I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s any standard for what constitutes the “satisfying chunk,” the quantity of plot, character development or imagery that makes a comic or graphic novel stand alone. I don’t think there are any set parameters and that it’s one of those “know it when you see it” deals.

There’s so much variety in craft, approach, and tone that similar amounts of content can seem measured and teasing in one story and thin and unsatisfying in another. In Off*Beat, Jen Lee Quick doles out information with a teaspoon, but the result is that I’m more interested, not less. The tease works for me.

I’ve stopped reading most of the current output of Brian Bendis because very little ever seems to happen in a given chapter. They might read better in collection, but I have my doubts, and there’s plenty of other material out there that seems like it will have a higher return on my investment.

What’s really got me thinking about this is Love as a Foreign Language (Oni), an appealing but extremely thin fish-out-of-water romantic comedy. As Johanna Draper Carlson puts it:

“…as a reader, I want more to happen in each slim volume. Given the time between releases, I feel as though I’ve had complete relationships that haven’t taken as long as this!”

I agree, because the progress of the protagonist (Joel, a Canadian who’s teaching English in Korea to pay off student loans) is so incremental. In the first volume, we learn that Joel hasn’t been able to acclimate to Korea after about nine months. He’s contemplating leaving before his one-year contract ends, but he’s distracted by Hana, an attractive young woman who comes to work at the school as a secretary.

In the second volume, Joel still dislikes Korea, but his crush on Hana is making him reconsider his decision to leave. He decides to stay until the end of his contract, at least, but plans to head home after that. In the third, Joel still dislikes Korea, still likes Hana, but is reluctant to approach her. He sort of accidentally makes some headway and comes to the belated realization that she lives in his apartment building.

As I was re-reading the three installments of Love as a Foreign Language, I realized that any one of them would have served perfectly well as the first. While there’s funny and charming material in each, there isn’t much in the way of essential material. Since each volume does a good job of restating what’s gone before, the lack of forward motion actually seems highlighted. I’ve got no problem with character-driven comics. Some of my favorites fall into that category. I’m just not convinced that the characters here are strong enough to carry the title.

Part of it may be that love at first sight is a tricky thing to sell. I think Tom Beland pulls it off in True Story, Swear to God. But in that story, it was two people unexpectedly falling in love with each other. In Love as a Foreign Language, things are more one-sided, because we know very little about Hana beyond the fact that she’s fetching. She and Joel haven’t had any significant conversations or meaningful experiences together, so it’s hard for his sudden feelings for her to have much weight.

And Joel isn’t exactly the most sympathetic of characters. It’s easy to understand his feelings of alienation and the anxieties of being in an unfamiliar place, but there’s really no indication that he’s tried to make his circumstances more comfortable. Hating the food is one thing, but living in a place for nine months without learning to read any of the language and speaking only a smattering of it seems impractical and even boorish, as does his indifferent performance in the classroom. It’s compounded by the fact that he works with the very people who could help him adjust, if he made the effort. He spends every day with people fluent in Korean and English, so the only reason for his isolation seems to be churlishness.

If Hana is to be his gateway into a culture he’s rejected, I think readers need to know more about her, and Joel needs more fully realized reasons for liking her beyond the fact that she’s pretty and nice. It seems like a shallow basis for a potentially life-changing infatuation. (And yes, I did notice that she likes comics, which is apparently the universal cue for the strains of “Oh, Sweet Mystery of Life” to begin.)

I’m sounding harsh, I know, but it’s mostly because I think the creators, writer J. Torres and illustrator Eric Kim, have talent to burn. I also think they work extraordinarily well together, particularly on the more comedic sequences. (Joel always watches an English instructional program for children, and they really have some great cross-cultural comedy. Words and pictures intersect to great effect, getting even better when the show begins to invade Joel’s dreams.) And if Joel is a putz, it’s to his creators’ credit that he’s a surprisingly appealing putz.

I just wish the book had more momentum and detail. As it is, it’s a pleasant, somewhat forgettable experience that doesn’t quite live up to its considerable potential.

I shouldn’t even be thinking about this week’s comics. I should be in a monastic state of self-denial, saving up disposable income for this weekend’s Small Press Expo. Free time should be spent searching under couch cushions for spare change, so I can buy Owly t-shirts and awesome Scott Pilgrim prints and enough gasoline to get me to Bethesda and back.

