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Links instead of lists

January 11, 2011 by

It’s a good thing that we use Midtown Comics for our Pick of the Week round robin, as the Diamond-focused ComicList is a barren wasteland this week.  So, instead, I will look back through my Twitter archives to point you at some fun and enlightening things to read online:

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Del Rey, Interviews, Linkblogging, Manga Moveable Feast, Tokyopop Leave a Comment

Upcoming 1/5/2011

January 4, 2011 by

I’ve already pointed out my Pick of the Week, but I would feel incomplete if I didn’t look through the rest of this week’s ComicList.

I think this shipped through other venues, but Diamond is finally delivering the first volume of Nicolas De Crecy’s Salvatore: Transports of Love. This has the dual attractions of being by De Crecy, whose Glacial Period remains one of my favorite graphic novels of all time, and of being a fulfilled license request. Salvatore is about a gifted auto mechanic who also happens to be an antisocial dog (an oxymoron, but I’ll suspend disbelief) who goes off in search of true love while dealing with a variety of odd customers. I’m stupidly excited to have this in my hands.

The rest of the week is devoted to new volumes of lovely manga titles.

There’s the fifth volume of Kou Yaginuma’s Twin Spica (Vertical), which has rightly been showing up on Best of 2010 lists all over the place.

From Viz, there’s the tenth (and final) volume of Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles, which explores the stories of supporting characters and fills in back story. Continuing the glorious shôjo trend is the fifth volume of Yuki Midorikawa’s Natsume’s Book of Friends, which focuses on cram sessions and mermaid blood, which is exactly what one should expect from this supernatural series.

What sounds good to you?

Filed under: ComicList, Linkblogging, NBM, Vertical, Viz 2 Comments

Previews review January 2011

January 3, 2011 by

There isn’t a wealth of exciting new product in the current edition of the Previews catalog from Diamond Comics Distributors, so I thought I would try a little experiment. I’ll put forward three (uninspiring sounding) debuting titles and let you vote on which one I should try.

First up, from Digital Manga, we have the potentially odious The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High, written and illustrated by Arata Aki. When Kei’s mom finds out her daughter likes girls, she sends Kei to an all-boys’ high school to presumably de-gay her or something. Will it be charmingly subversive, or just gross? It originally ran in Mag Garden’s Comic Avarus, which doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. (Page 281.)

Are you perverse enough to subject me to the sparkly incoherence of Arina Tanemura? Is that even a question? Anyway, her new title from Viz is Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura, and it’s about “the granddaughter of a mysterious moon princess who slew demons with her Blood Cherry Blossom sword.” Please don’t do this to me. It originally ran in Shueisha’s Ribon. (Page 321.)

There’s something about Kazue Kato’s Blue Exorcist (also Viz) that looks like trouble, and not the fun kind of trouble. It’s about an orphaned boy raised by a priest who learns that he’s one of Satan’s bastard children. (The orphan, not the priest, at least as far as I know.) So the orphan decides to become an exorcist so he can fight his dad. Manga plus Catholicism is always… awkward. It originally ran in Shueisha’s Jump Square. (Page 322.)

Please vote for one of the above in the comments before January 15, 2011, and I will dutifully order the title that garners the highest number of votes through my local comic shop.

Mercifully, there are tons of new volumes of great ongoing series, which I will now dutifully list:

  • Itazura na Kiss vol. 5, written and illustrated by Kaoru Tada, Digital Manga, page 280
  • Salt Water Taffy vol. 4: Caldera’s Revenge, written and illustrated by Matthew Loux, Oni Press, page 302
  • V.B. Rose vol. 12, written and illustrated by Banri Hiaka, Tokyopop, page 313
  • Cross Game vol. 3, written and illustrated by Mitsuru Adachi, Viz, page 324
  • Twin Spica vol. 6, written and illustrated by Kou Yaginuma, Vertical, page 327
  • Bunny Drop vol. 3, written and illustrated by Yumi Unita, Yen Press, page 329

By the way, Viz’s new web site is terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Update: Lissa (Kuriousity) Pattillo has some thoughts on Viz’s terrible new web site.

Filed under: DMP, Linkblogging, NEWS, Oni, Polls, Previews, Tokyopop, Viz, Yen Press 46 Comments

This year, next year

December 30, 2010 by

The indefatigable Deb (About.Com) Aoki has rounded up and ranked critics’ choices for the Best Manga of 2010, and it’s a fine and varied list. I’d also like to point you to Deb’s picks for Best Continuing Manga of 2010, since there’s a lot of overlap between her favorites and mine. I’m particularly pleased by her inclusion of Kaoru Tada’s Itazura na Kiss (Digital Manga); I did some catch-up reading on that one over the weekend, and it just gets better as it goes along.

