The Manga Curmudgeon

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From the stack: Nightschool

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nightschool1Reading the first volume of Svetlana Chmakova’s Nightschool: The Weirn Books (Yen Press) is a bit like reading an interesting recipe that sounds like it will result in a tasty dish. I’m the kind of person who reads cookbooks for fun, so I mean that as a compliment. Chmakova lists a bunch of interesting ingredients and suggests promising ways they might be combined.

It’s abut a young witch (or “weirn”) named Alex. Her older sister, Sarah, works as a sort-of guidance counselor at a school for the demonically inclined. In these times of scant educational funding, the institution shares space with a garden-variety high school after the sun sets. Alex has opted for home-schooling for as-yet-undisclosed reasons, though Sarah hasn’t given up on persuading Alex to join the weirns, vampires and werewolves that form the school’s student body.

As Sarah deals with weird kids at the school, Alex encounters her own troubles on a self-directed field trip. Alex wants to practice a spell in the field, and brings her inky smudge of a demonic familiar along. They run into a group of trainee monster hunters who are more inclined to eliminate eligible night-school students than educate them. They have their own parallel subculture to the school, which itself is fraught with unexpected perils.

It’s a lot of set-up to juggle, and Chmakova does a very nice job. The sizeable cast and their respective castes get a sensible amount of introduction, and the concluding twist gives a good nudge towards forcing Alex to engage with the school. Alex herself seems reasonably formidable and a bit mysterious.

Not surprisingly, Nightschool is a great-looking book. Chmakova proved her drawing chops on Dramacon, one of a handful of hits that emerged from Tokyopop’s global manga push. I didn’t especially care for that book, but I did find the visual storytelling to be brimming with talent. Chmakova’s work stood out in the way she didn’t seem to be imitating some idea of “manga style.” She’d clearly been steeped in the stuff, but her work had a distinctive look of its own, along with plenty of energy and emotion.

Nightschool carries over the appealing illustrations while demonstrating a smarter, subtler storytelling sensibility than Dramacon. As I said, all of the ingredients are there, and I feel reasonably confident in predicting that Chmakova will whip them up into something appealing.

Iwahara-rama

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I’m normally not a fan of swapping “tw-” for perfectly good consonants to create an unnecessary new word, but I’ve experienced a feeling I can only describe as “twuilt”: when something someone posts on Twitter shakes you out of your planned, need I add hard-earned, torpor and motivates you to write a manga column after all, even though you were planning on taking the week off.

Anyway, comics-loving librarian Eva Volin noted over the weekend that Yuji Iwahara’s Chikyu Misaki (CMX) is deeply under-appreciated, and while I’d been planning on writing something about Iwahara’s comics eventually, I moved the column ahead in the queue. So it’s now up over at The Comics Reporter.

Since I’m on the subject of the talented Iwahara, how about a poll?

If your favorite hasn’t been licensed yet, feel free to list it in the comments.

Upcoming 7/8/2009

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fb23I’ll begin my look at this week’s ComicList with a request. If you’ve never actually read a volume of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), which concludes with its 23rd volume, I beg you to refrain from writing about the mega-hit in condescending, reductive terms. It’s not a cutesy romantic fantasy about people who turn into animals, or at least it hasn’t been since maybe its second or third volume. It’s actually a crushingly effective drama about breaking a generational cycle of emotional abuse and neglect, and it’s one of a very small handful of comics that has ever made me cry. It’s also a rare example of an extremely popular comic also being an absolutely brilliant comic, so in deference to the people who are going to miss new volumes rather terribly, please don’t call it “fluffy” or something equally inane.

catparadise1With that off my chest, I can look to the future, which includes a new series from Yuji Iwahara, Cat Paradise (Yen Press). CMX published Iwahara’s three-volume Chikyu Misaki, which still ranks for me as one of the most underappreciated manga ever to be published in English. It’s a terrific blend of fantasy and mystery with wonderful characters and unusual, eye-catching illustrations. Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop), was less successful for me, though I found it to be a very competent survival drama. Of course, it was coming out at roughly the same time as Minetaro Mochizuki’s utterly genius survival drama, Dragon Head (Tokyopop), so it was bound to suffer in comparison. Anyway, Cat Paradise seems to be about students and their pets fighting against demonic forces or something like that, but describing Iwahara’s comics never really does them justice, and his work is always worth a look.

kp10I suspect the impact of its conclusion will be washed away in a sea of Fruits Basket tears, but I’ll also miss Kitchen Princess (Del Rey), written by Miyuki Kobayashi and illustrated by Natsumi Ando. It’s a cooking manga, which is enough to put it on my “read automatically” list, but it also became an increasingly effective melodrama as the series progressed. And there are recipes in the back. Try the Madeleine recipe. On the shônen front, Del Rey also offers a new volume of Hiro Mashima’s very entertaining Fairy Tail.

