Lots of good stuff in the comments section of the Cheeky Angel/Fruits Basket compare-and-contrast. In addition to a healthy mix of opinions, Stephanie links to a fascinating piece she wrote on visual flow in manga at her LiveJournal. Also, Mitch gives his own thoughts on the two titles at his blog.

(Of course, Blogger picks today to take a break from copying comments to my e-mail. And yes, I checked the settings, so it’s not just me being tech-stupid. Though it was very perceptive of you to identify that possibility.)

Speaking of Fruits Basket, David at Love Manga looks at ICv2’s tally of graphic novel sales in the Direct Market for February. I’m kind of surprised at how far down the list one finds ADV Manga’s Cromartie High School, considering how much crossover love it’s gotten in the blogosphere. I’ll be interested to see the BookScan numbers on it, since ADV seems to have spared no expense on marketing this thing in bookstore chains, what with all the special display units. And the digests themselves are strikingly designed, which can’t hurt.

More on this later, but the manga-in-translation industry clearly has designed its publishing schedule to drive me to poverty on a quarterly basis. Glancing through the issue of Previews that came out yesterday, I should just start sketching out my cardboard “will work for manga” sign now.

What has Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) got that Cheeky Angel (Viz) doesn’t? I found myself wondering that as I read the first volumes of each. Both are appealing sitcoms that mix shôjo and shônen elements, and each have attractive mainstream visuals. But Fruits Basket is a sales juggernaut, and Cheeky Angel… well… isn’t.

So I guess my real question is why aren’t you reading Cheeky Angel?

That isn’t to say that Fruits Basket is bad. Natsuka Takaya’s gentle fantasy has a lot going for it. Takaya has assembled a likeable cast, set them up with an interesting (if underdeveloped) premise, and strikes a nice enough balance between comedy and romance.

The first volume introduces readers to Tohru, a homeless orphan so cheerful and optimistic she makes Pollyanna look Goth. Inadvertently camping on their property, Tohru meets some members of the mysterious Sohma clan. The Sohmas are laboring under a curse linked to the Chinese Zodiac. When they’re hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into animals representing different zodiacal signs.

Yuki Sohma is one of Tohru’s classmates. He’s opted for public school as a means of escaping the isolation of the family curse, though he’s still standoffish. Cousin Kyo actually wants to break into the family circle, as he represents a zodiacal sign that didn’t make the cut (the Year of the Cat, tricked out of the running by the Rat that Yuki channels). Add water, and you’ve got a love triangle with Tohru drawn to both princely Yuki and hostile Kyo.

They’re pleasant enough company, but I’m more interested in the supporting cast. I’m especially taken with Sohma cousin Kagura, who’s hilariously bipolar. (Of course, her too-brief visit to the family does raise the unpleasant question of just how the Sohma family manages to keep from dying out. Since they can’t touch anyone of the opposite sex in an affectionate way – family aside – without turning into animals, how does the bloodline stay alive, short of bestiality or incest? Maybe that gets cleared up in later volumes.)

The first volume busies itself with setting up Tohru in the Sohma household. Since her living relatives are either hapless or awful, and the cursed clan is really taken with her and her mad housekeeping skills, it’s the best solution all around. And it puts her in the thick of the drama, putting the Sohma secret at risk and heightening family tensions even as Tohru gives them something in common. (I do have a production quibble: sometimes, the translators seem to have opted to run some of the word balloons and captions in an unflipped order, and sometimes they go in a western direction. It’s a little sloppy and it distracted me when it happened.)

It’s a promising foundation for Fruits Basket, if nothing particularly stunning.

Cheeky Angel has a bit more going for it, to my way of thinking. Its characters are more complex (but still likeable), and its premise is more personal and focused, which makes the comedy/romance balance more resonant.

As a child, protagonist Megumi meets a genie who grants him a wish. Megumi rashly asks to be made the “manliest man on Earth.” The genie gets the wish wrong, either accidentally or on purpose, and turns typical boy Megumi into a girl on track to become the “womanliest woman on Earth.” The genie has been fairly thorough, so that only Meg and close friend Miki remember that Meg was ever a boy.

