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Last-minute shopping

October 13, 2008 by

I’m never going to catch up with anything, obviously, and we’ve already passed the published deadline for Previews orders through Diamond, but if your shop allows any flexibility in this sort of thing, I wanted to point to two items that are well worth your consideration:

The Quest for the Missing Girl by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon): If you’ve never treated yourself to any of Taniguchi’s work, you’re being needlessly stingy. The Walking Man (also from Fanfare) is always hovering near the top of my re-read list, and Benkei in New York (written by Jinpachi Mori, published by Viz, and apparently out of print) is good, pulpy fun and a fine precursor to The Quest.

Details aren’t available at Viz’s site yet, but they’ve solicited the first volume of Oishinbo, a cooking manga from Kariya Tetsu and Hanasaki Akira. Ed Chavez, of MangaCast and Otaku USA fame, is very exited, as all sensible people should be.

Filed under: Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Previews, Viz 1 Comment

Bumper crop

June 17, 2008 by

Enough with the shadowy portents for a bit. Let’s see what lurks in the current Diamond Previews catalog, shall we?

Dark Horse offers the fourth volume of Adam Warren’s brilliant Empowered about the ups and downs of a good-hearted super-heroine with a singularly unreliable costume and a loyal band of friends. The third volume got a little dark for my tastes, but it was hardly enough to keep me from reading more. (Page 30 and 31.)

Do I owe it to myself to see if any of the plot points so irritatingly left dangling in The Plain Janes (Minx) are addressed in the sequel, Janes in Love? Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg revisit their group of art guerillas and promise that the teens “discover that in art and love, the normal rules don’t always apply.” I thought they already knew that. (Page 113.)

Someday I’ll get around to writing about Rutu Mordan’s Exit Wounds (Drawn & Quarterly), which I thought was very good. (I don’t know if I would have put it on my “Best of 2007” list, whatever that might have looked like, but I’d certainly recommend it.) D&Q is following up with a collection of Mordan’s short works, Jamilti and Other Stories, and I’m looking forward to it. I love short stories, and I’m eager to see what Mordan does with that kind of flexibility. (Page 288.)

Many people, myself included, have written nice things about Hideo Azuma’s Disappearance Diary, due from Fanfare. Anything from this publisher is worth a look, and this book offers an intriguing if slippery look at the low points in the life of the manga-ka. (Page 297.)

I’ve been having a hard time finding a copy of Jason Shiga’s widely acclaimed Bookhunter (Sparkplug Comic Books) in my retail wanderings, so I’m glad to see it being offered again. (Page 349.)

Weirdness alert: people are tracking the fates of Tokyopop’s various global titles, and here’s one more to add to the tally. The publisher is offering a prestige collection of one, Boys of Summer: The Complete Season. The solicitation of the Chuck Austen/Hiroki Otsuka baseball comic indicates that the unpublished third volume will appear for the first time here, along with the first two. I’m not recommending, because I’ve read too many comics by Austen as it is, but I thought it was interesting to note. (Page 353.)

I thought Top Shelf had already solicited Ulf K.’s Heironymus B, but maybe it got delayed. I’ve heard good things about it, so I’ll just gently remind the local shop owner that I’d like a copy. (Page 362.)

Takehiko Inoue’s much-loved basketball manga Slam Dunk gets another bite at the apple courtesy of Viz in its $7.99 Shonen Jump line. (Page 384.) The publisher is maximizing its Death Note profits with a new series of collector’s editions that offer “color art… premium packaging… new cover art on the dust jacket” and other bonuses. (Page 386.) I’m not quite certain about the plot of Ayumi Komura’s Mixed Vegetables, which seems to be about using marriage to further professional ambitions, but I can’t turn my back on shôjo cooking manga. (Page 387.)

