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Upcoming 10/5/2011

October 4, 2011 by

It’s a huge week of eagerly anticipated arrivals on the ComicList, so let’s get right to it!

Drawn & Quarterly releases the collection of Kate Beaton’s super-smart, super-funny Hark! A Vagrant strips. I’ve read some of these online, mostly in the context of someone linking to individual strips and rightly noting how super smart and super funny they are, but I’ve resisted reading all of them, because I wanted to hold the book in my hands and enjoy all of these comics in dead-tree form.

NBM delivers Takashi Murakami’s Stargazing Dog, which is about a down-on-his-luck guy who gets through tough times with the help of his loyal canine companion. Early word on this is that it’s lovely but will probably make me cry buckets, so I’ve stocked up on handkerchiefs. Here’s a preview.

If you missed it in hardcover (as I did), Emblem Editions gives you a paperback opportunity to enjoy Scott Chantler’s Two Generals, which portrays World War II through the eyes of average soldiers. Chantler is a marvelous cartoonist, as evidenced by his Northwest Passage from Oni Press, so I’m really excited about this one.

Osamu Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects (Vertical) reaches comic shops. I reviewed the book last week; it’s excellent, particularly for fans of Tezuka’s unique brand of noir.

Viz is also dumping a ton of new titles on the market, many of which were discussed in the current Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week and Bookshelf Briefs. Of the series I’ve not yet personally mentioned, I would highlight the fourth volume of Kazue Kato’s increasingly excellent Blue Exorcist and the ninth volume of Yuki Midorikawa’s always lovely Natsume’s Book of Friends. I’m also led to believe, by a reliable source, that Toshiaki Iwashiro’s Psyren becomes a lot better than the first volume would suggest, which is certainly possible; most of the first volume of Blue Exorcist was flat-out awful, and that’s become one of my favorite shônen titles.

But enough about my incipient poverty; what looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Drawn & Quarterly, NBM, Vertical, Viz 1 Comment

Upcoming 9/28/2011

September 27, 2011 by

Before we delve into the current ComicList, I just have to reinforce my Midtown Comics Pick of the Week: Osamu Tezuka’s Book of Human Insects (Vertical) is amazingly good pulp. Of course, I’m rather fixated on two belated arrivals to comic shops.

When one uses a variety of retail streams to acquire their comics, one can lose all sense of the orderly progression of time. One can also feel like the very last person on earth to get his hands on fabulous, classic shôjo. This is my way of leading up to saying that I will finally, finally be able to purchase my pre-ordered copies of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon and its prequel, Codename Sailor V, both from Kodansha. With these and Dark Horse’s re-release of CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura, I feel like all of my magical-girl manga needs are being gloriously met. (Not punctually met, but gloriously.)

I still shouldn’t allow all of this delightful sparkle to distract myself from Viz’s contributions to the week’s bounty. There’s the 26th volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist, possibly my favorite shônen fantasy-adventure ever, and the fourth volume of Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves, certainly among my very favorite character-driven seinen series.

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Kodansha Comics, Linkblogging, Vertical, Viz 1 Comment

Upcoming 9/21/2011

September 20, 2011 by

Have you checked out the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week? Then we’re ready for a perusal of this week’s ComicList!

For me, the clear leader, at least in the Diamond-verse, is the fourth volume of Yumi Unita’s Bunny Drop (Yen Press). In this volume, single father Daikichi deals with the quirks of another member of his large family as he continues to learn to be a good parent to Rin, his late grandfather’s young daughter. It’s heartfelt and funny, and I highly recommend you try it if you haven’t already.

And I really must catch up on Yuu Watase’s very likeable shônen adventure, Arata: The Legend (Viz), though I’m nowhere near ready for the seventh volume, which arrives Wednesday. Fortunately, I can catch up via Viz’s iPad app. Now I can have menacing physical stacks of books and too many virtual ones in the queue.