Having relatively limited experience with big comics events, I’m pretty excited about this one. The list of exhibitors looks pretty great, I’ll get to meet some on-line acquaintances in person, and I’ll be within walking distance of a really good Thai restaurant. (Are there words more beautiful than “no added MSG”?) And Shawn Hoke will know perfectly well why I’m not going to turn my next column in on time.

Okay, I will dwell a little bit on the new comic day experience, because I found a manga equivalent in an article from a recent edition of the Chattanooga Times and Free Press. (Someone sent the article to me, and I can’t seem to find it online. Sorry). Anyway, it’s a fairly standard Manga 101 story, but it has a great lead:

“Senior book seller at Northgate Mall’s Waldenbooks, Charlene Denton is familiar with many patrons’ shopping patterns and preferences. She said the Friday regulars often include a group she’s pegged the ‘manga posse.’

“The 12 teenage girls ‘know we get our manga titles on Friday,’ said Ms. Denton. ‘Some of them even keep manga notebooks on what they read.’”

Regular pilgrimages for the week’s new arrivals… Excuse me. I… I’ve got something in my eye.

I finally got around to reading the New York Times piece on shojo (free registration required), and it’s fun to count the talking points that seem to be essential parts of any “manga for girls” story. Many of them are there, including a new theme that gives me pause:

“Publishers say they encounter the most resistance to manga not from parents but from independent booksellers, like JoAnn Fruchtman, owner of the Children’s Bookstore in Baltimore, which does not stock any manga. ‘I feel most of it is quite violent and the outcome is not necessarily as uplifting as I think literature should be,’ she says. “

… and…

“‘I’m constantly amazed at what I see. Books that appear appropriate for little girls all of a sudden have a girl and boy in bed together,’ Betsy Mitchell, vice president and editor in chief of Del Rey, says of Japanese shojo that she declines to publish here.”

Well, it isn’t like Del Rey avoids shojo with dark themes, is it?

***

Over at Irresponsible Pictures, Pata shares the secret origin of OEL (the term).

***

At comics.212.com, Christopher Butcher notes what might be one of the more fundamental differences between manga-inspired comics and comics from Japan: the role of the editor, which is quite substantial in Japanese comics publishing according to just about every source I’ve seen.

“A journalist I know has complained that there are no real editors in comics, just continuity cops and spell-checkers. I don’t agree with that, but I do think there are very few actual editors working at any company. I don’t know that there’s even blame to lay here, the creative community has been more-or-less trained to expect a complete hands-off on their precious little creative baby (unless they’re doing WFH and then it’s just ‘Yes, sir!’) and most editors really aren’t interested in being editors at all. They’re writers or marketers, working outside of their preferred field of interest. Anyway, Bizenghast should have been sent back for re-write and for corrections quite a few times.”

From what I’ve read (Paul Gravett’s book, for example), editors at manga publishing houses are very hands-on, creatively speaking. I wonder how interactive the editor/creator dynamic is on the OEL end?

***

And it’s Monday, so there’s a new Flipped. I should warn you that this was written without the benefit of air conditioning, so it might be a bit crankier than normal.

How weird is it that I’m annoyed by a television show I haven’t seen yet that adapts a series of mediocre crime novels? But there’s just something about Bones that bugs me.

As Tom the Dog noted, Bones is “”inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and best-selling novelist Kathy Reichs,” but the title character, Temperance Brennan, has clearly gone through the scar-off machine on her way from page to tube.

Tom describes TV-Temperance as “a crime-solver, an expert marksman with a pistol, a formidable martial artist, and a best-selling author — plus, she can really rock a tank top, if you know what I mean.” This would be some producer’s idea of “making the character more accessible” or “giving her layers,” I’m guessing.

The page version of Temperance is a forty-something anthropology professor who divides her time between a North Carolina university and the evidence lab of the Province of Quebec, where she studies bones found at crime scenes. She’s amicably divorced, has a college-aged daughter, is a recovering alcoholic, and has the kind of wide circle of friends and colleagues needed to sustain an ongoing mystery series.

I should really stress that the books aren’t that great. The forensic content is interesting, and I like the split setting, but Temperance is kind of an idiot outside of the lab. She isn’t a cop or an investigator so much as a scientist, but this doesn’t stop her from putting herself in danger, either through stubbornness or obliviousness. (These qualities tend to result in intermittent reductions of the aforementioned circle of friends and associates.) Despite her self-deprecating sense of humor and everywoman quality, Temperance can get awfully maudlin as she contemplates whatever remains lie on the slab in front of her. Empathy in such situations is understandable, but it gets to the point where you wonder how she functions.

