Instead of my usual Wednesday night routine (sitting on the couch and reading comics, possibly with a box of Wheat Thins nearby), we went to a pops symphony concert at the university. It was a nice change of pace, and I can always listen to the overture from Gypsy, especially when it’s played this well. (The Pittsburgh Symphony is quite a group of musicians.)

One thing, though: I think a pretty, well-trained singing voice is actually a detriment to properly selling Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns.” If you’re worried about hitting the notes and sustaining your breathing and rounding tones and such, you’re missing the point. The song is served better by a voice with some miles on it and a performer who’s more actor than singer, like Glynis Johns. (Also, just because you’re technically proficient at the piano doesn’t mean that this particular number needs any embellishment. I think Sondheim wrote precisely as many notes as the song needs.)

Okay, two things: As mortifying as I find songs from Phantom of the Opera, they’re even worse in a concert setting.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening. Unfortunately, 90 minutes of Broadway standards still weren’t able to completely dislodge the song that’s currently running through my head. It’s the closing-credits song from the Fruits Basket anime, and it’s got a death grip on my mental soundtrack.

Sometime during the night, my town was secretly relocated to somewhere in North Dakota. There are about six inches of snow on the ground, along with plenty of unsuspecting tree limbs. Transformers started popping at around 2 a.m., and my dogs started freaking out shortly after that. My sense of time is now completely discombobulated.

I’m not helped by the fact that this week’s comics seem like the previous issues just came out last week. I don’t know where October went, but it went quickly.

I love the look of Paris (Amaze Ink-Slave Labor Graphics), by Andi Watson and Simon Gane. If that isn’t enough Andi Watson for you, Oni has the fifth issue of Little Star.

Nothing makes me quite as skeptical as a blood-spattered cover image, especially from DC, but I’ll still pick up Legion of Super-Heroes 11. (I’m on the fence on this title, but I want to see how this story arc finishes.) While I’ve enjoyed a lot of The Losers (Vertigo), I like that it’s moving towards closure. This seems like a story that should have a set end point.

Marvel has some fairly promising titles on offer. I liked the first issue of the second Richard K. Morgan Black Widow mini-series, The Things They Say About Her. (And I’m a sucker for art by Sean Phillips.) A new issue of the Giffen-DeMatteis-Maguire Defenders mini-series is always welcome. I’m missing Jim Cheung’s pencils on the current Young Avengers arc, but I’m still enjoying Allan Heinberg’s scripts. (And hey, if you were waiting for the trade, this is your week.)

At Love Manga, David Taylor has a handy listing of the week’s manga releases, as well as a nifty overview of last month’s top sellers in the Direct Market.

And just when it was safe to go back in the comic shop, a new issue of Previews lands with a shuddering thud. What month is it again?

This weekend’s manga reading was all about catching up with titles that have been back-burnered by the shiny and new.

Some day, I’m going to have to try and figure out how Rumiko Takahashi has managed to successfully stretch such a slim premise out over more than a dozen digests. I’m up to the eleventh volume of Maison Ikkoku, and the characters should have me wailing “Just talk to each other!” and pulling my hair out in frustration. Instead, I’m still charmed by the cast, amused by their complicated lives, and eager to find out how it all ends. In this installment, hapless Godai and cautious Kyoko almost connect… but don’t. Again. Damn it.

I’d reviewed the first volume of Eyeshield 21 a while ago and was charmed by its weirdness. I finally got around to reading the second volume of the football manga, and I’m happy to report that it’s still weird and still funny. There’s a bit more conventional sports manga material in this outing, but weirdness ultimately prevails. Even the explanations of the rules of American football seem strangely skewed. (I have no way of knowing if they’re accurate or not.)

If you’ve been meaning to try Kindaichi Case Files, the latest volume would be a good opportunity. While it isn’t the best mystery in the series, it’s certainly the thickest, coming in at 336 pages of beautifully illustrated sleuthing for $9.99. And even so-so KCF is still pretty darned good. It’s not my fault that Kanari Yozaburo and Satoh Fumiya have set a really high standard.

Okay, there was some shiny and new. I rambled on about Death Note for this week’s Flipped, just in time to miss the fascinating compare-and-contrast of translations found by Cognitive Dissonance. I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t see that piece until after reading the published manga. I don’t generally read scanlations, mostly because I’m one of those dinosaurs who like to hold comics while reading them. (Also, the print versions won’t electrocute me if I drop them while reading in the tub.)