For succinct assessments of some recent releases, check out the latest round of Bookshelf Briefs from the Battle Robot.

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Linkblogging, Viz, Yen Press 5 Comments

Upcoming 9/7/2011

September 6, 2011 by

As the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week can testify, Viz is publishing enough manga this week to choke a horse. It’s even more crowded over at the ComicList than it is at Midtown Comics.

This gives me the opportunity to save another highlight for my own blog: the third three-volume omnibus of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi (Viz). I’ve been enjoying the heck out of this tale of young exorcists finding their places in the family business, and I fully expect to keep enjoying it, especially since it’s so inexpensive, relatively speaking.

On the shôjo front, there’s the 10th volume of Karuho Shiina’s funky, sweet Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (also Viz). Spooky-looking but sparkling-on-the-inside heroine Sawako decides to really express her feelings to down-to-earth dreamboat Kazehaya, which could turn out… any number of ways, to be honest.

Ah, but the ComicList offers a seinen option as well! Vertical releases the one-volume Velveteen & Mandala by Jiro Matsumoto. It’s about schoolgirls who cut class to battle zombies in a satirically dystopian future. As I noted in a recent Bookshelf Brief, this didn’t really work for me, but I think that the comic itself isn’t exactly in my taste spectrum. Fans of this kind of thing, and I know you are numerous, should be perfectly content. It originally ran in Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F, which has given me plenty of manga to enjoy, so I can hardly complain that this fifth-genre magazine doesn’t succeed for me every time.

Speaking of Bookshelf Briefs, this week’s column includes a brief look at a boys’-love title that I read thanks to your crowd-sourced feedback, Puku Okuyama’s Warning! Whispers of Love (DMP).

Elsewhere on the Manga Bookshelf mother ship, where all of our robot limbs wait gleaming in hangars between battles, I contribute a review to the inaugural Going Digital column. A reasonable price and the lack of a physical copy to clutter my shelves entices me to try the first volume of the classic Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Dark Horse, DMP, Quick Comic Comments, Vertical, Viz 3 Comments

Random weekend question: Ace in the hole

September 3, 2011 by

You all know how much I love Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece (Viz), but I have to admit that I’m finding the current arc a bit of a chore. Now, you should know that I’m sort of working at the series from two directions, reading current volumes and catching up on middle arcs at the same time. And I’m wondering: is there a story arc in that middle part that will make me care about what does or doesn’t happen to Luffy’s brother, Ace, which I don’t currently care about, or should I just ride it out until this overlong bombast is over? Even the fact that Luffy cares what happens to him isn’t enough for me.

I sure do love Ivankov, at least.

 

Filed under: Random weekend question, Viz 5 Comments

Upcoming 8/31/2011

August 30, 2011 by

Hey, look up there! It’s the cover to my Pick of the Week! Haven’t seen one of those in a while, have we? Perhaps it bodes well for this week’s ComicList!

A week can’t be all bad when it features a new two-volume collection of Kaoru Tada’s quirky, funny Itazura na Kiss (Digital Manga), can it? Kotoko tries to hang on to the gains she’s made in her relationship with Naoki, and I think we can all guess how well that’s going to go for the poor dear.

Kodansha releases the 10th volume of Koji Kumeta’s sharp, satirical Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, promising lots of field trips and ultimately dispiriting life lessons!

And Viz rolls out a few Signature titles. The one I’m most eager to read is the fourth volume of Q Hayashida’s gritty yet strangely charming horror series, Dorohedoro. That book has really grown on me since its debut.

