The invasion of Pokopen continues apace in SGT. FROG Vol. 2 (Tokyopop), if, by “apace,” you mean “entirely haphazardly.” Let me give you an example of what you’re missing if you haven’t given this quirky and hysterical manga a try. Junior high-schoolers Fuyuki and Momoka have stumbled upon the secret underground headquarters of the Pokopen invasion force (conveniently located under Fuyuki’s suburban home). Missiles are flying through the corridors of the heavily defended facility. On one of the corridor walls is a sign, featuring a jaunty and winking drawing of Keroro (the amphibian sergeant in question), and the text: “Please… keep horseplay to a minimum.” And that’s just one of the throw-away gags.

I’ve actually come across a Christopher Moore book I don’t like. Having read and really enjoyed Lamb, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, and Practical Demonkeeping, I’ve struck out with Coyote Blue. I think the problem is the protagonist, who lacks the off-kilter decency Moore usually gives his leads. It just seems like a rather shrill, long yuppie joke.

I did much better with Guard! Guards!, one of Terry Pratchett’s reliably wonderful Discworld books. I’m devouring these at an alarming rate, but there are still plenty to come. How did it take me so long to find out about these?

Based on the roaring success of New York Times Best Selling Author Brad Meltzer ™, comic publishers are snatching up hot authors to bring fresh voices to the super-hero genre. Here are some projects in development:

ENDURING REALM, by Ian McEwan: The Booker Prize-winning author of such novels as Atonement and Amsterdam takes a probing look Captain Britain. A child of privilege, Brian Braddock struggles to define his role as protector of the realm as he contends with the malaise of middle age. Can an amulet or sword shield Great Britain from a crumbling monarchy, the complications of multi-nationalism, and socioeconomic schism? Are power, wealth, and an eternally young bride enough to see a man through a crisis of confidence, or will drink rule the day? And what of his complex and disturbing relationship with Captain America? A probing study by one of the world’s greatest living writers.

LIFE OF PIEFACE, by Yann Martel: A bizarre sequence of events leaves Tom Kalmaku drifting in space in a green force bubble with a hodgepodge of hostile aliens. But it’s a spiritual journey as much as it is one of survival. Kalmaku finds his most fundamental beliefs challenged as the motley band of castaways forges an uneasy alliance against external forces. But will Pieface’s inner struggles overwhelm him along the way?

J’ONN J’ONZZ’S DIARY, by Helen Fielding. “Quantity of Oreos consumed: 1.6 rows of family-sized tray. Number of times checked Justice League communicator for messages: 27.” As the last survivor of his race, the Martian Manhunter brings new meaning to the term “singleton”! He’s a powerful, highly respected super-hero. So why does he always end up spending Friday nights with Red Tornado, Snapper Carr, and the Atom? J’onn resolves to change all that, but can an alien widower navigate the choppy waters of the DC dating pool?

Thanks to all the folks who have linked my ramblings to their own blogs, casting their own credibility into question. (Just kidding.)

I’m still working on my links section, but if you’d like your site or blog added to the list, let me know.

Scott and Polite Dissent pokes a delightfully sharp stick into the bloated corpse of the overhyped “Hush” arc from BATMAN here and here.

Newsweek is forcing me to draw the unflattering conclusion that its staff is spending the summer indoors, as it devotes many pages to a shameless tounge-bath of SPIDER-MAN 2. It’s a summer blockbuster sequel, for pity’s sake. Suspect news value aside, it’s delightful to imagine the cost-benefits analysis that must have been conducted when they picked this issue’s cover. “Heads, Clinton. Tails, Spidey.”

It’s new comics day. Have you put together your shopping list yet? Is the second SLEEPER trade on it?

I’m fascinated by the prospect of an Indian Spider-Man, which is covered in this article at Newsarama. (And I love the World Book “all about India” paragraph in the article for reasons I can’t quite explain.) I hope copies of this show up in American shops, so I can sample the adventures of Pavitr Prabhakar. I’m serious! It sounds cool.

Newsarama has a preview of Chuck Austen’s upcoming WORLDWATCH. Staggering as some of the physical proportions are in the preview art (the costumes seem thoughtfully designed to accommodate the maximum number of crumpled, sweaty singles), more shocking still are some of the quotes from artist Tom Derenick. For instance, the following:

“It’s some of the best work I’ve read from [Chuck Austen] and I think he’s done some great stuff. I received the script for issues #5 and #6 and you’d swear to God he was channeling Alan Moore at some points. This is not really like anything I’ve ever seen from Chuck and I’m very happy to be a part of it.”