(The following contains fairly detailed spoilers for Dramacon.)

In Dramacon (Tokyopop), Svetlana Chmakova displays considerable skill and real potential as a graphic novelist.

Her illustrations burst with energy and emotion. She has a strong handle on composition and panel flow, modulating both to suit her material, whether it’s comic, dramatic, romantic, or some fusion of those.

She also makes marvelous use of chibi sequences. Because I’m cynical and lazy myself, I often wonder if some cartoonists don’t rely on chibi style to crank the pages out faster. In Chmakova’s case, she’s chosen the chibi moments carefully and illustrated them with the same care she’s used in the realistic sequences. It’s impressive, purposeful stuff.

Chmakova also displays a strong sense of story construction. The volume ticks along from beat to beat, building in intensity in a carefully structured crescendo. Dialogue has a nicely conversational quality.

Overall, it’s a very accomplished debut.

But…

I wish she had more faith in her audience. She has a tendency to underline character traits and overstress mile markers in emotional arcs.

It’s clear from the beginning that protagonist Christie’s boyfriend Derek is a very bad bet. He’s thoughtless and smarmy. When Christie complains about his incessant flirting with other girls, he accuses her of overreacting. (This is the universal signal to get out of the relationship at your earliest convenience. If you’ve left any belongings at this person’s home, you can always replace them.)

But Chmakova wants to remove any uncertainty that Derek is a very bad bet. Over the course of the volume, she gives Derek a series of increasingly undesirable qualities, leaving him in such a ridiculous state of villainy that the reader is left to wonder why Christie is with him in the first place.

Fortunately, a new romantic prospect, cosplayer Matt, is on hand to offer plausible theories. In spite of his clearly articulated antisocial tendencies, Matt is still willing and able to offer pointed and accurate theories as to why Christie would stick with such a crumb, and why she shouldn’t. He isn’t particularly politic about it, but he’s right, because he’s That Shôjo Guy –moody and infuriating, yet gorgeous and sensitive, with just enough scars (one literal) to justify his mild case of misanthropy.

Between Derek’s glaring inadequacies and Matt’s jagged nobility, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could sustain a contest between the two. Chmakova does it by making Derek worse than one could ever imagine, even in light of the fact that Christie behaves in a lot of similar ways.

But it’s all a matter of justification. Derek flirts because he’s egotistical and insensitive. Christie flirts because she feels a mysterious connection to Matt. Derek abandons the booth because he’s selfish. Christie takes off because she’s earned the break. Derek takes a critique from a professional badly and dismisses the pro (Lida, a groundbreaking American manga artist for “Mangapop”) as “a bitch.” Christie takes notes to improve her work as a writer. Derek ditches Christie (who’s lied about having a headache) to watch porn with his friends. Christie misleads Derek and shares cocoa with Matt, but it’s all Derek’s fault because he flirts with girls and makes speeches about space and independence, allowing Christie to turn his rationalizations back on him in a snide, punishing sequence.

So Derek is a bastard, and if Christie behaves badly, it’s all Derek’s fault. And while it’s impossible to sympathize with Derek in the context of the story, it’s easy to shake your head at what a narrative whipping boy he is. Matt is faultless, because he’s That Shôjo Guy.

But for all of Derek’s well-documented loathsomeness, he faces very little in the way of consequences. I’ve seen some people note that his ultimate crime – a literal one, attempted sexual assault – isn’t entirely consistent with the tone of the rest of the book. I disagree, and find it a logical conclusion to his progressive deterioration.

The sequence of events of the assault is weird. Drunk and furious, Derek attempts to sexually assault Christie, but she fends him off. She runs to Matt’s room, where Matt and his sister offer her sanctuary. Matt is outraged, and his sister urges him to calm down, so he doesn’t wind up being arrested for assaulting Derek. (Nobody ever mentions the possibility of Derek being arrested for assaulting Christie, which is a fairly serious omission.) Matt, his sister, and Christie return to Derek’s room to fetch Christie’s things. Christie prevents Matt from assaulting Derek, who ridicules Matt’s disfigurement (because Derek needed a coda of repulsiveness). Christie strikes Derek, Derek pulls Christie’s hair (coda number two), and Matt strikes and threatens Derek.