By the time the girls reach high school, Meg is a stunner, the kind of girl who makes boys go stupid just by walking past them. And, Meg discovers to her horror, boys aren’t that far from stupid to begin with. While Meg isn’t exactly bemoaning her gender switch, she hasn’t exactly modulated her behavior to match her new body. She’s every bit the rambunctious ass-kicker she was as a boy, and the student body of her school provides a host of worthy victims.

Foremost among them is smug, aggressive Genzo, whose plan to establish himself as the school’s alpha male is thrown off track when he falls madly in love with Meg (right after she gives him a pounding for his rudeness and insensitivity). Meg is aghast, in part because she worries that Genzo is exactly the kind of boy she’d have been. Genzo forms an uneasy alliance with a number of Meg’s other admirers, all of whom are undeterred by the fact that the object of their desire is much more inclined to flip-kick them than blush and giggle at their advances.

Fortunately, Meg has Miki as a confidant and tour guide to the life of the high-school girl. Conventional Miki wishes Meg would try a bit harder to act like the girl she is. At the same time, she can’t resist teasing Meg when signs of femininity crop up. Miki is a great Ethel to Meg’s Lucy, smart, level-headed, supportive, and appropriately dubious of the whole scenario.

Creator Hiroyuki Nishimori makes the most of the conflicting emotions that arise from the premise. Issues of gender, identity, and adolescence make great fodder for smart, twisty, character-based comedy. It covers a lot of the same territory as the interesting (and seemingly vanished) Your and My Secret, but it does a better job of investing the material with thoughtful, smaller moments, softening some of the stereotypes in the process while playing up what those stereotypes might mean.

So why is amiable, average Fruits Basket topping the charts while ambitious, interesting Cheeky Angel rests somewhere in the middle? I wonder if part of it isn’t the level of anxiety inspired by the subject matter. It might be easier for some readers to identify with a boy who turns into an animal over one who turns into a girl. And since the boy doesn’t view turning into a girl as the worst thing that’s ever happened and immediately undertake a quest to reclaim his rightful plumbing, that effect may be compounded.

Of course, it may be as simple as packaging. Fruits Basket wears its cuddly fantasy elements on its sleeve, while Cheeky Angel takes a soapier approach to its trade dress.

But, really, you can’t read Fruits Basket all the time, can you? Surely there’s room for gender-bending battle-comedy-teen romance on your shelves, too?

Found via Love Manga, The Comics Journal will be devoting its 269th issue to shôjo manga. Yes, you read that properly.

I had a somewhat mixed reaction to TCJ’s Manga Masters edition, but this sounds right up my alley. Best of all, editor Dirk Deppey has picked writers who have a real passion for the material. I’m particularly excited to read Matt Thorn’s interview with Moto Hagio and Lea Hernandez’s piece on how shôjo has influenced her own work.

Sure, the prospect of TCJ reviewing shôjo titles is a little unsettling. But the range of topics and approaches listed in the solicitation indicates a sincere appreciation of a manga genre that’s a personal favorite. This edition seems like it will make up for the absence of women creators and the short shrift mainstream titles received in Manga Masters. (I hope.)

It almost makes me wish Deppey hadn’t made a “no more Dave Sim screeds on the Void” promise in the letter pages of the most recent issue. I can only imagine Sim’s reaction. Emotion! Everywhere, emotion!

My battered wallet is relieved to see that it’s a fairly light week for comics.

Another Seven Soldiers mini-series launches; this time it’s Guardian. At Marvel, there’s Livewires 2, Runaways 2, and Spellbinders 1. I’m not entirely blown away by the preview of Spellbinders at Pop Culture Shock, but writer Mike Carey developed a large reservoir of good will with My Faith in Frankie, so I’m always inclined to give his stuff a try. (It’s got to be more fun than Ultimate Elektra, doesn’t it?)

Kind of interesting that Marvel will ship such a chunk of its new-reader-friendly titles in one week. (I think of them as pretty accessible, at least.) Are they trying to save their target audience trips to the comic shop? Or do they want to accommodate the suggestive sell?

“Pardon me, young lady. I can’t help but notice you’ve selected Runaways among your purchases. Perhaps I might tempt you with these other offerings? They, too, feature a youthful cast having low-continuity adventures!”

Or, alternatively, they’re just trying to piggyback on sales of New Avengers 4.