It’s also Viz’s week to remind me that I really need to hunker down and catch up with some series that I like very much: Hideaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama, Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and Yuki Obata’s We Were There. In my defense, Viz keeps publishing great new manga, particularly in its Signature line, so it’s becoming increasingly impractical to keep up with ongoing series.

Previews review July 2009

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There’s quite a bit of interesting material in the July 2009 edition of Diamond’s Previews catalog. Whether it actually makes it to comic shops is always a question worth considering, but the theoretical abundance is certainly alluring.

First up is Reversible: A Dojinshi Collection by various artists, published by Digital Manga. I’ve never heard of any of the creators involved (“Kometa Yonekura, Shiori Ikezawa, Haruki Fujimoto, Goroh, and many more!”), but the prospect of a book full of fan-created yaoi is too intriguing to pass up. (Page 241)

Masayuki Ishikaway’s eagerly awaited, Tezuka Prize winning Moyasimon arrives courtesy of Del Rey. “You might think that life at an agricultural university in Japan isn’t exactly exciting. But Todayasu, a student, sees the world differently – he has the unique ability to see, and communicate with, bacteria and micro-organisms, which appear to him as super-cute little creatures.” I was sold on this before it was even licensed. (Page 244)

ayaIf you haven’t treated yourself to the first two volumes of Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s earthy, charming soap opera set in the Ivory Coast of the 1970s, then you should catch up, since the third, Aya: The Secrets Come Out, arrives via Drawn & Quarterly. “It’s a world of shifting values, where issues like arranged marriage and gay love have Aya and her friends yearning to break out of the confines of their community, while the ties of friendship and support draw them back into its familiarity.” (Page 246)

Every month is better with some Jiro Taniguchi in it, and Fanfare/Ponent Mon provides. In this case, it’s the second volume of The Summit of the Gods, illustrated by Taniguchi and written by Yumemakura Baku. The ascent up Mt. Everest continues, and I’m guessing Taniguchi draws the holy hell out of it. (Page 252)

Oni Press is wise enough to devote a two-page spread to Lola: A Ghost Story, written by J. Torres, because you get to see some really lovely sample pages illustrated by Elbert Or. It’s about a boy named Jesse, who “sees dead people, monsters, demons, and lots of other things that no one else can see,” and must take up his grandmother’s mantle as protector of a small town. The mere promise of “pigs possessed by the devil” is reason enough for me to jot it down on the order form. (Page 278 and 279)

alecTop Shelf drops a massive omnibus, available in soft- and hardcover versions, of Eddie Campbells Alec comics, called The Years Have Pants (A Life-Size Omnibus). It “collects the previous Alec books, as well as a generous helping of rare and never-before-seen material, including an all-new 35-page book, The Years Have Pants. The softcover is $35, and the hardcover is $49.95, each coming in at 640 pages. (Page 296)

wawwI saw this on Twitter yesterday, and there it is in the catalog. Viz releases two volumes of Inio (Solanin) Asano’s What a Wonderful World! “With this series of intersecting vignettes, Inio Asano explores the ways in which modern life can be ridiculous and sublime, terrible and precious, wasted and celebrated.”

stitchesI automatically become nervous when buzz about a book reaches a certain pitch, so I’m glad I read a comp copy of David Small’s Stitches (W.W. Norton) before that buzz became too frenzied. It really, really, really is an extraordinary book. Small fearlessly renders childhood horrors with restraint and dignity, re-creating “a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka.” That isn’t hyperbole, and the advance interest in the book is entirely deserved, as will be the raves after it’s released. Seriously, it’s the kind of book that will end up on Best Books of 2009 lists in addition to a whole lot of Best Comics of 2009 lists. (Page 311)

yotsuba6Last, but certainly not least, Yen Press brings boundless joy to the world (at least the world occupied by people with good taste) by releasing the sixth volume of Kiyohiko Azuma’s hilarious, completely endearing Yotsuba&! Yen also releases brushed-up versions of the first five volumes, previously published by ADV. “Yotsuba recycles! She gets a bike, learns about sticky notes, and drinks some super-yummy milk which she then decides she has to share with everyone!” Bless you, bless you , bless you, Yen Press. (Page 312)

Carrion luggage

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I’m sure I’ve used that joke before. Anyway, there’s a new Flipped up, in which I talk a bit about four-panel comics to camouflage the fact that I’m going on about Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro yet again.

