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2008 series debuts

December 22, 2008 by

Here, in alphabetical order and without any real comment, are ten series that debuted in 2008 that I really enjoyed (and continue to enjoy):

  • Black Jack, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
  • Dororo, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
  • Fairy Tail, by Hiro Mashima (Del Rey)
  • High School Debut, by Kazune Kawahara (Viz)
  • Honey and Clover, by Chica Umino (Viz)
  • Real, by Takehiko Inoue (Viz)
  • Sand Chronicles, by Hinako Ashihara (Viz)
  • Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, by Satoko Kiyuduki (Yen Press)
  • Ultimate Venus, by Takako Shigematsu (Go! Comi)
  • Your and My Secret, by Ai Morinaga (Tokyopop)

    • I realize that Your and My Secret actually debuted in English years ago, but a first volume came out in 2008, so I’m counting it. I also realize that Sand Chronicles and Honey and Clover may technically be seen as debuting in 2007, since they’re serialized in Shojo Beat, but I wait for the trades. And, yes, I also realize that, if I do a list of series that concluded in 2008 that I really enjoyed, I may be robbing myself of Dororo, but I can always list it again, because it’s my blog and I am capricious that way.

    Y’know, it was actually kind of hard to limit that list to ten.

    Filed under: Del Rey, Go! Comi, Tokyopop, Vertical, Viz 5 Comments

    Upcoming 11/12/2008

    November 12, 2008 by

    For the last couple of months, I’ve tended to avoid the Wednesday experience. It’s not due to any waning in enthusiasm for new comics so much as an unwillingness to deal with the irritating traffic and limited parking a trip to the local comic shop entails.

    But if anything could get me to face the inexplicable gridlock that’s become a signature of the downtown driving experience, it would be the second volume of Matthew Loux’s Salt Water Taffy: A Climb Up Mt. Barnabus (Oni). The first installment was easily one of the most charming books I’ve read all year, and I’m eager to get my hands on part two.

    Tokyopop provides the ongoing crack for the week, with new volumes of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket and Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret available for my reading pleasure.

    Filed under: ComicList, Oni, Tokyopop 1 Comment

    Opportunism knocks

    September 29, 2008 by

    The demise of Minx gives me the chance to talk about some of my favorite comics in this week’s Flipped: shôjo that features real girls in the real world.

    Filed under: Del Rey, Flipped, Go! Comi, Tokyopop, Viz Leave a Comment

    He enjoys being a girl

    August 27, 2008 by

    Given that the first translated volume shipped four years ago, and that I’ve been intermittently pining for the second volume ever since, it was possible that Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret (now at Tokyopop) might not have lived up to expectations. Maybe it was just the fact that I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of the second volume that made me so eager?

    I’m happy to say that I liked the second volume slightly better than the first, and I liked the first a lot. It’s now my second favorite manga series that deals with jumbled gender issues among high-school students, and since first place for that category is owned now and for the foreseeable future by Setona Mizushiro’s addictive, disturbing After School Nightmare (Go! Comi), there’s no shame in taking the silver medal.

    But back to Secret: the awkwardness escalates slightly this time around as shy-guy Uehara and rose-with-thorns Momoi adapt to life in each other’s bodies. Morinaga builds on elements introduced in the first volume, particularly in the delightfully pansexual romantic quadrangle among Uehara in Momoi’s body, Momoi in Uehara’s, Momoi’s pretty best friend Shiina, and Uehara’s pal Senbongi. Momoi, loving life as a boy, has Shiina as a steady, and Uehara isn’t immune to Shiina’s charms either. Nor can Uehara ignore the persuasive wooing of Senbongi, much as Uehara might wish he could.

    Much as I enjoy the sitcom antics of Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), the character-driven farce of Secret gives it the edge. There’s a constant emotional ebb and flow, with poor Uehara torn between his desire to get his own body and the nagging rightness of his current situation. Brash hypocrite Momoi continues to amuse, holding Uehara to standards she has no intention of upholding herself. And Morinaga manages to juggle a bunch of potential narrative trajectories and keep them just about equally likely. I’m never quite sure where the series is going, but all of the possibilities that Morinaga has teased are appealing.