I swear this had a cooler name when it was first announced, but the first issue of Yen’s anthology magazine, Yen Plus, arrives in August. It features a mix of original and licensed work, and if you ever wondered what hack thriller author James Patterson would do with sequential art, this is your moment. It’s also got Svetlana Chmakova’s follow-up to Dramacon (Tokyopop), Nightschool, so that’s certainly a point in its favor. (Page 390.)

Filed under: Dark Horse, Drawn & Quarterly, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, Minx, Previews, Tokyopop, Top Shelf, Viz, Yen Press 2 Comments

More summer reading

April 25, 2008 by

There’s a nice mix of promising items in the May 2008 Previews catalog. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Dark Horse gets a jump on a 2009 movie with the release of a repackaging of the first two volumes of Osamu Tezuka’s classic Astro Boy. It’s probably Tezuka’s best-known property, and I’m grateful that Dark Horse has made so much of it is available in English, but honesty compels me to admit that I haven’t felt any burning need to read all of it. (Page 56.)

I’ve heard good things about Kerry Callen’s Halo and Sprocket, and Amaze Ink/SLG releases the second volume of the series and offers the first again. Any series that inspires fan art by Andi Watson must be worth a look. (Page 206.)

Broccoli offers a series that looks both adorable and odd. It’s Honoka Level Up!, by Akiyoshi Ohta and Matsuda98, and it features a really young character developer “getting caught up in the confusing politics, crushing responsibilities, and difficult developmental aspects” of the video game industry. Salary ‘tween manga? Why not? (Page 247.)

Have you been suffering through Kio Shimoku withdrawal since the conclusion of Genshiken? Del Rey is here for you, offering the Genshiken Official Book and the first volume of Shimoku’s Kujibiki Unbalance, the property that inspired microscopic obsession among Shimoku’s gang of geeks. (Page 266.)

Fantagraphics switches gears with the work of the very gifted Los Bros. Hernandez, going straight to the trade with Love and Rockets: New Stories. I’m partial to Gilbert’s work, but both are gifted, and this sounds like an appealing way to consume their work. (Page 298.)

I can’t say I’m entirely sold by the premise of Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart’s The Apocalipstix, due from Oni Press. Josie and the Pussycats after Armageddon? I just don’t know. But I’m crazy enough about Stewart’s art that I’ll certainly have to sample it. (Page 320.)

I sort of glazed over on a lot of the manga announcements that came out of the New York Comic-Con, but when Kate Dacey takes the time to point out a title, and when it’s a title that Lillian Diaz-Pryzbl heartily endorses, I’m game. It’s Natsumi Itsuki’s Jyu-Oh-Sei (Tokyopop), and it’s described as having a classic shôjo sci-fi feel. (Page 353.)

Speaking of Kate, I’m guessing she’s as excited as I am to see Yen Press release the second volume of Jung-Hyun Uhm’s Forest of Gray City, originally published by ICE Kunion. A working woman takes in a sexy male roommate to share expenses in this beautifully drawn josei-style manhwa. (Page 389.)

Filed under: Broccoli, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Fantagraphics, Oni, Previews, Slave Labor Graphics, Tokyopop, Yen Press 5 Comments

Summer reading

April 11, 2008 by

Okay, so Previews order forms are due tomorrow. I never promised to be timely, and there’s good stuff available.

I’ve made my feelings about Kaoru Mori’s Emma abundantly clear, so I’m excited the follow-up, Shirley (CMX). It’s a collection of shorts about English maids, and I’m sure it will be lovely. (Page 125.)

I’m not really the audience for books about making comics, but I admire the work of Jessica (La Perdida) Abel and Matt (Odds Off or, L’Amour Foutu) Madden enormously, so I’m sure Drawing Words & Writing Pictures (First Second) will be a valuable resource. (Page 291.)

Though I’m convinced there must be many more juicy and telling crimes from the Victorian era, Rick Geary’s shift to A Treasury of 20th Century Murder won’t keep me from greedily consuming The Lindbergh Child (NBM). Geary’s true-crime comics are some of the best reads out there. (Page 317.)