It’s too bad, actually. I’ve been wondering what Austen would be like writing characters of his own creation. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY MEASUREMENTS won’t be my window into that world, unfortunately.

Contains spoilers based on solicitations:

My comments below on OUTSIDERS 13 were predicated on what’s turned out to be an incorrect bit of speculation on my part. Based on what seemed like obvious foreshadowing in that issue, I thought Jade was going to bite it.

She’d rightly pointed out flaws in Nightwing’s strategy, so I surmised that writer Judd Winnick would punish her (for being right) and Nightwing (for not caring about his teammates enough) by offing her. I’ve since seen solicitations for future issues, and what I expected doesn’t come to pass.

So, in one sense, there’s relief. Readers will be spared yet another super-heroine being killed to further the character development of her male co-stars. And that’s undeniably good. But, also based on solicitations, a member of the team dies, and soon. Is it a better story if the victim is male? And, more on my mind, is OUTSIDERS any good?

I’ve always thought the book’s first principles were shaky. The premise is that Nightwing wants out of the team game after the deaths of two of his close friends (Donna Troy and Lilith). Arsenal pitches the idea of a team composed of people who aren’t friends; Nightwing doesn’t have to care if they live or die, and he can concentrate on the work.

To my way of thinking, that notion demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the Dick Grayson character. For heaven’s sake, he was created to counterbalance the gloomy, loner angst of Batman, to be a positive life force in a dark place. Nothing he’s done since has indicated he’s willing or able to turn that off. He builds personal relationships easily and is always more prone to grant the benefit of the doubt than condemn. Caring is his reflex setting.

And, honestly, the Outsiders are hardly the Suicide Squad in terms of rough characters. Arsenal is one of his oldest friends. He’s known Jade for years; she’s the daughter of a legendary Gotham superhero, for heaven’s sake. Thunder is the daughter of one of Batman’s longtime associates, and Shift is a clone of another former Outsider. Aside from Grace, who’s likable enough, that leaves only Indigo on the indifferent list. It isn’t exactly a seething cauldron of clashing personalities.

So the central premise requires that Nightwing behave in ways that are contrary to his nature. Winnick’s getting around to pointing up that conflict (using Huntress to do it, of all people), but it still doesn’t hold water.

And to go so far as to kill a character to either test Nightwing’s resolve to maintain emotional distance or shatter his façade of the same seems gratuitous. You can just see the cemetery and trench coats as rain falls on the troubled heroes. (And if the victim is Shift, who is quite literally an extra Metamorpho, well, that’s not exactly a portrait of narrative courage, is it?)

Beyond these issues, there’s the smarmy hipness that soaks the title like cheap cologne. Everyone quips. Arsenal’s a smarmy lothario. Grace is a bouncer broad with loads of tattoos. Thunder seems to have crafted her heroic identity (appearance-wise, at least) from a Destiny’s Child video. Indigo, being the android who’s figuring out humanity, gets to use dreadful pop culture phrases without any risk of Winnick being accused of wallowing in dated lingo. (He is, but he’s doing it ironically, so it’s all right.) (Well, with the possible exception of, “Bring it!”)

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t care if they lived or died, either.

In Winnick’s defense, he’s at least making some use of his central premise, flawed as it is. In Kurt Busiek’s POWER COMPANY, the guiding principle – super-heroics for profit – was very rarely in evidence in the actual title. Any character gauche enough to bring up the possibility of payment was quickly shouted down either by intractable schoolmarm Skyrocket or by circumstances that forced them to act like every other not-for-profit hero.

This was particularly disappointing, as it’s an idea that’s never actually been fully realized in mainstream comics, and I was looking forward to seeing what Busiek did with it. Maybe if the title had lasted, he might have gotten around to exploring issues of enlightened capitalism. As it ended, though, they were a marginally grumpy group of heroes who worked out of an office building instead of a moon base or tricked-out mansion.

But, back to the point. Is OUTSIDERS any good? I would say no, based largely on the insincerity at its core. It posits itself as an “edgy” superhero book but it’s too lazy to do anything really different with the genre. Its edge is entirely cosmetic. And when you compare Winnick’s work to that of someone like Gail Simone, his falters rather badly.

Simone actually seems to achieve what Winnick intends. She manages to write funny, sexy, thought-provoking stories while still crafting them around credible, well-rounded characters. It’s a fundamental difference, in that I understand why Simone’s characters do what they do and I know they’re sincere in their commitment. With Winnick, it just seems like there wasn’t anything good on television the day the team was founded.