Looking at Deb’s previews of promising manga due in 2011, I can’t help but pick the five that sound best to me, even if some of them counted as my most anticipated in 2010:

and one that wasn’t on Deb’s list, but I’m very eager to read:

Did some of your favorites from this year not make the critics’ round-up or Deb’s list of ongoing series? What about exciting books due in 2011?

Filed under: Awards and lists, Linkblogging, NEWS, Previews 5 Comments

Upcoming 12/29/2010

December 28, 2010 by

I’m still decompressing upon reentry to normal world as opposed to holiday sparkle world, and, to be honest, looking at this week’s ComicList is roughly akin to trying to read something written in ancient possum. My brain just isn’t there yet. I’ll rely instead on two trustworthy souls, and take their recommendation to seek out a copy of The Secret Notes of Lady Kanako (Tokyopop), written and illustrated by Ririko Tsujita. I’ve been excited about this since Melinda (Manga Bookshelf) Beasi discussed it with Michelle Smith in a recent Off the Shelf column. And Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney points out that it’s from Hakusensha’s LaLa DX, which is a fine font of manga even by Hakusensha’s generally excellent standards.

I’m coherent enough to enjoy the writing of other bloggers, even if I can’t yet conjure the mental acuity to formulate a shopping list. First up are the new inductees to Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey’s Manga Hall of Shame. And, as usual, there’s a lot of overlap between my favorites and the Best Manga of 2010 list at Manga Worth Reading.

Filed under: Awards and lists, ComicList, Linkblogging, Tokyopop 1 Comment

Apple of their eyes

December 20, 2010 by

With all the recent talk of new digital initiatives and anti-piracy efforts, I was interested to see this piece by Caleb Goellner at Comics Alliance:

“The consortium [of Japanese publishers and publishing trade organizations] basically says that Apple isn’t doing enough to defend against their material being pirated and sold through various apps for the iPhone and iPad. Apple says it’s impossible to check for all copyrighted material as it screens each submitted app, but the group says it’s unconvinced.”

If you do an app search, you’re almost certain to find an app that trades in pirated content at or near the top of your search results, just like pirated versions of popular manga will top results of any Google search you conduct. These apps usually aren’t free, so the app creators are making at least some marginal profit off of pirated works, which I think just about everyone not actively doing that sort of thing agrees is uncool. So it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me for these publishers to ask for Apple to step up, at least in the case of aggregation apps, particularly when some of the apps undoubtedly in question trade in nothing but pirated material.

Your thoughts?

Filed under: Digital delivery, Linkblogging 4 Comments

License Request Day: Tezuka Appreciation Week edition

December 17, 2010 by

In observation of Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey’s Tezuka Appreciation Week, I thought I’d devote this week’s license request to a round-up of enticing, as-yet-unpublished-in-English works by the man in the beret.

This is certainly not the first time Osamu Tezuka has been the focus of this feature. Sick as you may be of hearing me say it, I won’t be fully satisfied as a nerd until someone publishes Princess Knight in English.

Among the many wonderful things we can learn from the French is just how much great Tezuka manga there still is to be licensed. Among the horrible things we can learn from the French is how far behind them we are.

Gringo was a finalist for the 2009 Prix Asie.

Sarutobi has been recognized at Angoulême in 2010.

And earlier this year, I was motivated to cherry-pick four other unlicensed Tezuka titles for discussion and pining, including La Femme Insecte, which I love for its cover alone. [Update: Kindly folks on Twitter reminded me that this has been licensed by Vertical and will be published as The Book of Human Insects.]

The comments of that last post drew my attention to one of Tezuka’s works for a younger audience, which I tend to neglect in favor of his deranged and sordid tales for adults. I’m talking about the seven-volume, awesomely titled Rainbow Parakeet.

It’s about a brilliant actor who uses his talents for thievery. The invaluable Tezuka in English summarizes the series as follows:

“In addition to being a cops-and-robbers action manga, the series Rainbow Parakeet is also a thorough examination of theater and film on the part of Osamu Tezuka, who was fascinated by both.”

Our anti-hero is pursued by a determined woman detective, which sounds like a refreshing change of pace. And if all of that hasn’t convinced you, let’s head back to Tezuka in English for this persuasive fact:

“Each story in the manga is based upon a famous play or movie, with a wide range of source material, including Shakespeare, Noh drama, Greek tragedy, Kabuki comedy, film, theater of the absurd, and others. Tezuka was an expert in various types of drama, and therefore wove tremendous amounts of knowledge and thought on the subject into each issue of Rainbow Parakeet.”