Sci-fi, romance, satire, and horror… a nice mix, in the end! What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, DAILY CHATTER, Dark Horse, DMP, Kodansha Comics, Linkblogging, Viz 2 Comments

MMF: Yoshinaga top five

August 17, 2011 by

I suppose that, since I asked others to pick their favorite Fumi Yoshinaga title, I should be willing to make the same impossible choice. It’s a thankless process, to be honest, since almost all of her works that have been published in English (which is almost all of them) assert their worth so forcefully. But, since I feel forced to do so, here are my five favorite works by Yoshinaga, in order:

  1. Antique Bakery, Digital Manga Publishing, four volumes, originally published in Shinkoshan’s Wings: As with many who left comments, this was my introduction to Yoshinaga, and it’s hard to get over your first time. A handsome straight guy opens a bakery and hires an irresistible gay guy to be his pastry chef. Additional employees of varying individual adorability hare subsequently hired, and Yoshinaga gives a glimpse into their complicated lives and those of their customers, friends, and families.
  2. Flower of Life, Digital Manga Publishing, four volumes, originally published in Shinkoshan’s Wings and later republished by Hakusensha: Yoshinaga dissects the milestones and tropes of school comedy with such precision and warmth that this series could easily have taken first place, though Antique Bakery gains an additional, slight edge by being about grown-ups. We follow a group of classmates and their teacher as they get to know outgoing (and blunt) Harutaro, a new student who missed a year due to leukemia treatment.
  3. Ichigenme: The First Class Is Civil Law, 801 Media, two volumes, originally published by Biblos: As I wrote in greater detail earlier this week, Ichigenme is at the very top of my list of favorite yaoi, tied with Saika Kunieda’s Future Lovers (Deux Press). What Yoshinaga has here is a fully fleshed-out tale of evolving love between grown-ups, funny, smart, and sexy as you could hope.
  4. All My Darling Daughters, Viz Signature, one volume, originally published in Hakusensha’s Melody: This is quite possibly my favorite fictional examination of a mother-daughter relationship, an all-too-often neglected dynamic. This collection of interconnected short stories isn’t limited to that topic, and Yoshinaga does a marvelous job throughout, but the best moments involve a grown woman whose relationship with her mother changes when the mother begins a new relationship with a much-younger man.
  5. Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Viz Signature, currently serialized in Hakusensha’s Melody: It’s probably strange, if not blasphemous, to put Yoshinaga’s most critically acclaimed series last on this list, but it’s hard not to favor completed works over one that’s still ongoing, good as that series may be. And, don’t get me wrong, Ôoku is very, very good. This history-with-a-spoke-in-the-wheels saga looks at a feudal Japan where the male population was decimated by disease, leaving the women to assume power, with all of the intrigue, drama, and conflicted emotions that prospect suggests.

There. I’ve committed my list to blog. I actually feel liberated. And it should probably be noted that all of these titles are among my favorite manga published in English, period.

Filed under: 801, DAILY CHATTER, DMP, Manga Moveable Feast, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 1 Comment

Previews review August 2011

August 8, 2011 by

Okay, I normally don’t dwell on this sort of thing, but I just have to make an observation about the covers in the DC section of the current Previews catalog. These are mostly the second issues of the publisher’s big re-launch of its super-hero line presumably to make it more accessible to people who wouldn’t normally pick up a comic about Superman or Batman or Green Lantern. Here’s my observation: the covers of these comics look exactly like these comics have looked for the last twenty years, possibly pinpoint-able right to the late 1990s. So this should be interesting, since it really does seem like an example of the scientific method. If all other things are equal, and DC changes one thing – the volume of back story in play to theoretically confuse or bar a casual reader from entry – will people who did not previously care about the Justice League suddenly start caring about the justice league? Time will tell! Let’s move on to things I will actually purchase!

Princess Knight vol. 1, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, Vertical, Inc., AUG11 1232: The most actually exciting thing in the catalog is the English-language debut of Tezuka’s game-changing shôjo classic. Some of us have been waiting years for this to happen. Years.

Hark! A Vagrant, written and illustrated by Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly, AUG11 1018: Beaton’s super-smart comics “takes readers on a romp through history and literature — with dignity for few and cookies for all — with comic strips about famous authors, their characters, and political and historical figures, all drawn in Beaton’s pared-down, excitable style. This collection features favourite stories as well as new, previously unpublished content. Whether she’s writing about Nikola Tesla, Napoleon, or Nancy Drew, Beaton brings a refined sense of the absurd to every situation.”