“Excuse me, shopkeep! This copy of New Avengers 4? Is it packed with action in the Mighty Marvel Manner? I do hope so!”
“You can always hope, lad!”
“I… I see.”
“Perhaps you might want to supplement your purchases, just in case it’s a bit more… contemplative than you’d like?”
“But with what, shopkeep? With what?”
“Follow me, lad!”

Not only is Shaun of the Dead entertaining in its own right, it makes bad movies better. We also watched the Legally Blonde sequel over the weekend, and it would have been an unbearable ordeal had we not been able to picture the characters from Shaun invading Blonde, armed with cricket bats and pool cues and spades, swinging wildly.

And really, LB2 is one of those movies that make you retroactively hate the first one for spawning a sequel. I’m not saying LB was great by any means (it’s no Clueless or Bring It On), but it was a pleasant enough way to waste 90-odd minutes. LB2‘s worst crime was the utter waste it made of a cast that includes comedy legend Bob Newhart, will-be comedy legend Jennifer Coolidge, and Dana Ivey, who has had a fairly dire career in film (Addams Family Values excluded) despite being a highly regarded stage actress. (She was Miss Daisy before Jessica Tandy, and she played two very different roles in Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George.)

Moving back to comics, I’ve added a couple of links to the blogroll. At All Ages, Scott Robins posts news and views on what’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite categories of comics: the kind that are made for kids. The Comics Shrew offers up The Shrew Review, where she posts thoughtful, entertaining commentary on mostly mainstream titles. I particularly like her takes on Young Avengers 2 and Ex Machina 9.

Last and least, there’s a new Flipped up at Comic World News. In the forum, some dork is trying to clear out space on his manga shelves.

We watched Shaun of the Dead yesterday, and it’s so much fun. It’s all in the little details, like Shaun and Ed going through Shaun’s record collection to see which can be sacrificed as weapons against the very slowly advancing zombies. “Batman soundtrack?” “Chuck it.” Steven at Peiratikos does a marvelous job looking at why the movie works so well. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it could have easily earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination. And I’m charmed beyond all ability to resist by Lucy Davis, who played Dianne. (Note to self: Add The Office to Netflix cue.) I wonder if they cast Dylan Moran as twitchy prat David for his uncanny resemblance to a grown-up Daniel Radcliffe?

My loot from the Spider-Girl contest arrived, courtesy of Dave Carter of Yet Another Comics Blog. This book is a heck of a lot of fun, and I’m certainly going to pick up more volumes of the series. I think Tom DeFalco has written some pretty bad comics in his day, but this certainly isn’t among them. May Parker is a strong protagonist: a good, busy kid with a strong moral compass and an instinctive thirst for adventure. DeFalco has given her an interesting and varied group of classmates and a nice start at a very Spidey-esque group of rogues. I’ve always found Peter Parker’s poor-me moaning off-putting, soI like the internal conflicts May struggles with much better. I was a little nervous about the art in the first chapter, as Ron Frenz has an… interesting way with faces. (I know Jubilee was only in one cameo panel, but that girl clearly lived rough for a while.) I much preferred Pat Olliffe’s work in the remainder of the digest. Overall, it’s imaginative, stand-alone super-hero fun, and I can see why it does well outside of the direct market. Of course, now I’ve got yet another title to catch up on, so thanks, Dave. 😉

Also showing up via the mails was my box of incredibly inexpensive comics from Top Shelf Productions. Looking through, I probably should have asked for some advice before I started clicking at random. Still, when that much material goes for one or three bucks a pop, it’s hard to go too wrong. I’m sure I’ll do some blathery overview at some point in the future. Can you stand the anticipation?

I would be totally remiss and perhaps lose standing as a Broadway geek if I didn’t send out birthday wishes to legendary lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, who turns 75 Monday.