It originally ran in Akita Shoten’s Shônen Champion.

Filed under: License requests, Linkblogging 5 Comments

I believe the imaginary children are the future

December 15, 2010 by

For those who care about such things, which I hope is all of you, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has passed its Youth Healthy Development Ordinance Bill, which Tom (The Comics Reporter) Spurgeon rightly describes as “extremely depressing and… deeply unnecessary.” Kevin Melrose has additional details at Robot 6.

The must-read piece on the legislation comes from Roland Kelts, writing for The Comics Journal:

“In other words: When the welfare of real children is at stake, the government turns the other cheek. But if you dare illustrate gay or trans-generational love, watch your back. Watch what you draw is akin to watch what you think. Brave new world?”

Here’s hoping Tokyo gets a swift economic kick in response to this.

Filed under: Decency flaps, Linkblogging 3 Comments

Upcoming 12/15/2010

December 13, 2010 by

Yen Press rules the anticipatory roost this week, at least in my neck of the woods.

Fumi Yoshinaga’s Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy arrives fashionably late to the Best of 2010 mixer, I suspect. I haven’t read it yet myself, but it’s by Yoshinaga, but it seems to be in her “irresistibly, effortlessly charming” mode. Some early responses are available from Johanna (Manga Worth Reading) Draper Carlson and Manga Bookshelf’s Off the Shelf duo of Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith. The book inspired Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey (who reviews the book here) to host a contest, asking readers to name their favorite culinary comics.

Still on the topic of irresistibly charming comics, Yen will also release the ninth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&!, which really requires no additional endorsement beyond just saying that it will soon be available for sale. Kind of like new Yoshinaga manga, come to think of it.

I don’t really know anything about it qualitatively, but there’s something about the cover of Yuuki Iinuma’s Itsuwaribito (Viz) that would probably make me pick it up in a store and browse a few pages. I suspect it’s the cheerful woodland creature.

What looks good to you?

Filed under: ComicList, Linkblogging, Viz, Yen Press 4 Comments

Crossing the Pacific either way

December 11, 2010 by

Here are a couple of articles to enjoy on what I hope is a relaxing Saturday morning for you:

Over at The Comics Journal, Roland Kelts finds a new way to look at an old, old topic, “Manga versus Comics.” Kelts talks to Felipe (Peepo Choo) Smith, agent Yukari Shiina, and Tokyopop’s Stu Levy. (That last source is especially interesting, because I can’t be the only person who assumed the creepy, opportunistic North American publisher in the first volume of Peepo Choo had to be based at least a little on DJ Milky, right?)

“Smith’s is an exceptional story, to be sure, as is the story of Peepo Choo itself—a US-Japan culture clash comedy that both mocks and celebrates fans of comics and manga, illustrated in riveting and sometimes surrealistically violent detail. His achievement would seem many a foreign manga fan’s dream. But the artist remains frustrated by the us-vs-them mentality pervading the manga industry in Japan and overseas.”

It’s a solid article, not least for whatever subtext you may be inclined to add to the formal narrative. (Peepo Choo ran in Kodansha’s Morning Two, a seinen anthology spun off from, yes, Morning.)

So that breaks down some of the stumbling blocks for comics moving westward across the Pacific Ocean. What about in the other direction? At The Hooded Utilitarian, Sean Michael Robinson ponders the difficulties comics about sports have when trying to gain traction with North American audiences, as viewed through the prism of Mitsuru Adachi’s glorious Cross Game (Viz).

“With the exception of some very popular young adult sports fiction in the fifties and sixties, there’s not a very long tradition of sports fiction in America, and certainly little to no tradition of sports comics. In the eyes of many marketing strategists, a general audience uses a genre label as an aid to enter the story, a convenient short hand that serves as a hook on which to hang the other elements of the story. How do you sell a piece of fiction that most easily fits into a genre that doesn’t exist for its target audience?”

Purely based on my own experience, comic books were something you were interested in instead of sports, not in addition to sports. Being a gifted jock isn’t routinely an aspirational thing for comics fans here, I don’t think. Since comics reach a less specific audience in Japan, there’s more crossover between the kids who read them and the kids who admire sports stars or want to be them, possibly since comics are significantly less uncool among kids in Japan and (I suspect) professional jocks aren’t quite as glorified there. Just a theory. And Cross Game is great, and you should buy it.

Oh, and if you’re in the Manhattan area tomorrow (12/12/2010) and want to hear about Kodansha’s plans to release comics in English, swing by the Kinokuniya Bookstore at 2 p.m.

Filed under: Kodansha Comics, Linkblogging, Tokyopop, Vertical, Viz Leave a Comment
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