The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

Baked

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The oven was on for other stuff, so I decided to make the Madeleine recipe from the seventh volume of Kitchen Princess (Del Rey). Yes, my baking is inspired not by Marcel Proust but by Natsumi Ando and Miyuki Kobayashi. Sorry, Marcel.

They turned out pretty well, but I think I’ll add some lemon or orange zest the next time I make them. The sweetness could use a little complexity. And while the recipe said it made nine cookies, I think I could probably stretch the batter out to twelve smaller ones and shave a few minutes off of the cooking time.

Upcoming 11/12/2008

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For the last couple of months, I’ve tended to avoid the Wednesday experience. It’s not due to any waning in enthusiasm for new comics so much as an unwillingness to deal with the irritating traffic and limited parking a trip to the local comic shop entails.

But if anything could get me to face the inexplicable gridlock that’s become a signature of the downtown driving experience, it would be the second volume of Matthew Loux’s Salt Water Taffy: A Climb Up Mt. Barnabus (Oni). The first installment was easily one of the most charming books I’ve read all year, and I’m eager to get my hands on part two.

Tokyopop provides the ongoing crack for the week, with new volumes of Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket and Ai Morinaga’s Your and My Secret available for my reading pleasure.

Tidings, grim and otherwise

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The New York Times casts its gaze on holiday sales prospects for bookstores. It’s sort of a hodgepodge of optimism and pessimism and everything in between, though this passage certainly casts a pall:

“Like many businesses across the retail sector, the publishing industry has been hit by a raft of doom and gloom in the past few weeks. Leonard S. Riggio, chairman and largest shareholder of Barnes & Noble, said in an internal memorandum predicting a dreadful holiday shopping season, as first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week, that ‘never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in.’”

It seems like there’s too much innate variability in book-buying patterns from consumer to consumer. Some view book purchases as bedrock, others cut that part of the budget first. And you know there’s no chance that anyone will consider a bailout for the publishing industry, because they just provide illumination and entertainment instead of grossly irresponsible financial products or gas-guzzling vehicles.

Speaking of the Times, I think they have the best web site in the news industry, so I’ll be very interested in what Vivian Schiller does with National Public Radio’s web presence when she leaves the Times to become NPR’s CEO. (In an indication of the current state of NPR’s web presence, I had to do a search to find the Schiller story, which struck me as weird.) If there’s a news organization that should have a good, free online resource, it’s NPR.

I actually watch a lot of TV

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I keep meaning to mention this, but my mind is like a sieve, and since it just aired last night, I thought I’d strike while the iron was less cold than usual. I don’t watch many situation comedies, but I really recommend The Big Bang Theory on CBS.

It’s about two big science geeks who live across the hall from a hot blonde. That premise sounds deadly, but the show is really, really funny, and all of the characters are endearing and hold their own. I initially stopped on it while channel surfing because I recognized Johnny Galecki, an actor I’ve always liked, and I’ve come to really admire Jim Parsons as the brilliant, totally socially inept Sheldon and the improbably named Kaley Cuoco as Penny, the sexy, strong-willed neighbor.

I heard the first season was a lot dumber than what’s currently airing, so I’m glad I came late to the party. The dialogue is great. The jokes are entirely character-driven but often laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. That seems to be a really difficult thing to pull off, but the show’s writers manage it, and manage it consistently.

Filed Under: TV

Black and white anatomy

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Because there aren’t already enough people singing the praises of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack (Vertical), I join the chorus in this week’s Flipped. To distinguish myself, I admit that I find Pinoko effectively, intentionally creepy, though I might just be telling myself that to avoid the nightmares.

Out of order

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We went to our nation’s capitol last week to get out of town and enjoy the thrill of watching costumed legislative aides and lobbyists pour out of the Dupont Circle Metro Station. There were lots of Mario brothers and a fair number of Piper Palins. (Speaking of Metro Stations, the Chinatown/Gallery Place stop is really interesting. Turn right and you can find fabulous cuisine. Turn left, and you are thrust into the Valley of Chain Restaurants and That Guy. I beg you to always turn right if you’re faced with this choice, unless you have a high tolerance for twenty-something lawyers smoking cigars and acting entitled.)