    Filed under: From the stack, Tokyopop 1 Comment

    Upcoming 7/16/2008

    July 15, 2008 by

    Just a couple of items jump out at me on this week’s ComicList:

    I’m not generally part of the natural audience for competitive athletics, fictional or otherwise, but I won’t let that keep me from taking a look at Takehiko Inoue’s Real (Viz – Signature), about wheelchair basketball. At MangaBlog, Brigid Alverson picks up an intriguing press release from Viz about a joint PR venture to promote another Inoue hoops book, Slam Dunk. If there were a competition for “most athletic person at Comic-Con International,” there’d be a clear winner. I also wish there was a manga out about professional cheerleading so those poor Laker Girls could feel a bit more purposeful. (Have I mentioned that I can watch Bring It On as many times as it airs on television?)

    Milestone alert! Our long, national disappointment is finally over as Tokyopop releases the second volume of Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret. Given the publisher’s ongoing cost-cutting measures, I suppose it’s possible that we may not see the third volume from them, but progress is progress. If only they’d gone with the alternate version of the title, My Barbaric Girlfriend.

    Filed under: ComicList, Tokyopop, Viz 1 Comment

    Upcoming 7/2/2008

    July 1, 2008 by

    If it doesn’t stop raining soon, I’m going to have to lease my back yard out for pasture. I will be reducing my dependence on fossil fuels and supporting sustainable production, and I will give all of the cows names and compost their manure.

    And now, on to this week’s ComicList. You know what’s weird? I’m excited about a Marvel comic, and I am going to buy it, if the local shop orders any shelf copies. That comic would be Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1, written by Kathryn Immonen and drawn and inked by David LaFuente Garcia. Hellcat is one of those characters that I’ve always loved in spite of the fact that she’s been ill-used for the vast majority of her costumed career. So basically my attachment to the character is pure, masochistic sentiment, but Matthew Brady says it’s got “a fun, jaunty tone,” and it’s just so nice to see Hellcat claw her way out of the refrigerator and into a solo series that I feel strangely obligated to support the book.

    Hm… it’s shaping up to be Women I Really Like Week, now that I delve deeper into Wednesday’s releases. I very much loved Kaoru Mori’s elegant, heartfelt Emma, so I can’t wait to read Mori’s Shirley (both books from CMX), which leaves the Victorians behind to explore the world of Edwardian maids. The uniforms may show more ankle, but I’m betting the meticulous angst will be just as plentiful.

    It had its pleasures, but I didn’t enjoy the first volume of Gabrielle Bell’s Lucky (Drawn and Quarterly) as much as I did When I’m Old and Other Stories (Alternative Comics), but I’m sure I’ll pick up the second installment at some point.

    I haven’t really thought too carefully about exactly which Tokyopop titles survive the coming purge, but I do know that I hope that Mari Ohazaki’s Suppli comes out on the other side. I don’t think any of us need to worry about Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket, which is as heartbreaking as it is popular.

    Viz keeps the estrogen flowing with new volumes of Ai Yazawa’s Nana and Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut. You all know how I feel about Yazawa’s work by this point, so let me just say how much I love High School Debut. I’m not going to say it’s as good as Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles, but it shares a lot of that book’s positive qualities: great characters, nicely developed relationships, carefully observed emotional moments, and very attractive art.

    And now, for the token shônen book of the week. Okay, that’s not really fair, because it would be a meritorious entry on any Wednesday, even when the comics industry wasn’t trying to drown me in tears. Like just about everyone else, I enjoyed the first two volumes of Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail (released simultaneously by Del Rey), about a whacked-out guild of magicians. The third installment arrives Wednesday.

    Filed under: CMX, ComicList, Del Rey, Drawn & Quarterly, Marvel, Tokyopop, Viz 5 Comments

    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

    Meet Keila N. Ramos

    June 11, 2008 by

    Among the 39 employees let go by manga publisher Tokyopop during a recent restructuring was Keila N. Ramos. Keila was kind enough to respond to my interview offer, and she submitted the following responses to my questions.

    What was your title at Tokyopop, and how long did you work there?
    I was a Production Artist. I was there for 6 months.

    Could you summarize your responsibilities for them?
    I had to clean, retouch and make a great layout before the books were printed.

    What were some of the highlights of your time there? Projects you’re particularly proud of, or experiences that had a major impact?
    My highlights were the friends I made there. The great times we spent together (especially at break time playing Nintendo DS) Also, loved Bagel Wednesday!
    Projects I’m proud of… Get Backers and Monochrome Factor. Get Backers was a hard one to clean up. Monochrome Factor was just a nice challenge sometimes.