They’re the kind of books that you pick up in paperback at an airport newsstand or borrow from the library when you’re headed for the beach. But you definitely get the sense that Temperance has earned her station as a scientist over time, building a scholarly reputation and the respect of her peers. It seems like a waste to turn a potentially interesting role for an actor of a certain age (say Mary Steenburgen or Kristine Sutherland) into a frosty (but hot) crime-buster. It’s a forensic procedural, for pity’s sake, and those really have to stink to bomb in ratings. Why glam up a perfectly serviceable set-up?

I’m very curious about another book-to-tube offering, Kitchen Confidential. Lyle is really looking forward to it, and I seem to remember Ed saying he liked the preview. It’s inspired by a memoir by Anthony Bourdain, a professional chef’s notorious look at the seamy underbelly of professional restaurants. Imagine if the cast of Sin City were back in the kitchen searing your sea bass.

I can’t picture Bourdain’s hilariously spiteful worldview being turned into a situation comedy. Given his derision of celebrity chefs, it seems like precisely the kind of thing he’d despise. (He’d also probably note what a hypocrite he is, since mocking self-awareness is the thing that saves Bourdain from being hopelessly obnoxious.) If nothing else, it will make for an interesting chapter in his next memoir.

What’s that you say? A new volume of Electric Girl is coming out this week? Why, yes, Local Comics Shop, I would love one, thank you! I really enjoyed the first two collections of this title, and it will always have a special place in my heart. It’s one of the comics that first made me suspect Johanna Draper Carlson could induce me to overspend.

Something tells me I neglected to pre-order a copy of Hope Larson’s Salamander Dream, which makes me feel very foolish, particularly in light of Rose’s comments about the book. It’s easily rectified foolishness, though, as opposed to my usual variety.

Apparently, I have similar taste in titles as manga collaborative Clamp. And yet I’m not really crazy about the manga Clamp actually produces. Still, I admit to viewing them in a warmer light now that I know of their love for The Sergeant.

I know I should be saving my pennies for SPX, but one of the bookstores in town was having a buy-two-get-one-free deal on some of their Tokyopop titles, so I succumbed. I initially viewed it as an opportunity to catch up on some favorites, but there seemed to be some weird probability field that guaranteed that the volumes I was looking for weren’t there. (How can a big chain bookstore not have a complete run of Fruits Basket? How?!)

I’d been circling around Shohei Manabe’s Dead End for a while, appreciating the striking visuals but nervous about the grit factor. In it, an angelic girl falls from sky, landing at the feet of an every-shlub who gets drawn into mysterious and deadly conspiracy. It’s not bad if you like that sort of thing, and it seems to have a reasonable sense of humor about its paranoia-noir mechanics.

I picked up Ho-Kyung Yeo’s Honey Mustard pretty much at random. There’s nothing like a wacky, drunken case of mistaken identity and draconian behavioral standards to spur romance, is there? There’s something unsettling going on here, though I haven’t narrowed down precisely what it is, beyond the “Forced marriage can be fun!” set-up. Yeo seems to rely heavily on chibi-ish sequences, though, and I suspect part of that reliance may be aimed at getting the pages done.

While there seems not to be a single copy of Fruits Basket 9 to be found in town, I did pick up the eighth and enjoyed it very much. At Completely Futile, Adam noted something I neglected to mention over at CWN:

“…as we learn more about the characters’ backstories, things that seemed uncomplicated, or even mainly comedic, in the early volumes take on new meanings.”

It’s very true, and the manga really does reward rereading. It’s a lot of fun to go through earlier volumes with a (you should forgive the expression) “knowing what you know now” approach.

And while I’m usually reluctant to suggest that, if you like title A, you might like title B, I do think fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim might browse through Minoru Toyoda’s Love Roma (Del Rey) the next time they see it on a store shelf. It’s got playful illustrations, and the two titles share an off-kilter approach to character and romance. I talk about Love Roma at needless length in this week’s Flipped.

ICv2 looks at graphic novel sales for the first half of 2005, and I’m a bit puzzled. I’m assuming that they’re talking in terms of copies sold, because they refer to DC’s leading dollar share later in the article, implying that dollars are a separate issue from the numbers they’re looking at overall.

Being somewhat math-challenged (and hopeless at economics), I think it would have helped me to have a clearer set of definitions of what’s being compared in the article and some more detailed figures. Is it first-quarter 2005 sales compared to first-quarter 2004 sales, and so on? And first-half 2005 figures compared to first-half 2005? (I might be the only person confused by this.)

