleverly constructed, gruesome, locked-room murderer solved by a smart-mouthed young sleuth.

Being a sucker for cute dogs and having seen some of the early reviews, there’s little chance that I’ll be able to resist Christian Slade’s Korgi (Top Shelf).

For other takes on tomorrow’s arrivals, check out this run-down by Chris Mautner and Kevin Melrose at Blog@Newsarama and the extremely-generous-with-free-comics Dave Carter’s assessment.

Filed under: CMX, ComicList, Dark Horse, DC, Del Rey, Oni, Tokyopop, Top Shelf 1 Comment

Suddenly next fall

April 29, 2007 by

When I do these trawls through Diamond’s Previews catalog, I generally try and limit my focus to new series and graphic novels. Sometimes, that’s just impossible.

After over a year and a half in limbo, ADV will release a new volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s delightful Yotsuba&! I could stop right there and be perfectly happy. (Page 217.) I won’t, obviously.

A new collection of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s funny fantasy adventure, Girl Genius (Airship), is always good news. The sixth trade paperback is listed on page 221, and I’ve reviewed previous volumes here, here and here.

David Petersen’s beautiful Mouse Guard (Archaia) was one of the surprise hits of last year, which leads me to suppose that the sequel, Winter 1152, will also be a hit, but not a surprising one. (Page 230.)

Aurora enters the Previews fray with two listings: Makoto Tateno’s Hate to Love You, described as “Romeo and Romeo,” and Chihiro Tamaki’s Walkin’ Butterfly, a shôjo series about an aspiring model. (Page 238.)

I had expected more of a wait for the second volume of Adam Warren’s sweetly subversive, cheerfully shameless piece of cheesecake, Empowered. Apparently not, which is certainly good news. I reviewed the first volume here. (Page 45.)

Dark Horse dabbles in shôjo with Kazuhiro Okamoto’s Translucent, about a girl who’s starting to turn invisible. My teen-angst metaphor sensors are pinging, but in a good way. (Page 47.)

If Tokyopop’s Dragon Head and Viz’s The Drifting Classroom aren’t adequately feeding your need for student survivalist drama, Del Rey launches Tadashi Kawashima’s Alive. There goes that metaphor sensor again! (Page 272.)

I must have been experiencing a shortage of serotonin last weekend, because I ordered a big box of Fumi Yoshinaga manga from Amazon. I read it all in a sitting, and I think my aura transformed from a dingy gray to a cloud of flowers that were sparkling in a slightly ironic fashion. I really recommend it, and manga publishers like Blu, 801 and Juné seem determined to keep these mood-elevating supplements in ample supply. Juné launches Don’t Say Anymore Darling (page 289) and releases the third volume of Flower of Life (page 290). I don’t know why DMP is publishing it in the Juné imprint [Edited to note that they actually aren’t, and I’m just blurring things in my feeble brain], because there doesn’t seem to be any ai among the shônen, but I don’t really care, because I love the series to a positively embarrassing extent.

Fantagraphics releases the second volume of Gilbert Hernandez’s marvelous Palomar stories in Human Diastrophism. (Page 302.) I reviewed the first volume here.

Go! Comi adds more shônen to its line up with the first volume of Yu Yagami’s Hikkatsu. (Page 308.) In it, the protagonist can use martial arts to repair appliances. Since the ice maker in my refrigerator has been on the fritz for weeks, this concept appeals to me.

While the concept of Oni’s The Apocalipstix doesn’t really speak to me – post-apocalyptic rocker girls! – I’m crazy about Cameron Stewart’s art, and he’s teamed up with writer Ray Fawkes for this original graphic novel. (Page 335.)

Back on Yoshinaga patrol, Tokyopop’s Blu imprint offers Truly Kindly, a collection of shorts from the mangaka. Let’s see… I love Yoshinaga, and I love manga shorts. We’ll mark that down as a “yes.” (Page 365.)

Filed under: ADV, Airship, Archaia, Aurora, Blu, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Fantagraphics, Go! Comi, Juné, Previews 6 Comments

Coming up

April 17, 2007 by

Some highlights from this week’s ComicList:

If zombies were the new pirates, and princesses were the new zombies, are vampires the new princesses? Or do vampires have sufficient cultural currency that they’re exempt from the fad cycle? I have no idea, but CMX is headed to the blood bank with the release of Chika Shiomi’s Canon, the tale of a heroic teen bloodsucker looking to avenge her entire high-school class. I think it gets off to a solid start.