A new comic from Hope Larson is always cause for celebration. Simon & Schuster offers Chiggers, a tale of summer-camp complications between two best friends. (Page 332.)

There’s something about Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball books that puts me off, but I’ve liked what I’ve read of his silly, charming Dr. Slump. Viz rolls out another all-ages adventure, Cowa!, which has the added benefit of starring baby monsters. (Page 374.)

Enticing as the prospect of a new shot at Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk is, I think I’m more excited about the impending arrival of his series, Real (Viz). It’s another sports series, this time about wheelchair basketball, and it won the Excellence Prize at the 2001 Japan Media Arts Festival. (Page 379.)

They aren’t exactly debuts, but I’m happy to see new installments of former ICE Kunion titles showing up in rotation from Yen Press. I’m particularly looking forward to the second volume of Soo Hee Park’s Goong, the tale of an ordinary girl set to marry a member of the royal family. (Page 382.)

Filed under: CMX, First Second, NBM, Previews, Simon and Schuster, Viz, Yen Press 8 Comments

Or as I like to call it, "Poverty Month"

March 2, 2008 by

It’s Manga Month again in Diamond’s Previews catalog, and there’s quite a mix of stuff for varied tastes. Oddly enough, there’s isn’t a Manga Month spread at the front pointing to items of particular interest or even any indication of the occasion on the cover, but why dwell?

Dark Horse has been making some interesting choices lately, stretching further and further out of its seinen mold. This month, they’re offering four books from Akiko Ikeda’s Dayan Collection series of children’s books featuring “the mischievous cat… and his woodland friends.” The illustrations look gorgeous. Dark Horse has a bunch of preview pages up at its site. (Pages 30 and 31.)

Del Rey really gets on the Manga Month bus. I’m most interested in the first volume of Faust, “a fiction magazine showcasing innovative short works by young authors. Deb Aoki interviewed Faust editor Katsushi Ota over at About.com not too long ago which really whetted my interest. (Page 256.)

In addition to new volumes of lots of series I love, there’s also the debut of the Odd Thomas graphic novel, In Odd We Trust, by Dean Koontz and Queenie (The Dreaming) Chan. I haven’t read Koontz’s Odd Thomas novels, but it’s about a guy who talks to the dead, and it’s drawn by Chan, so I’m almost sure to like it. (Page 256.)

Drawn & Quarterly’s third collection of the works of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Good-Bye (Page 283), will undoubtedly get lots of well-deserved attention, but I’m more drawn to the possibilities of Seichi Hayashi’s Red Colored Elegy. It follows “the quietly melancholic lives of a young couple struggling to make ends meet” during “a politically turbulent and culturally vibrant decade that promised but failed to delivery new possibilities.” (Page 284.)

I’m only going by what Go! Comi’s solicitation tells me, but I like the concept behind Shino Taira and Yuki Ichiju’s Bogle, promising a contemporary teen-girl Robin Hood. (Page 293.)

Netcomics offers another title with a josei vibe, Wann’s Talking About. “Three lonely women in search of “happily ever after” in one modern city filled to the brim with difficult men.” (Page 316.)

That sound you just heard was probably Kate Dacey’s head exploding. Viz is offering a second edition of Rumiko Takahashi’s One-Pound Gospel, forbidden romance between a budding boxer and a beautiful nun. (Page 375.)

General head explosion will probably result from the announcement of two fat collections of Kazuo (The Drifting Classroom) Umezu’s Cat Eyed Boy. Horror fans will undoubtedly want to take note, as Umezu is an insanely gifted practitioner in this genre. Here’s some early, illustrated enthusiasm from Same Hat! Same Hat! The softcover books offer about 500 pages a piece for $24.99, but you can hack about a third off of that price if you pre-order at Amazon. (Page 377.)

In addition to a fair number of former Ice Kunion titles, Yen Press deliver’s the first volume of a manga that instantly hooks me with its title: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro! by Satoko Kiyuduki. I don’t even care what it’s about. (Page 379.)