To commemorate the event, here are some of my favorite Sondheim songs, in no particular order (all from each show’s original cast recording, unless noted otherwise):

1. “Another Hundred People” from Company, sung by Pamela Myers
2. “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd, sung by Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou
3. “Every Day a Little Death” from A Little Night Music, sung by Patricia Elliott and Victoria Mallory
4. “The Miller’s Son” from A Little Night Music, sung by D. Jamin-Bartlett
5. “Could I Leave You?” from Follies, sung by Alexis Smith
7. “Agony” from Into the Woods, sung by Robert Westenberg and Chuck Wagner
8. “Getting Married Today” from Company, the most sadistic patter song ever inflicted on an actor, in this case Beth Howland
9. “Liaisons” from A Little Night Music, sung by Hermione Gingold
10. “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park with George, sung by the original cast
11. “Old Friends” from Merrily We Roll Along, sung by Jim Walton, Ann Morrison, and Lonny Price
12. “Our Little World” from the London cast of Into the Woods, sung by Julia McKenzie and Mary Lincoln

Ah, sweet, sweet show-tune geekery.

Gail Simone pulls off a terrific reversal in Birds of Prey 80 (DC), gathering up subtle bits of characterization from throughout her run so far. The plot wraps up the “Hero Hunters” arc, as Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle try to sort out what’s up with violent vigilante Thorn. It’s fine, but the action can’t compare with the interpersonal fireworks. They’re surprising, but they’re also very rooted in what’s come before. Character-driven action laced with smart comedy; you can’t go wrong with that.

Captain America 4 (Marvel) is kind of an in-between issue in writer Ed Brubaker’s introductory “Out of Time” arc, but it hardly feels like filler. Cap and his SHIELD colleagues attempt to put recent events into the context of new developments and find themselves faced with new mysteries and dangers. Meanwhile, Cap keeps flashing back to World War II, bewildered by some memories he doesn’t recognize. The art, by Steve Epting in the present-day scenes and Michael Lark in the flashbacks, is splendid. This is easily one of the best books Marvel produces.

Catwoman 41 (DC) starts with a scene of a man trying to beat a woman to death as he recalls delivering a similar fate to a dog. It’s rendered in lurid detail. I have no idea what follows this scene, because I couldn’t be bothered to read the rest of it after such a thoroughly revolting beginning. A content rating wouldn’t have been the worst thing that happened to this particular issue.

I’m not quite sure how writer Brian K. Vaughan manages to juggle 9/11 flashbacks, subway monsters, and a meditation on the politics of gay marriage, but damned if he didn’t pull it off in Ex Machina 9 (Wildstorm). Vaughan also makes terrific use of his large and varied cast, letting his supporting characters have vivid, telling, and surprising moments. Penciller Tony Harris, inker Tom Feister, and colorist J.D. Mettler do lovely work rendering the range of plot and character elements.

As I may have mentioned, I really like Manhunter. That said, even I have to admit that writer Marc Andreyko might try and avoid courtroom scenes in the future. (Or he might watch a few more episodes of Law & Order.) As the trial of Shadow Thief continues in Manhunter 8 (DC), D.A. Kate Spencer calls a couple of witnesses for testimony that would be entirely appropriate for the sentencing phase (being devoted to victim impact) but doesn’t seem to have any place in actual trial proceedings. Aside from that stumble, there’s plenty of material that plays to the book’s strengths. Kate’s alter-ego, Manhunter, tries to keep Shadow Thief alive to stand trial (and face the death penalty), meeting stiff resistance from contract-killer Cheshire. I love how Kate isn’t particularly good at super-heroics, relying on borrowed tech, luck, and a willingness to fight dirty. Andreyko also takes time to flesh out Kate’s relationship with her blackmailed tech support Dylan, who’s developing nicely as an unsavory foil to the book’s unsavory lead.

Teen Titans 22 (DC) is kind of all over the place. It starts with some self-loathing narration from Raven, which doesn’t really go anywhere. Then it focuses on Dr. Light who, while completely despicable, isn’t entirely wrong about the way he’s been violated and what that says about the heroes who did it. In typical Geoff Johns fashion, Light’s gimmick-villain status now seems to have morphed into some kind of shaky, pseudo-mystical relationship with the forces he manipulates. Following this, and with no set-up, Johns introduces yet another iteration of Hawk and Dove, who don’t let a confrontation with a violent super-villain distract from their expository conversation. In this particular era of comics, it’s kind of odd to complain about too much happening in a given issue, but all of this stuff just doesn’t come together.