With only the monthly Top 100 lists to reference, it’s hard to get a sense of the big picture. It has left me wondering just how much of a contribution titles from 101 down make to monthly sales. I’m guessing it’s pretty significant, but again, what do I know?

At the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has some reactions to the piece:

“Second, at least one big spike in ICv2.com’s chart, Tokyopop’s first quarter, suggests a boost that comes from initially carrying something, which makes it unlikely to be sustained.”

And that’s one of the reasons I wish ICv2 had offered more in the way of facts and figures, or at least some clearer context. Tokyopop’s bump could have been generated by any number of factors, maybe from more direct market outlets deciding to stock manga, but it’s impossible to tell or even speculate, really.

Math-challenged update: Okay, I compared the second-quarter Top 100 numbers to see if 101+ books had much of an impact, and I think they really, really do. The 2004 second-quarter Top 100 numbers for Tokyopop were actually higher in 2004 (100,546) than those in 2005 (79,234), meaning that there are a lot of digests moving that don’t make the best-seller list. (Second-quarter Tokyopop figures increased by 12%, if I understand the context correctly.) Of course, Tokyopop has a lot more titles in release now than they did even a year ago, plus all those earlier volumes of Fruits Basket.

Nothing else matters. Nothing but this.

Bless you, Shawn Fumo.

Man, I had no energy yesterday. By the afternoon, I just wanted to lock myself in a dimly lit room with a box of doughnuts and some volumes of Fruits Basket. Fortunately, laziness prevented me from doing the shopping that would make that activity possible, sparing me a refined sugar/pathos overdose.

Looking at the week’s shipping list, I’m surprised to see that Marvel does the most to restore my joie de vive. This week sees the release of Avengers: The Serpent Crown, a collection of one of my favorite runs in the book’s history.

A lot of people would name The Celestial Madonna as the high point in writer Steve Englehart’s 50-odd issues with the title. I’m fond of that story too, but A:TSC (issues 141-144, 147-149) just has so much going for it:

• The issues feature George Perez’s earliest renderings of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
• The cast is packed with some of my favorite Avengers, including the Beast in one of his first adventures with the team, Hawkeye working in a setting that really suits him (the Old West), and Moondragon beginning to realize her capacity for profound obnoxiousness.
• Patsy Walker makes a wonderful impression, transforming from romance comic stalwart to costumed heroine Hellcat. (She didn’t stick around long, but she was a fun addition to the cast.)
• The concurrent stories (one group battling Kang in the past, another clashing with the Squadron Supreme in an alternate universe) are jammed with adventure, comedy, political and social commentary, corporate intrigue, inter-publisher digs, a demonic hat… in other words, enough content in seven issues to make most contemporary super-hero arcs look positively anemic.

It’s great stuff, and since I can’t seem to find the original floppies in my long boxes, I’m delighted to see it collected.

Oh, and there’s other stuff coming out, too. Having found the conclusion of Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight to be something of an anticlimax (see: Jog), I’m curious to see how things wrap up (or don’t) in Seven Soldiers: Guardian #4. (This has been my favorite of the SS titles, with Klarion as a close second.)

On another event horizon, it seems as though the simmering homoerotic subtext between two of the fellows of Villains United finally manifests in violence in #5. It sure took long enough!

DrMaster releases volume 13 of Iron Wok Jan!, which is a title I really enjoy, even though I’ve fallen a few volumes behind. It’s over-the-top fun that works best in small doses, but I’m sure I’ll catch up eventually. (It’s a big crossover hit at my local comics shop, oddly enough.)

The second volume of Ultra Maniac (from Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint) arrives, which means it’s probably been in bookstores for about a week. I really enjoyed the first installment.

How can three pretty sedentary days have left me with so little energy? How did those 72 hours pass so quickly? And how is it that there are still episodes of Law and Order I haven’t seen?

Yes, I was a slug for much of the Labor Day weekend, catching up on reading, emulating the cats’ energy level, and firing out a column between naps.

In the reading stack was the latest digest of Case Closed. It was the least satisfying volume so far, because the main mystery of the collection was pretty much insoluble without a completely unexpected, last-minute revelation. The characters are still appealing, but the “oh, did I forget to mention” technique killed a lot of the fair-play fun.

Much more satisfying was Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat (Pantheon). I’m planning to prattle on about it at length later, but it’s generally wonderful, just the kind of armchair travel I’ve been looking for.