    How did you get into the comics industry?
    I got into the comics industry because the first thing I learned to read was a comic book. It was a Tom and Jerry comic book. Ever since then, comics were the order of the day at my house.

    Could you tell me a little bit about your education and training, or other professional experiences that have contributed to your skill set?
    I graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and after that got to work as an Art Teacher for a local college called Academy College. Also did several freelance work with Nickelodeon, Stone Arch Books and Tokyopop, before I worked for them full-time.

    What would you like to do next? Keep working in the comics industry? Or are you open to other avenues?
    My choices are pretty open right now. I’d love to keep working in the Comics Industry, but I am an Animator. I have also worked as an Illustrator, Video/Sound Editor and Painter.

    And I also wanted to leave a sort of “open question” for anything else you’d like to comment on – the state of the comics industry, where you’d like to see it go, how you’re doing since you got the news. Anything’s fair game.
    I just want to work in the Media and Printed arts for the rest of my life. My passion is too huge for me to not want to be busy in it. For the comics industry I just want to say, it is a great industry. As an artist, I love to create those other worlds where we can go and escape from this reality, and make readers just want to be like the characters in the story. As an audience/reader, I love to identify with those characters that make us feel we can do anything if we really want it. And as a human being, I ask those who read me, that even though Superman can fly… don’t try that at home.

    Filed under: Tokyopop Leave a Comment

    Meet Trond Knutsen

    June 11, 2008 by

    Among the 39 employees let go by manga publisher Tokyopop during a recent restructuring was Trond Knutsen. Trond was kind enough to respond to my interview offer, and he submitted the following responses to my questions.

    What was your title at Tokyopop, and how long did you work there?
    My title was Trade Sales Manager and I worked at Tokyopop for 6 months.

    Could you summarize your responsibilities for them?
    My main responsibility was to work closely with a variety of key accounts, wholesalers and distribution partners in implementing the company’s sales strategy and provide support and oversight.

    How did you get into the comics industry?
    Tokyopop was my first job in the comics industry, but I have 6 years prior publishing experience, as well as a MA in Publishing. I immensely enjoyed working with graphic novels in general, and at Tokyopop in particular, and hope to continue working in the industry. What attracts me to comics is the creativity, quality and not least the constant evolution of this basic yet diverse art of storytelling, as well as feeling a very strong connection with all the fantastic people I’ve had the opportunity to work with – I very much feel at home in this line of work.

    Filed under: Tokyopop Leave a Comment

    Roadblock or detour?

    June 9, 2008 by

    Well, there’s a wrinkle that I probably should have foreseen. Apparently, the employees recently cut loose by Tokyopop were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement of some sort in order to receive their severance pay, which makes exit interviews a little difficult. I certainly don’t want to complicate anyone’s situation further, but I do want to pursue this project and try and get their names out. I would imagine that even forwarding the non-disclosure agreement to someone who isn’t the signer’s legal representative may constitute a violation of said agreement, and even if I could read it, I wouldn’t be remotely comfortable trying to distinguish what constitutes a violation and what’s safe to discuss. (I don’t even know if describing job duties would constitute a violation, to be honest.)

    I’ve already got one interview ready to go, and two others have written to express an interest. Based on the first interview, it doesn’t seem significantly different from the kinds of interviews that have been conducted with Tokyopop employees while they were still working there, but… again, a pittance of a severance package is still a severance package during difficult economic times. And since my former PR contact at the publisher no longer works there, I’m not sure who to ask.

    Anyone have any advice on how I might proceed? Here’s the list of questions I’ve put together:

  • What was your title at Tokyopop, and how long did you work there?
  • Could you summarize your responsibilities for them?
  • What were some of the highlights of your time there? Projects you’re particularly proud of, or experiences that had a major impact?
  • How did you get into the comics industry?
  • Could you tell me a little bit about your education and training, or other professional experiences that have contributed to your skill set?
  • What would you like to do next? Keep working in the comics industry? Or are you open to other avenues?
  • And I also wanted to leave a sort of “open question” for anything else you’d like to comment on – the state of the comics industry, where you’d like to see it go, how you’re doing since you got the news. Anything’s fair game.
    • Filed under: Tokyopop 1 Comment
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