Then the trio goes back to Matt’s room for pizza and a compressed post-traumatic catharsis. After a happy last day at the con with her new friends, Christie climbs into a car with Derek for the long drive back home.

So Christie is comfortable spending hours in a car with someone who tried to rape her why, precisely? Because she’s found a new boy who’ll treat her properly? We don’t actually see Derek apologize, though it’s implied. But the consequences of the assault are less important than the fact that Christie’s trauma turns out to be something of a breakthrough for Christie and Matt. And that creeps me out. I’m sorry, but it does.

Dramacon goes in a straight, sturdy line from “Christie has a bad boyfriend” to “Christie doesn’t anymore and is much better for it.” But along the way, Chmakova overstates obvious elements and underplays others that could have used more scrutiny or care.

Banana Sunday 3 (Oni Press): Mischievous talking primates, an inquisitive new friend, and a budding romance seem like plenty for teen heroine Kirby to juggle in this mostly adorable mini-series. So why did writer Root Nibot and illustrator Colleen Coover feel the need to give so much panel time to Skye, a stereotypical queen bee? Skye’s jealous antics aren’t nearly as interesting or engaging as the rest of the book, and they feel extraneous. Fortunately, there’s plenty of Go-Go to help me overlook the unsuccessful bits. And Coover’s illustrations are an unqualified pleasure.

Manhunter 15 (DC): In this issue, writer Marc Andreyko and a quartet of artists take readers through the lost-and-found box where Kate Spencer found the various bits of her costume. I’m familiar with most of the characters and some of the storylines that are referenced here, but wow, there’s some backwater continuity on display here (a C-list riff on the Green Lantern Corps, an Image-ready Batman fill-in, and an even-more-cannon-fodder-than-usual version of the Suicide Squad). It’s a weird way to follow a story arc thick with similar DC minutiae where Manhunter was essentially a supporting character in her own title.

Seven Soldiers: Klarion 4 (DC): Whenever I read what Jog has to say about these books, I always feel like anything I could contribute would amount to “Hee! Look at funny cat-boy!” I’m fine with that, actually. And it gives me an excuse to link to his latest Komikwerks column:

“‘I think people are afraid. They’re saying “Jog, I’m really really afraid.” They’re just big fraidy-cats.’

“That’s what I told the New York Times when they came knocking, just as I knew they would, in reference to the brilliant sophistication myself and my crack team had loaned to the Princess line. Oh sure, I guess the ‘physical assault’ aspect of some of my fresh plot twists was a little ‘playing to the bleachers,’ but people loved it.”

She-Hulk 2.1 (Marvel): As happy as I am to see this title return, I’m a bit worried that writer Dan Slott is suffering from a surplus of conscientiousness. After reintroducing his cast and their workplace (the super-human law division of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway), Slott then seems headed towards an attempted reconciliation of his She-Hulk (funny, independent, smart) with everyone else’s (a gamma-irradiated plot device who can reliably generate wholesale destruction when things get too talky). I like this book because it’s an oasis from the maudlin doings of the rest of Marvel’s line, and I’m not particularly interested in a dissection of the counterpoint. There are plenty of good bits, like She-Hulk’s don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you encounter with the New Avengers, but all of the tethers to Marvel’s grim plotlines aren’t very encouraging.

It’s Previews time, and I thought I’d go through and see what new manga, manhwa, and manga-esque titles were debuting in December. There are lots of them, particularly from Tokyopop.

Dark Horse has Blood: The Last Vampire – Night of the Beasts, by Mamoru Oshii ($8.95), another entry in the manga-to-novel wave. There’s also Gunrave Anime Manga, based on the anime created by Yasuhiro Nightow ($14.95), and Space Pinchy: Pleased Ta Meetya, by Tony Takezaki ($3.95).

Moon Child, by Shimizu Reiko, debuts at CMX ($9.99). Del Rey launches Pastel, by Tashihiko Kobayashi ($10.95). Digital Manga Publishing rolls out another yaoi title, Beyond My Touch, by Tomo Maeda ($12.95). Raina Telgemeier’s adaptation of Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club arrives from Graphix ($16.99).

Ice Kunion has two new manhwa titles: Cynical Orange by Yun JiUn ($10.95), and One Thousand & One Nights, story by Jeon JinSeok and art by Han SeungHee ($10.95). Viz publishes the first volume of Taeko Watanabe’s Kaze Hikaru, which is being serialized in Shojo Beat.