Upcoming 4/22/2009

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Not a huge quantity of new arrivals on this week’s ComicList, so I’ll pad things out with a poll.

  • Chocolate Surprise, by Lily Hoshino (Deux): I swear someone told me that Hoshino created the kind of yaoi that I like – character-driven and emotionally grounded. Am I remembering incorrectly?
  • 20th Century Boys vol. 2 by Naoki Urasawa (Viz): See below.
  • Real vol. 4, by Takehiko Inoue (Viz): Inoue’s tremendously good comic about wheelchair basketball continues.
  • Higurashi: When They Cry vol. 2, by Ryukishi07 and Karin Suzuragi (Yen Press): I read the first volume over the weekend, and I’m intrigued enough to see where it goes for at least another volume. I wish the characters were as involving as the creepy plot twists.

    • As you know, Viz is rolling out two series from Naoki (Monster) Urasawa at the same time, the aforementioned 20th Century Boys and Pluto. I like 20th Century Boys fine, but I suspect I’d like it a lot better if I weren’t reading it side by side with Pluto, which I think is superior. So I thought I’d throw out the question as to which book readers prefer.

    Upcoming 4/15/2009

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    What evil lurks in this week’s ComicList? Probably plenty, but let’s cast our eyes toward the light. Unless the evil looks like it’s having a much better time.

    Wolverine: Prodigal Son Vol. 1 (Del Rey): Del Rey and Marvel’s mutant-manga hybrid debuts with this story of a teen-aged Logan entering the big, bad world after years in a secluded martial arts academy in the Canadian wilderness. If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, than our pointy-haired X-Man’s life has added value like you would not believe. Doesn’t he have an entire ongoing series just devoted to his origin? Now we have the adventures of Wolver-teen to fill in one of the few remaining gaps, at least in an “Elseworlds” kind of way. (And yes, I know that DC did the “Elseworlds” books. You know what I mean.)

    Written by Anthony Johnston and illustrated by Wilson Tortosa, it’s an interesting fusion of two tastes (Marvel super-heroes and shônen manga) that have not traditionally tasted great together. It’s Logan without any of the baggage that might render his ongoing comics impenetrable to people who just liked the character from the X-Men movies and the upcoming solo flick starring Hugh Jackman in a sleeveless undershirt.

    Excuse me… I need a moment.

    Sorry about that. Anyway, I think it’s got enough recognizable character trappings welded to the young-man-with-a-quest structure that works so well for so many manga series. Purists may howl, but are there even any Wolverine purists left? Don’t they blink out of existence every time a new origin story is published? I don’t know how these things work. Sleeveless-undershirt-Jackman aside, I’ve never been that interested in Wolverine.

    Here’s Eva Volin’s review for ICv2.

    Nightschool Vol. 1 (Yen Press): One of the clear lottery winners in Tokyopop’s global manga program was undoubtedly Svetlana (Dramacon) Chmakova, who demonstrated buckets of raw talent in her debut work. This is her follow-up work, which has been serialized in Yen Plus and now sees the publication of its first paperback collection.

    The Eisner ballot… of the FUTURE!

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    Okay, the order forms from the current issue of Diamond’s Previews catalog were due yesterday. I apologize for the tardiness, but the day job has been rather distracting lately. (Not bad, just busy.) And there’s abundant genius being solicited, so maybe it’s not too late for you to nag your local comics shop, or at least pre-order online from some other vendor.

    Eden: It’s an Endless World! Vol. 12 (Dark Horse): Hiroki Endo’s dense, absorbing science-fiction series continues. (Page 44.)

    Emma, Vol. 9 (CMX): More glorious period soap opera from Kaoru Mori. (Page 124.)

    Johnny Hiro Vol. 1 (AdHouse): The first three issues of Fred Chao’s very funny genre mash-up are collected here. (Page 186.)

    Swallowing the Earth Vol. 1 (Digital Manga Publishing): It’s by Osamu Tezuka, which is really all you need to know. It’s also about a mysterious demigoddess “wielding her mysterious power over all men to exact revenge for their crimes against women since the beginning of time,” which sounds ceaselessly awesome. (Page 245.)

    Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip Vol. 4 (Drawn & Quarterly): So funny, so quirky, so sweet. It’s one of the few perfect things in the world. (Page 249.)