In the realm of comics not from Japan, there’s still plenty of interest. Phil and Kaja Foglio and Cheyenne Wright offer the seventh volume of Girl Genius: Agatha and the Voice of the Castle. I really enjoy this funny adventure series, which is also available online. (Page 203.)

Based on the strength of La Perdida, I’ll read just about anything by Jessica Abel, even if it’s about underemployed hipster vampires. Abel collaborates with Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece on Life Sucks from First Second. (Page 289.)

I really need to read Matthew Loux’s Sidescrollers (Oni Press), which has gotten tons of praise. Loux has a new book coming from Oni called Salt Water Taffy. The new quarterly series follows a bizarre family vacation to a small fishing port in Maine, and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. (Page 317.)

New comics from Hope Larson always make me happy. Her latest is Chiggers from Simon and Schuster, which promises friendship crises at summer camp. Larson is one of the most imaginative visual storytellers around, so it should offer an intriguing on familiar-sounding material. (Page 337.)

Filed under: Airship, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second, Go! Comi, Netcomics, Oni, Previews, Simon and Schuster, Viz, Yen Press 2 Comments

Previews review Feb. 2008

February 6, 2008 by

There’s plenty of intriguing stuff in the February 2008 Previews catalog. Let’s get to it, shall we?

I’ve seen lots of excitement about Hiroya Oku’s Gantz (Dark Horse, page 34), and the solicitation does make it sound intriguing. It promises recently deceased average folks put through their paces by a bossy, alien orb. I’m not usually drawn to crazy violent manga, but there’s something about Dark Horse’s taste in those kinds of books that works for me. Usually.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but also from Dark Horse (page 57), is Simone Lia’s Fluffy, which is about a preschool-aged rabbit and his human father. If the premise makes you want to check your glucose levels, the absolutely charming preview pages feature Fluffy’s teacher sneaking out of dad’s bedroom. Father and son also go to Sicily. I’m there.

In other comics travel news, Del Rey launches Yuko Osada’s Toto! The Wonderful Adventure (page 270). Wanderlust drives young Kakashi to stow away on a zeppelin filled with crooks.

I’m a huge fan of Takako Shigematsu’s Tenshi Ja Nai!!, so I’m glad to see that Go! Comi has picked up another of her titles, Ultimate Venus (page 303). Honestly, I wasn’t crazy about Shigematsu’s King of the Lamp, but it was hardly bad enough to put a dent in the positive impression left by Tenshi.

The premise of Lars Martinson’s Xeric Award-winning Tōnoharu (Top Shelf, page 356) sounds great. It’s the semi-autobiographical tale of an American teaching English in rural Japan. Martinson has a blog about the book and the experiences that inspired it.

There’s always justifiable excitement when Vertical announces that they’re releasing another beautifully produced translation of Osamu Tezuka’s work. This month, it’s Dororo (page 362). There doesn’t seem to be any room in it for cross-dressing sociopaths, but I’m sure it will offer its own unique charms.

Filed under: Dark Horse, Del Rey, Go! Comi, Previews, Top Shelf, Vertical 1 Comment

Previews review – Jan. 2009

January 6, 2008 by

It’s Diamond Previews time again. Let’s dispense with the formalities and get right to it.

There’s a clear and present Pick of the Month (that I probably won’t pick up at the comic shop because it will be widely available at a better price elsewhere). Pantheon is releasing the second volume of Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat, which is certainly cause for raucous celebration, at least in my house. The debut volume was my first exposure to Sfar’s work, and I’ve been watching like a hawk for more of this intriguing story. (Page 327.)

I’m not familiar with the work of Ulf K., but Top Shelf’s solicitation for the Hieronymus B. graphic novel is intriguing. The book is being simultaneously released by five international publishers, and the preview pages at the publisher’s site are appealing. (Page 354.)