Readers who loved Fumi Yoshinaga’s Antique Bakery (DMP) might want to take a look at The Flower of Life (Juné). Once again, Yoshinaga looks at a satisfying array of interpersonal relationships with warmth, intelligence, humor and her trademark quirkiness. The second volume ships Wednesday. I reviewed the first volume here.

I mention the comic-shop arrival of Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes (Del Rey) only because it came up in this conversation at Comics Worth Reading, and I can use it as an opportunity to mention Nicolas De Crécy’s superb Glacial Period (NBM) again. I generally agree that sell-out announcements aren’t really news, but I’m going to side with commenter Joe Williams in this instance:

“The fact that NBM will sell out of a 4000 print run for a foreign release where the author, as far as I know, has yet to be published in America and a book that deals with a French cultural institution is pretty impressive in my book.”

Mine, too.

Speaking of shouting from the rooftops (or any available setting, really), it’s time for the fifth volume of Kazuo Umezu’s The Drifting Classroom (Viz Signature). As always, things get worse for the stranded elementary school students. You wouldn’t think it would be possible, but they do.

Filed under: CMX, ComicList, Del Rey, Juné, NBM, Viz 3 Comments

Delayed gratification

March 28, 2007 by

Before I delve too far into this week’s ComicList, I have a self-serving question. Has the third volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse) shown up at anyone’s comic shop? I think it was due out a couple of weeks ago, and I know I have it on reserve, but there’s still no sign of it here in the mountains. I’m wondering if I should start nagging.

While the list offers plenty of great stuff, the common trait seems to be that none of them are showing up here. I’m going to attribute this to the vagaries of regional shipping instead of a conspiracy to deny me the comics I want. For now.

Del Rey offers the eighth volume of Kio Shimoku’s hilarious, sharply-observed, yet still emotionally generous Genshiken.

DramaQueen delivers the first volume of Kye Young Chong’s Audition, which is pleasant enough reading about the search for the ultimate boy band, though I prefer the creator’s other DQ license, the funny, touching, odd DVD.

The fourth volume of Satosumi Takaguchi’s Shout Out Loud! (Blu) promises more romantic and familial complications, and unless things have changed drastically, they’ll be executed with wit, intelligence and warmth.

Viz is unloading a vast quantity of Shonen Jump books, and if I had to choose only one, it would be the ninth volume of Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata’s Hikaru No Go.

And Self Made Hero gets its Bard on with the release of two Manga Shakespeare books: Hamlet, adapted by Emma Vieceli, and Romeo and Juliet, adapted by Sonia Leong. Spoiler warning: In these issues, just about everyone dies!

Filed under: Blu, ComicList, Dark Horse, Del Rey, DramaQueen, Self Made Hero, Viz 7 Comments

Manga bestsellers

March 7, 2007 by

Once again, Publishers Weekly Comics Week hasn’t come up with anything to say about the manga entries on its monthly Comics Bestsellers list, and since I don’t have anything better to do…

1. Bleach, Volume 17. Tite Kubo. Viz Media, $7.99 ISBN 978-1421510415. The “Cartoon Network Effect” reasserts itself, placing this supernatural adventure series at the top of the list. Bleach was well into its run and had built a solid audience by the time its anime adaptation debuted on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block, but the extra exposure has given it an extra bump.

2. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Volume 2. Shiro Amano. Tokyopop, $9.99 ISBN 978-1598166385. With tie-ins to both Disney characters and a popular video game franchise on its side, it’s not surprising to see Kingdom Hearts properties moving extremely well.

3. Absolute Boyfriend, vol. 3. Yuu Watase. Viz Media, $8.99 ISBN 978-1421510033. Watase has earned reader (and retailer) loyalty with hits like Ceres: Celestial Legend and Fushigi Yûgi. While she hasn’t scaled the sales heights of Natsuki (Fruits Basket) Takaya, Watase is right near the top of the list of commercially successful shôjo manga-ka.

4. Tsubasa, Volume 12. CLAMP. Del Rey, $10.95 ISBN 978-0345485328. Along the same lines, there’s generally little risk in licensing a CLAMP title, particularly when it’s a sequel to a perennially popular work like Cardcaptor Sakura.

6. Loveless, Volume 4. Yun Kouga. Tokyopop, $9.99 ISBN 978-1598162240. The highest-ranked boys’ love title for March is also one of the bestselling boys’ love titles period. While the branding a boys’-love or yaoi imprint generally results in strong comic-shop sales, Loveless has succeeded without any marker, both in comic shops and bookstores.

8. Buso Renkin!, Volume 4. Nobuhiro Watsuki. Viz Media, $7.99 ISBN 978-1421508405. The recent conclusion of Watsuki’s Rurouni Kenshin apparently hasn’t quelled appetites for Watsuki’s work.