    The Summit of the Gods Vol. 1 (Fanfare/Ponent Mon): Jiro Taniguchi heads back to the mountains, accompanied by Yumemakura Baku. The slope in question this time around is Mount Everest. (Page 251.)

    A Treasury of 20th Century Murder Vol. 2: Famous Players (NBM): Rick Geary applies his unique and abundant cartooning skills to the case of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor. (Page 275.)

    Salt Water Taffy Vol. 3: The Truth About Dr. True (Oni): More delightful adventures for all ages from Matthew Loux as the Putnam brothers discover weirdness in Chowder Bay. (Page 279.)

    Fruits Basket Vol. 23 (Tokyopop): The mega-popular series from Natsuki Takaya comes to what will undoubtedly be an amazingly moving conclusion. (Page 288.)

    Oishinbo: Fish, Sushi and Sashimi (Viz): Viz continues to offer highlights from Tetsu Kariya’s culinary manga masterpiece. (Page 298.)

    Cirque du Freak Vol. 1 (Yen Press): I can’t honestly remember the context or the content, but I swear I heard something really extreme about Cirque du Freak, which makes me curious. (Page 302.)

    The trusty month of May

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    It’s “Manga Month” again in Diamond’s Previews catalog. When this crops up each year, there’s always a small part of me that sneers and says, “Oh, like the direct market really cares.” Still, there are lots of wonderful-looking upcoming arrivals among the listings.

    I find it very difficult to resist bittersweet comics about helping the recently or not-so-recently deceased deal with the fact that they’re… well… dead. CMX offers another variation on this theme, Ballad of a Shinigami, illustrated by Asuka Izumi, original story by K-Ske Hasegawa. (Page 121.)

    Manga Month might just be coincidental with their regular release schedule, but Del Rey brings it. New volumes of Mushishi, Pumpkin Scissors, and Toto! The Wonderful Adventure are among the offerings. (Pages 240-241.)

    And holy crap, Digital Manga is listing the fourth volume of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Flower of Life! With a great big two-page spread, which it totally deserves! And the first three volumes are offered again, so you can order all four! Oh, May, you can’t come soon enough. (Pages 248-249.)

    But wait, there’s more! Jiro Taniguchi is one of those creators where I feel I can safely recommend his work even if I’ve never seen the title in question. Fanfare will be shipping the first volume of Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood this month, which sounds like a lovely blend of mystery and nostalgia. (Page 252.)

    Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim sound like peanut butter and chocolate to me, so I’m very much looking forward to their joint effort, The Eternal Smile, from First Second. Yang handles the writing, and Kim draws the pictures. It’s a collection of three stories. (Page 256.)

    I’ve been dying for someone to license work by Daisuke Igarashi and staring enviously at France when I see his works recognized at festivals like Angoulême. Viz makes me happy by announcing the first volume of Igarashi’s Children of the Sea. Now do Witches. (Page 295.)

    I’m not familiar with it at all, but Yen Press does a good job piquing my interest with the solicitation for The History of West Wing, written by Jiayu Sun and illustrated by Guo Guo. It’s a “full-color historical romance based on a classic Chinese romance saga.” (Page 303.)

    Stuff wisely

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    So the Harvey Awards nomination process is underway, and creative types can make a bid to recognize their favorite peers and works in a wide variety of categories. You may remember me keening and gnashing my teeth over some of last year’s nominations.

    For a change of pace, I thought I’d go the Force Works/Extreme Justice proactive route this year. Instead of recoiling in horror at the prospect of ever seeing the phrase “Harvey Award winner Witchblade Manga,” I’ve decided to take a stab at prevention. Toward that end, here are some books from 2008 that you might consider for the Best American Edition of Foreign Material category:

  • Aya of Yop City, written by Marguerite Abouet and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie, published by Drawn & Quarterly
  • Disappearance Diary, written and illustrated by Hideo Azuma, published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon
  • Dororo, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, published by Vertical
  • Fluffy, written and illustrated by Simone Lia, published by Dark Horse
  • Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella, written and illustrated by Lewis Trondheim, published by NBM
  • Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip – Book Three, written and illustrated by Jansson, published by Drawn & Quarterly
  • Real, written and illustrated by Takehiko Inou, published by Viz
  • Seduce Me after the Show, written and illustrated by est em, published by Deux Press
  • Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, written and illustrated by Satoko Kiyuduki, published by Yen Press
  • solanin, written and illustrated by , published by Viz

    • There. Ten perfectly respectable potential nominations for your consideration. (And everyone should feel free to contribute their own suggestions in the comments.) I should also note that several of these books are also eligible for other awards.