I was thinking yesterday that people using “with Oscar-winner so-and-so” to entice viewers to watch a given movie should only be able to use the phrase when the cited individual actually won and Oscar for the movie in question. I’m thinking along the same lines when I see a publisher say a book is like Scott Pilgrim, even when the book is being released by the publisher of Scott Pilgrim. Maybe they could give Bryan Lee O’Malley some kind of signet ring, and he could grant approval for use of the comparison, but he’s probably too self-effacing to go along with something like that.

Anyway, Oni is pitching Lars Brown’s North World to fans of not only Scott Pilgrim, but Gross Point Blank, Lord of the Rings, and Buffy, which is some kind of ultimate ven diagram of geekery. There’s no information up on Oni’s site yet, but you can check out the webcomic here. It looks like fun in a game-logic sort of way, with Brown blending role-playing game elements with comedic slacker angst. So… yeah… like Scott Pilgrim. (Page 326.)

If Tom Spurgeon’s holiday interview with Simon Gane made you want to read something Gane has drawn, you really couldn’t do better than Paris, written by Andi Watson. It’s a gorgeous, romantic mini-series that seemed to have been conceived with the sole purpose of letting Gane draw the hell out of it, which is all the purpose it really needs. SLG offers the collected version again in case you missed it. (Page 213.)

DC releases a full-color omnibus collection of the first sixteen issues of one of the best super-hero comics of the last fifteen years, James Robinson’s Starman. It’s got gorgeous Tony Harris art, a terrific cast, and a really nice generational-hero set-up without ever seeming like an airless exercise in continuity flogging. It’s kind of pricey at $49.99, so I would probably be inclined to wait for a paperback version if I didn’t already own the collected issues in one form or another. (Page 92.)

And last but not least, one of my favorite manga series comes to an end. Tokyopop releases the final volume of Minetaro Mochizuki’s Dragon Head. Mochizuki has served up some incredible thrills and chills in ten volumes of character-driven survival drama. I still can’t understand why this series wasn’t a big hit. (Page 351.)

Filed under: DC, Oni, Pantheon, Previews, Slave Labor Graphics, Tokyopop, Top Shelf 1 Comment

Top Secret

December 13, 2007 by

Okay, I clearly just suck at this Previews look-through thing. (Either that or I’m very cleverly trying to stretch a single post over several days in a shameless attempt to pad content. I really think it’s just that I suck, though.)

Anyway, I inexcusably forgot to mention the listing of Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret, arriving via Tokyopop (page 331). And bless Tokyopop for picking it up, because I loved the single volume that ADV published three and a half years ago.

If you’ve been enjoying Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), you should definitely give it a look. If you’ve found that book a little flighty and silly (never a problem for me, but I hear such things happen), you should give it a look anyways, because it’s very smart and subversive in its look at gender roles. I can’t wait to finally see what happens next.

(I couldn’t find the book’s page on Tokyopop’s web site, but I’m delighted to note the following passage in Katherine Dacey-Tsuei’s excellent Anime Fest wrap-up at Manga Recon:

“Tokyopop will be overhauling its website, making it easier to navigate and locate information about its own products.”

Seriously, Tokyopop’s site used to be the most navigable in terms of finding product information, and now it’s… considerably less so. Here’s hoping that the pendulum swings back with extreme prejudice.)

Filed under: Previews, Tokyopop 5 Comments

Omissions

December 9, 2007 by

In the last Previews review, what laughably passes for my “system” kind of failed me. Who knew that dog-eared pages in a thick catalog weren’t especially effective?

Anyway, it was extremely negligent of me not to mention Jeff Smith’s Rasl #1 (Cartoon Books, page 238). After the excellence of Bone and Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil, anything by Smith goes on the must-buy list.

And noted for history’s sake is the arrival of the 28th volume of Naruto (Viz, page 354). This is the “two years later” launch pad that prompted the extremely successful, ramped-up Naruto Nation initiative, with lots and lots of volumes coming out in rapid succession and still selling extremely well.

Filed under: Cartoon Books, Previews, Viz Leave a Comment

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
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