9. Full Metal Alchemist, Volume 11. Hiromu Arakawa. Viz Media, $9.99 978-1421508382. The placement of this mega-hit manga initially seems surprisingly low until you realize that it ranked second among last month’s bestsellers. The sales powerhouse is cited as one of the chief agents in the demise of Monthly Shonen Jump, having driven sales of Square Enix’s rival anthology, and it promises to be an evergreen seller here.

Filed under: Del Rey, Media, Sales, Tokyopop, Viz 1 Comment

Mark your calendars

February 28, 2007 by

It’s Manga Month again in Diamond’s Previews, and while that’s not all the volume has to offer, there’s plenty of noteworthy new stuff from all over.

Del Rey debuts the first volume of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club. I keep hoping someone will pick up the rest of Your and My Secret, which vanished after one volume from ADV. Maybe this will provide a satisfying, substitute Morinaga fix. (Page 269.)

None of this month’s listings jump out at me, but it’s really nice to see Drama Queen’s offerings on the pages of Previews. (Page 288.)

The Comics Journal #284 (Fantagraphics) will include an interview with Gene (American Born Chinese) Yang, and interviews with Yang are always worth reading. (Page 292.)

:01 First Second unveils their spring season highlight (for me, at least): Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert’s The Professor’s Daughter, a Victorian romance between a young lady and a mummy. (Page 294.)

I know printing money actually involves specialized plates and paper with cloth fiber and patent-protected inks, but it seems like there could be a variation involving delicately handsome priests at war with an army of zombies. Go! Comi will find out (as will we all) when they release the first volume of Toma Maeda’s Black Sun, Silver Moon. (Page 298.)

Last Gasp promises “catfights, alien safari adventures, evil experiments, and a girl who dreams of becoming a pop idol singer” in its re-release of Junko Mizuno’s Pure Trance. Since its Mizuno, I’m sure that description doesn’t even begin to describe the adorable, revolting weirdness. (Page 313.)

Mike Carey’s work as a comics writer is hit and miss for me. I’ve loved some of it, and found other stories to be pretty tedious. One of my favorite examples is My Faith in Frankie (Vertigo), illustrated by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel. So I’m inclined to give the creative team’s Re-Gifters (Minx) a try. (Page 109.)

Pantheon releases a soft-cover version of Joann Sfar’s sublime The Rabbi’s Cat. This was my first exposure to Sfar’s work, and I’ve loved it ever since. And in some cultures, the release of a soft-cover means a hard-cover volume of new material might be on the way, which would make me deliriously happy. (Page 324.)

The Tokyopop-HarperCollins collaboration bears fruit with the release of Meg Cabot’s Avalon High: Coronation Vol. 1: The Merlin Prophecy. The solicitation doesn’t include an illustrator credit, which is an unfortunate slip, and neither does the publisher’s web site. Maybe Cabot drew it herself? (Page 333.)

I’ve been hoping to see more work from Yuji Iwahara since CMX published Chikyu Misaki. Tokyopop comes through with Iwahara’s King of Thorn. (Page 335.)

Top Shelf offered some all-ages delights last month, which made me happy, and presents a new (I think?) volume of work from Renée (The Ticking) French. Micrographica is a collection of French’s online strip of the same name and offers “pure weirdness.” I don’t doubt it will deliver in a lovely, haunting way. (Page 352.)

Vertical rolls out another classic from Osamu Tezuka, Apollo’s Song, displaying the God of Manga’s “more literate and adult side.” For readers wanting something a little more contemporary, there’s Aranzi Aronzo’s Aranzi Machine Gun, featuring plush mascots on a tear. How can I choose? Why should I? (Page 355.)

I can’t read every series about people who see dead people. I just can’t. I wouldn’t have any money left for food. But Viz ignores my attempts at restraint by offering Chika Shiomi’s Yurarara in its Shojo Beat line. Shiomi is enjoying quite the day in the licensed sun, with Night of the Beasts (Go! Comi) and Canon (CMX) in circulation. (Page 372.)

And here’s an oddity, but an intriguing one: edu-manga from Singapore. YoungJin Singapore PTE LTD (you’ll forgive me if I hold off on adding a category) releases manga biographies of Einstein and Gandhi and adaptations of Little Women and Treasure Island. (Page 375.)