And lastly, Tokyopop. I’m going to have to just list these:

• Juror 13, by D.J. Milky and Makoto Nakatsuka, $9.99
• Roadsong, by Allan Gross and Joanna Estep, $9.99
• Sea Princess Azuri, by Erica Reis, $4.99
• Idiotz, by Gary Greenfield, John and Jason Waltrip, $9.99
• Yonen Buzz, by Christina Plaka, $9.99
• Dragon Head, by Minetaro Mochizuki, $9.99
• Flower of Eden, by Yuki Suetsugu, $9.99
• Dazzle, by Minari Endo, $9.99
• Sengoku Nights, by Kaoru Ohashi and Kei Kusunoki, $9.99
• Smuggler, by Shohei Manabe, $9.99
• Ultra Cute, by Nami Akimoto, $9.99
• Chicken Little Cine-Manga, based on the Disney Film, $7.99

That’s a lot of new product.

Update: As Mely predicted, Flower of Eden has been pulled by Tokyopop. Details are available at Love Manga.

Zombies and gangsters? Two genres that leave me ice cold come together in Eric Powell’s The Goon (Dark Horse). But a few things made me inclined to give last week’s 25-cent edition a try. The Pickytarian loves it. It won a couple of 2005 Eisner Awards (not a guarantee of quality, obviously, but not a “must avoid” warning like a Wizard Fan Award would be). And it cost a quarter. (My shop was giving it away for free, so the risk-return equation became absolutely irrelevant. The only time I’ve ever thought a free comic cost too much was a B.A.B.E. Force atrocity that came out on Free Comic Book Day a couple of years ago.)

The title character is muscle for the Labrazio crime family. The Goon keeps a rival gang of zombies, spawned and controlled by the Nameless Priest, in check, between other acts of enforcement, protection, and debt collection. In the 25-cent issue, the Nameless Priest is trying to extract the location of the Labrazio don from the head of a murdered FBI agent. The Priest learns an even more damning secret in the process, putting the Goon in a very different light.

It’s obviously a significant turning-point for the title, but there’s no indication of where it comes in the series. The comic doesn’t cite what issue was reprinted, so it’s hard to get a sense of the impact of these events in the larger context. So that leaves me to evaluate the book strictly on the quality of Powell’s storytelling. (There isn’t anything wrong with that, but some citations might have made me more interested in the overall narrative.)

Powell has a lot of strengths. He constructs his story very well, and he has a solid grasp on the mechanics of comedy. I don’t know if I’m entirely convinced that the content of the story and subject of the jokes lives up to Powell’s abilities, though.

Take the case of the inflatable chicken. It first appears in the context of an interrupted conversation between the Goon and his sidekick, Franky. The bug-eyed flunky is vigorously denying some salacious charge involving blow-up poultry. (The interrupted conversation is employed again a few pages later. “Did they ever find the squirrel?”) The inflatable chicken returns as a sight gag in a fight sequence. Then there’s the final rim-shot, a coda of a joke where it’s referred to as “a rubber chicken.”

The Rule of Three is executed with some variety and imagination, but… it’s an inflatable chicken. The cleverness of construction is undermined by the underlined quality of the object itself. It’s like there’s a studio sign flashing “LAUGH!” at the reader. The counterpoint between sophistication and vaudeville doesn’t quite come off. (Powell uses some other comedy shortcuts. Apparently, it’s always funny when someone says “groin.”)

Counterpoint is used to better effect elsewhere. The Nameless Priest has summoned a bog lurk as the vessel for his decapitated FBI agent, and the shambling monster gets some funny, unexpected bits.

I like Powell’s illustrations a lot. Character designs are great, incorporating genre standards while giving them a cartoon energy and feeling of surprise. Again, the bog lurk stands out as the best example. Powell’s plot takes the creature through a number of states, and each is rendered distinctly and effectively while making up a consistent visual.

Again, though, the question of context comes up. After reading Jog’s review of The Goon #14, it becomes clear that Powell has made a significant stylistic change since this material was originally published. Jog also brings up the range of storytelling tones Powell employs, which makes me wonder just where this material (broad comedy) fits into the bigger picture.