I tore through two manga digests this weekend, and my interest in the genre growing. The mere fact that it can encompass stories as wildly different as HOT GIMMICK and SGT. FROG makes it worth consideration.

HOT GIMMICK Vol. 1 was a total surprise to me, a challenging and disturbing story of a young girl navigating the suffocating caste system of a company housing complex. Miki Aihara is telling a story that wouldn’t be out of place next to the novels of Thomas Hardy or the Bronte sisters, with a sensitive heroine struggling to maintain her dignity in a world where she has no power. That heroine is Hatsumi, a 16-year-old who finds herself under the thumb of a cruelly manipulative young man as she tries to protect the reputation of her sister and family. Ryoki, the son of the venomous queen bee of the complex, uses his gifts of intelligence, wealth, and status to torture Hatsumi. Whether due to an ingrained sense of superiority or some more serious flaw in his nature, he seems unable to help himself. Hatsumi, due to her basic decency and insecurity, can’t seem to stop him, even as her feelings blossom for a childhood friend, Azusa, a pin-up model. She’s in an impossible position, largely because of the placidity that the hothouse environment of the complex has imposed on her. Despite her best intentions and an innate sense of right and wrong, Hatsumi’s first response seems to be to sublimate her own desires. It would be horribly frustrating to read if it weren’t so fascinating in its cultural context. Instead of appearing spineless, Hatsumi is entirely believable, sympathetic, and fascinating. HOT GIMMICK isn’t a title I’m eager to devour; its themes are too troubling for that. But I’ll definitely be picking up other volumes.

So what a pleasure it was to find a loopy palate cleanser in SGT. FROG Vol. 1. Sergeant Keroro, the alien frog of the title, has come to Earth to conquer it. As menacing alien presences go, he’s undermined a bit by his Muppet-like appearance and devotion to Gundam model sets. His mission compromised, he finds himself somewhere between prisoner and pet of the Hinata family, comprised of kindly nerd Fuyuki and bossy older sister Natsume. In a refreshing twist, mom Aki is delighted by the addition to the household, to Fuyuki’s relief and Natsume’s horror. See, Aki is a manga editor, and she’s thrilled to have such an obvious source of inspiration under her own roof. In this volume, the cast expands to include the borderline bi-polar pair of the devoted Private Tamama and his human captor Momoko, who’s nursing an obsessive crush on Fuyuki. Throw in a few ghosts and an alien warrior princess and you’ve got a grab bag of manga stereotypes, but creator Mine Yoshizaki’s touch is so lighthearted and energetic that everything ends up getting turned on its head. The chapters race along with a reckless eventfulness that verges on attention deficit disorder. Charming and hilarious. I love it.

So, what should I try next?

This week’s DCU titles:

BIRDS OF PREY 68: Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle try spending some down time together with mixed results. Short tempers manifest as sexual jealousy, and hurt feelings ensue. Writer Gail Simone generally does a terrific job making these women seem like mature people who happen to be sexually active (unlike Judd Winnick, who seems approaches adult relationships with a smirk). She also does yeoman’s work reconciling events in other titles without making it seem like info-dump. While she sometimes skates on the edge of bad taste, there’s a generosity of spirit to her characterization and humor that keep things from becoming crass. Unfortunately, guest artist Joe Bennett didn’t seem to get the memo. Tits ahoy! Ah, well.

GOTHAM CENTRAL 20: Another arc, another Bat-villain in the mix, this time the Mad Hatter. Two, actually, as the Penguin shows up towards the end. While it would be a nice change to have a story that doesn’t include any of Arkham Asylum’s passel of violent freaks, writer Ed Brubaker keeps the focus squarely on the men and women of the Gotham City Police Department. Banter between partners, the aftermath of an officer’s impending death, a tricky interrogation, and the dangerous frustration of a fallen cop all paint richly personal portraits of law enforcement in an extraordinary place. Artwork by Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano is typically stunning, like beautifully gritty cinematography.