Two Generals, written and illustrated by Scott Chantler, Emblem Editions, AUG11 1060: This is the soft-cover edition of Chantler’s acclaimed historical graphic novel.

Tesoro: Short Stories 1998-2008, written and illustrated by Natsume Ono, Viz Media, AUG11 1256: This volume collections some of the earliest professional work by the gifted creator of series like Gente and The House of Five Leaves. So you should probably buy it.

There’s also the 2011 edition of The Best American Comics from Houghton Mifflin. I’ve made it this long without reading one of these, so I doubt my streak will be broken, though the guest editorial duties of Alison Bechdel may make me waver.

And here are new volumes of ongoing series that you should seriously consider buying:

That’s… like… a lot.

 

Filed under: Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, FEATURES, Kodansha Comics, NBM, Previews, Vertical, Viz, Yen Press 8 Comments

Upcoming 8/3/2011

August 2, 2011 by

Given the vagaries of comic distribution timing, I’ve already read two of the titles I’m most eagerly anticipating off of the current ComicList. So I guess I’m not eagerly anticipating them so much as fondly remembering them. Anyway, you might still be undecided, so…

First up was the fourth volume of The Story of Saiunkoku (Viz), Kairi Yura’s lovely adaptation of Sai Yukino’s light novels. It’s entirely possible that I love this series so much that I can no longer see its flaws, but I think it equally likely that there are no meaningful flaws to be seen. This arrival was particularly welcome during the debate over the debt ceiling, as it suggested a world where people go into governance for the right reasons, and the best and brightest are rewarded with responsibility and authority. So, yes, clearly it’s a fantasy, but it’s a lovely and reassuring one, and the creators reinforce its ultimately feminist message by moving their heroine closer to her dream, even if it damages the romantic prospects of the man who loves her. That’s not the kind of conundrum you see every day in entertainment, which makes this series just about priceless.

Less rewarding was the fourth volume of Julietta Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss (Viz). I generally like this series very much for the evenhanded approach Suzuki takes with her male and female protagonists. She treats them with equal respect, and she gives each specific strengths which make their relationship much more interesting than some victim-rescuer dynamic would be. That balance slips a bit this time around, which is disappointing, though hardly fatal. I still like the characters a lot, but certain complications screw up their dynamic and make it depressingly… conventional. (Misunderstanding! Secrecy! Alienation!) I count on Suzuki’s quirky good sense to reassert itself next time around.

In other Viz news, this week sees the delivery of the third volume of Kazue Kato’s very promising Blue Exorcist, the eighth volume of Yuki Midorikawa’s lovely Natsume’s Book of Friends, and the second volume of Mayu Shinjo’s sure-to-be-repulsive Ai Ore!

Oh, and in the category of things I’m still eagerly anticipating, there’s the second volume of CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura (Dark Horse). I can’t believe I’ve yet to see this series in a Barnes & Noble.

What looks good to you?

 

Filed under: ComicList, Dark Horse, FEATURES, Quick Comic Comments, Viz 5 Comments

Talk amongst yourselves

July 22, 2011 by

Between a rather frenzied real life and preparations for the upcoming Manga Moveable Feast — Sunday, July 24, to Saturday, July 30, featuring Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) — I need to excuse myself from this week’s regularly scheduled license request.

But…

So Viz has thrown off the shackles of platform to launch VizManga.Com. Which treasures from Viz’s relatively vast catalog would you be interested in reading digitally? (Legally digitally, obviously. You can probably read all of them digitally at this point, but that’s not what I’m talking about in these circumstances.)

 

 

Filed under: DAILY CHATTER, Digital delivery, LICENSE REQUESTS, Manga Moveable Feast, Random weekend question, Viz 8 Comments
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