As a result, it’s hard to conclude anything about the series based on this low-cost sampler. It’s got strengths, but they’re undermined by some fairly pedestrian humor. If this material is representative of the series as a whole, or even of its current style and tone, I’m only mildly curious about future issues. And if it isn’t representative of the title’s current standing, I’m not sure why Dark Horse chose it as bait for prospective readers.

I went to Books-a-Million over the weekend and picked up Death Note (creepy!) and the latest volume of Fruits Basket (weepy!). At the register, the cashier got all excited by the Furuba. “I haven’t read this one yet!” She immediately started flipping through it, then stopped herself, not because it was about to become someone else’s property but because she didn’t want to spoil things for herself. I really wouldn’t have cared if she’d read it on the spot. I wasn’t in any hurry, and the encounter made my day.

While that’s a fondly remembered personal experience, I have no illusions about its universality or that it says anything about Furuba’s gender-neutral allure or the potential implications for the manga market. It’s an anecdote.

Anyway, Johanna Stokes has written another installment of Girl in the Clubhouse at Comic Book Resources. According to the blurb, “[Stokes] checked out some very different comic shops in LA and shared her experiences shopping at them as a woman.” After reading her column, I now suspect that I’m a woman. Like Stokes, I don’t like dingy, badly organized retail spaces. I also find life-sized super-hero statues unsettling. And I don’t like unfriendly, unhelpful clerks. Apparently these are gender-specific objections. This is something of a revelation to me, because I’ve been harboring them for years.

Seriously, how ridiculous is this Comics Everywoman posture that seems part and parcel of Girl in the Clubhouse? It would be like if I started a column purporting to speak for all pushing-40 gay men who read comics.

***

Anecdotes are put to much better use in Lea Hernandez’s new column, I’m Hurting Comics, over at Hero Realm. Just as last week’s thread at The Engine seems to have wound down, Lea takes a long look at the benefits of creator ownership and some of the drawbacks for those who didn’t hold out for it. (I’m going to be keeping an eye on this Engine thread.)

***

The average quality of reviews at Manga Life improved by an order of magnitude when MangaBlog’s Brigid Alverson started writing for the site. She’s making her way through all of the volumes of Fruits Basket, among other titles, and it’s fun to see where our opinions intersect and diverge.

Over at her blog, Brigid wonders about the age ratings on some manga titles. If you’re familiar with them, pop by and let her know what “Older Teens” might mean in the cases of Alice 19th, Imadoki!, Kill Me Kiss Me, and W Juliet.

***

And I don’t care how much a comic shop may or may not suck. If it’s the only place to buy Banana Sunday #3 and She-Hulk #2.1 this week, then it’s a small price to pay. (The addition of a new volume of Kindaichi Case Files makes the week an embarrassment of riches.)

If you’re like me, you’re a little down over the last day of Fanboy Rampage. If you’re like me, you find shopping a handy tonic for bouts of malaise.

Top Shelf Productions is having its annual giant web sale through Oct. 25. Right off the top of my head, some recommended titles include:

• Spiral-Bound, by Aaron Renier
• Owly: The Way Home, by Andy Runton
• Owly: Just a Little Blue, by Andy Runton
• Same Difference & Other Stories, by Derek Kirk Kim
• and while it’s not on sale this year, I bought and loved Big Clay Pot by Scott Mills during last year’s blow-out

Go. Browse. Heal.

I couldn’t let the sad day go by without mentioning how much I’ve enjoyed Graeme McMillan’s Fanboy Rampage since I’ve been blog-watching.

Beyond being consistently entertaining (even if the entertainment sometimes takes an “I know I should look away, but I can’t” form), I think the blog has provided some very valuable investigative journalism. Developments that might have gone unnoticed (or under-noticed) have come under fuller scrutiny thanks to Graeme’s efforts, and scarcely a week goes by without FBR sparking some very useful discussion.

It’s too bad The Comics Journal couldn’t add one more installment to their on-line comics journalism series, because I think FBR counts in its surreptitious way. In fact, I’d say it counts as much as or more than many of the sites they did cover.

Beyond those valuable contributions, I also like to think Graeme’s remorseless scrutiny of message-board stupidity might have actually made some people more inclined to be civil. If even a handful of people thought before they wrote because they were afraid of looking like a nitwit on FBR, it will have all been worth it.

So thanks, Graeme, for two years of subjecting yourself to some of the worst that the comics internet has to offer and putting it in an entertaining package. I’ll miss FBR a lot.