Filed under: Del Rey, DramaQueen, Fantagraphics, First Second, Go! Comi, Last Gasp, Minx, Pantheon, Previews, Tokyopop, Top Shelf, Vertical, Viz 6 Comments

Shipping, shopping

February 27, 2007 by

There’s ample interesting reading arriving via Diamond this week, from classics to award-winners to fresh installments of favorites.

I got Aya (Drawn & Quarterly) last week and reviewed it here. It’s got charm to spare, and I’m glad to hear (via Jog) that a sequel has already been published in France.

Vertical unleashes the first volume of its translation of Keiko Takemiya’s science-fiction classic To Terra… I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read so far, and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

New volumes of two of my favorite Del Rey series arrive: the fifth of quirky romantic comedy Love Roma and the fourth of intelligent, character-driven sci-fi ES: Eternal Sabbath.

The demented scholars at Evil Twin keep coming up with great names for installments in their Action Philosophers series. Number eight answers to Senseless Violence Spectacular.

And The Comics Journal delivers its “Best of 2006” edition, which is always worth a look.

Filed under: ComicList, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, Evil Twin, TCJ, Vertical Leave a Comment

Skating by

February 14, 2007 by

Okay, the terror of freezing rain followed by sleet followed by snow has renewed my interest in this week’s comics, perhaps because weather might keep them from arriving. I’m fickle and, though it seems contradictory, a creature of habit. Sue me.

Praise from virtually all quarters has rendered the Nextwave: Agents of Hate trade paperback (Marvel) irresistible. I surrender.

The week basically belongs to Viz, though, with new volumes of The Drifting Classroom, Monster, Train Man: Densha Otoko, and the debut of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, for anyone who’s still riding a cute-dog buzz from Westminster. (I can’t believe there isn’t a show-dog name generator somewhere out there on the web.)

And while Del Rey doesn’t have any releases on the schedule, there’s a sprightly round of recommendations in comments on this MangaBlog entry. It was the final kick in the pants I needed to order a copy of Mushishi.

Filed under: ComicList, Del Rey, Linkblogging, Marvel, Viz 7 Comments

Express, rush hour and local

February 10, 2007 by

A while back, I took a look at the competing manga versions of the Densha Otoko story. Having read the final volumes of the Viz and CMX variations, I thought I would follow up.

My initial impression stands. Of the three (Del Rey released a one-volume shôjo version), Hidenori Hara’s take, published by Viz, is the clear winner. It’s the most subdued of the three, and it’s also the most sincere. Hara seems to stand back and let the charm of the characters and the sweetness of their growing rapport do most of the work. The title otaku’s confidence builds gradually but credibly, and Hara takes the time to give depth of character to the object of Train Man’s affection, the lovely “Hermess.” She’s not just pretty and kind; she seems like an actual person, one with enough layers to carry infatuation beyond the “love at first sight” point.

Wataru Watanabe, creator of the CMX version, opts for what I’ll call the “explosive nosebleed” approach to the story. Train Man is constantly on the verge of panic; he’s a garden-variety shônen spastic who just can’t believe this is happening to him. I couldn’t really believe it either, honestly, unless his Hermess is the most intuitive and tolerant of women. (I find romances that rely on excessive intuition or tolerance of one of the parties involved a little hard to swallow.)

There are two other essential problems with Watanabe’s approach, as I see it. The first is the visual aesthetic, which is aggressively cute. Train Man and Hermess both look about fourteen, which ends up undermining any emotional weight the story has. And since the story verges on saccharine to begin with, extra dollops of adorability result in an oversell. It ends up looking like a fantasy instead of a contemporary fable.

The second is Watanabe’s decision to beef up the role of the message-board denizens who help Train Man cope with his insecurities and woo Hermess. This results in a lot of superfluous subplots that distract from what should be a simple story of unlikely people coming together. The impulse to give Train Man’s cheering section layers and happy endings of their own is generous, but it clutters things up.

It’s not a story that can withstand a lot of flourishes or extra baggage. Hara keeps it streamlined, so Viz wins.

The lingering question is whether three concurrent, licensed versions of a pleasant modern romance were absolutely necessary. From an artistic standpoint, I don’t think so. It’s a sweet urban myth about people being nice to strangers, which seems portable enough in times when people are casting about to find the next permutation of “community.”

From a marketing standpoint, I think the simultaneous releases made sense, because it pre-packages a phenomenon for an audience that isn’t already sold on the story’s benign merits. It capitalizes on the story itself and its origins, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the curiosity factor didn’t drive readers who might otherwise have been relatively disinterested to sample multiple versions. It worked for me.

(Comments are based on complimentary copies provided by CMX and Viz.)

Filed under: CMX, Del Rey, Viz 4 Comments
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