JSA 62: You are entering a character reconstruction site. Please don protective headgear. This isn’t so much a story as it is a guy superhero encounter session, to be perfectly honest. As undead criminals lay siege, members of the JSA prop up men folk in crisis, from the Spectre to Flash to Mister Terrific. I think writer Geoff Johns might be a little too fond of his characters at this point. His crush on the golden-age members of the JSA has rendered them utter paragons, and if they have any doubts or fears, a squadron of team-mates circles them to reassert their perfection. He does better with the younger members, though sometimes the dialogue makes me scratch my head. (“I only lead those who need it.” What does that even mean?) The biggest flaw in the book, though, is the nonsensical moral crisis Hal Jordan undergoes. Despite not really being in a position to complain, considering his past behavior, he doesn’t really care for God’s job description for the Spectre. Clearly imagining himself on the receiving end of the Spirit of Vengeance, he tries to take a more rehabilitative approach to the job. That goes about as well as you’d expect, and the effect is to make Jordan look like a self-pitying poser more than a man of conscience. (That ship’s sailed anyways.) And when did the heroes of the DC Universe suddenly start having a problem with the Spectre’s mission statement? Or is it just that they know Jordan well enough to realize how ill-suited he is for the job? Final note: there’s a river of continuity running through this book as thick as lava, both post-Crisis and pre. If you’re a casual reader, you’ll be hopeless lost.

JUSTICE LEAGE: ANOTHER NAIL 2: I almost never say this, but this title seems like it’s going to be a bit shorter than necessary. Writer and artist Alan Davis and inker Mark Farmer are clearly having a glorious time stuffing the book with their favorite silver-age DC icons, and it’s a visual feast, filled with Easter eggs for longtime fans. Unfortunately, the crowd overtakes any kind of clear narrative. Threads from the previous issue are dropped or mentioned only obliquely, the events depicted on the cover are only mentioned after the fact in the book, and new subplots crop up as fast as new faces. And the central story isn’t particularly clear or strong to begin with. Still, as eye candy goes, this is difficult to beat.

OUTSIDERS 13: “Hi! I’m the physical embodiment of Foreshadowing. Keep your eye on the green girl, ‘cause she’s in for it!” Sorry. I hate it when manifestations of literary concepts take over my keyboard. This book is rapidly losing its charm, in my opinion. Despite having a fairly solid plot – the Fearsome Five reunites with one unspecified motive, one new member, and one back-from-the-dead Goth revamp – the entire affair seems more about how edgy and cool the book is than in anything so banal as actually telling a story. The quipping is relentless, and it casts a haze of smugness over everything. And artist Tom Raney gets in on the act, scattering in a number of gratuitous transformations for Shift that will really cause legal problems, should Plastic Man pick up a copy of the book and decide to sue. Someone really should reassure Judd Winnick that he’s already got a seat at the big kid’s table, and he can just relax already.

Always on the cutting edge, Marvel has given its web site a fresh coat of paint. Translation: they’ve changed the background from basic black to a washed-out character wallpaper that causes eye strain. In me, at least.

And thanks to the Pulse for covering this important story. They could have thrown in a user warning to don protective eyewear, but why quibble?

Obviously, I’ve been devoting too much mental energy to DC’s IDENTITY CRISIS lately, but I can’t seem to stop myself from squandering synapses in that direction. At the moment, I’m wondering about it in juxtaposition with that same publisher’s ANOTHER NAIL.

Why, for example, did they publish these two titles at the same time? Both are essentially genre pastiches that rely heavily on Silver Age DC. But only one has gotten a slavish promotional push, that being IC.

I can see a number of reasons why IC would get preferential marketing treatment. It’s in continuity, so it “matters.” It’s got a “real” writer, who actually might have a public profile outside the comics subculture (though I’d never heard of him prior to his work for DC, and I consume a fairly large number of mysteries and thrillers in the average year). And it’s just enough of a (misguided) navel-gaze at comic storytelling conventions as to generate a couple of inches of column space for journalists who might not otherwise care.

So, that explains why IC got the lion’s share of DC’s marketing effort, but it doesn’t clear up for me why AN didn’t seem to get any promotion aside from a few house ads. The first series sold extraordinarily well and was lavished with critical praise. While the central premise isn’t as strong (“What would the world be like without Superman?” obviously trumps “What would Superman be like if he were raised by the Amish?”), AN is still a sequel to a hit with the creative team intact.

Maybe DC figures it will sell to its intended audience without any huckstering. That’s kind of a shaky assumption, given the high cost of individual issues. Given the length of time between THE NAIL and its sequel, I’d think demand would have waned. Memories are short, and DC apparently can’t pimp two big “events” at a time.

So why not push back publication of AN until they could roll it out properly? It isn’t a great book, by any means, but it might have made a tidier profit if it wasn’t treated like IC’s poor relation.

I’ll have comments on this week’s stack over the next couple of days.