Wonder Woman 214 (DC) is a mostly superfluous conclusion to a crossover with Flash 219. Writer Greg Rucka tries to establish the dynamic between the heroes – aw-shucks Flash and regal Diana – as something unique and telling, but he doesn’t seem to try very hard. It’s just as well, because they don’t have any distinct chemistry. Even less successful is the dynamic between Cheetah (a very boring villain indeed) and Zoom, who have nothing in common and generate no thematic or interpersonal sparks. The plot follows Flash and Wonder Woman being pounded by Cheetah and Zoom respectively, until the antagonists leave themselves open to defeat. I did like Diana’s “of course you’re a villain, idiot” exchange with Zoom, but there’s not much to recommend the issue otherwise. And while artist Drew Johnson has many skills in his arsenal, visually rendering super-speed is not among them. Since three of the four principle characters use it in this story, that’s a bit of a problem. I hope we can go back to the soapy Mt. Olympus stuff next issue. Even bitter, student council president runner-up Veronica Cale would be preferable.

In terms of pure comics pleasure in pamphlet form, nothing this week can match Young Avengers 2 (Marvel). You heard me. It opens with Iron Lad explaining his circumstances to Jessica Jones, Captain America, and Iron Man, and writer Alan Heinberg manages to find a fresh approach to Kang and his time-travel shtick. The rest of the issue catches up with Patriot, Asgardian, and Hulkling as they fumble through another super-heroic adventure and try and figure out precisely how this masked vigilante thing is supposed to work. In the process, they run across the spunky debutante from the first issue and, quite promisingly, Cassie Lang, daughter of one of the cannon-fodder heroes from Avengers: Disassembled. As the cast shifts into place, Heinberg does a terrific job dropping in interesting twists, providing sharp and revealing character moments, and lacing things with just the right amount of absurd comedy. Fast, funny, smart, and fun, this book is a wonderfully pleasant surprise for me.

Tokyopop wins the race to be the first publisher to turn up its nose at CMX in the name of marketing. It’s in an interview at Newsarama, where they announce that they certainly won’t be covering any boobs when they publish Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame! Here’s a snippet:

“None of the pages will be censored like DC did with Ten Ten [Tenjho Tenge Vol. 1],” project editor Luis Reyes told Newsarama. “Tokyopop does not have a reputation for censoring at all. There were two instances on the Initial D series (volumes 1 and 9) in which we partially covered something on approval from the Japanese publisher. However, since then, we have never been in the practice of censoring books with the possible exception of Tokyo Tribes, which was actually censored by the artist himself boldly as a kind of statement against the fact that otherwise we’d have to sell his book shrink-wrapped.”

Except for those two times, they’ve never, ever censored! And one of those times, it was a bold statement against manga condoms! “Censored by the artist himself boldly” sounds like one of those joke translations of movie titles from foreign markets, doesn’t it? Perhaps I meant to type “wins” earlier.

To be fair, they lost me at “cyber-punk,” which is a phrase with the awesome power to make my eyelids droop. Throw in “dystopic ruin” and “very powerful gun,” and it’s like a glass of warm milk.

I don’t know if Nihei’s past work on a Wolverine mini-series will go any distance towards a crossover audience. It isn’t like there are a shortage of Wolverine mini-series out there (just ask Paul O’Brien), and I don’t remember Snikt! making much of an impression.

In my post about Tokyopop’s Rising Stars contest, I seem to have fused Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) and Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language). My only defense is that either would serve the point I was making, and that I was twitterpated by a fog of admiration for both. Or, I’m just kind of stupid. (Thanks for the anality, Joe!)

Speaking of the Rising Stars thing, Immelda Alty at Love Manga has weighed in on her favorites. (I agree with her completely about “The Perfect I Love You,” which could have fit quite neatly into SOS or a similar shojo anthology.)

At Comic World News, Shawn Hoke details his budding crush on manga in the latest Past the Front Racks. As with so many innocent comics readers, Planetes was his gateway drug. But Shawn proves he’s no poser by admitting he’s mainlining the hard stuff: Hikaru No Go and Imadoki! It’s a great primer for any comic fan looking wistfully but hesitantly over his shoulder at the shelves of digests as they pick up their weekly haul.

I’m inching ever closer to brainwashing the awesome Lea Hernandez into actually doing a comic about a vet student who treats mythical creatures. Help pick a likely publisher, won’t you? (My first inclination was to say Top Shelf, but that might be because I’m still under the influence of the second volume of Owly, which should be registered as a controlled substance.)