Anyway, I stopped at a comic shop in hopes of finding a copy of Tokyo Zombie (Last Gasp), but I had no joy on that front. (I’ll keep looking, not to worry.) I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave without some satirical zombie comic in my hands, so I picked up a copy of Faith Erin Hicks’s Zombies Calling (SLG). I’d heard a lot of good things about it, and I was in a rare mood for zombie satire, so…

It’s one of those books that make you really eager to see what the creator does next. I don’t think I’ll ever encounter what I’d consider a great zombie comic, even a satirical one, because the genre has been making fun of itself long before anyone sat down with the specific intent of doing so. Hicks takes a Scream-esque approach, featuring a devoted fan of zombie films faced with an actual infestation of the shambling undead. College-student Joss is part-horrified, part-thrilled that she can put her encyclopedic knowledge of genre tropes to practical use, trying to shepherd her friends through the hordes of the recently deceased.

There are some very funny bits, along with evidence of some of the pitfalls of this kind of satire. At a certain point, the creator either needs to go serious – hewing closer to the tropes she or he is tweaking – or find some new direction. Hicks almost succeeds in straddling the two, blending in some smart generational satire. And even if Zombies Calling doesn’t quite hold together as a story, the general level of craft and wit is more than high enough to carry you along.

As I said, it’s a comic that’s most notable for the promise it conveys. The prospect of watching Hicks get better with time is definitely enticing.

If I’d read his books in the order they’ve been published, I might have had the same reaction to Matthew Loux’s Sidescrollers (Oni). In spite of wide acclaim, I stalled on picking this book up until Oni re-offered it recently. (As with zombies, there are plenty of comics about slackers, and one can’t simply pick up all of them, because they won’t all be Scott Pilgrim or Solanin.) So I read Loux’s terrific Salt Water Taffy (also from Oni) first. And while Sidescrollers offers a certain amount of wooly fun, it can’t quite compete in my mind with the sharper, more polished work on display in Salt Water Taffy.

Uppers and downers

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I just have a few election-related things to get off of my chest before I return to the much more important field of comics.

First, I’m thrilled that I can type “President Elect Obama.” I’m thrilled by the scenes of international delight and celebration after eight years of criticism and anxiety, which I shared completely. I hope the Democrat leadership in the legislature takes the opportunity to be gracious and bipartisan, because it’s just time. Because that’s the equivalent of separately burying the head of Rove-style political divisiveness now that a stake has been driven through its cold, shriveled heart.

Second, I’m depressed by the apparent success of gay-marriage bans in California, Florida and Arizona. I hope the couples that missed the very tiny window of equality sue everyone they reasonably can, and I’ll happily donate to whatever legal support organization will help them. (Edited this to reflect Lori Henderson’s note that the measure isn’t retroactive.)

But I’m even more depressed by the passage of the adoption ban in Arkansas, designed to prevent gay couples from adopting or fostering a child but also excluding heterosexual couples who, for whatever reason, decided not to marry. (I can’t quite tell if it excludes single people from adopting or fostering.) The only outcome I can see from this is that it will become that much harder to place kids in loving homes. (Speaking of adoption, I was happy to see a clip where the Obamas said they would be selecting a rescue dog as payoff puppy for their kids. Many purebred dogs are adorable, but I really want to see a First Mutt in the White House.)

And I remember being barely out of the closet in any meaningful way and being horrified that the citizens of Colorado had successfully passed a horrible piece of anti-gay legislation, Amendment 2. It was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and now the citizens Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District has elected a gay man to represent them.

Lord help the sister

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In the process of creating Papillon (Del Rey), Miwa Ueda consulted with counselors to explore the psychology of the twin-sister rivals at the center of her story. Okay, so the experts, as described, kind of sound like Tokyo’s answer to Dr. Phil, but there’s an observant undercurrent to the book all the same.

Ueda introduces withdrawn Ageha and popular Hana, sisters who were raised separately for the first seven or eight years of their lives. Ueda never really explains why the separation occurs, which nags at me. (I always thought the twins in The Parent Trap should have focused their energies on scorched-earth vengeance for their parents’ hideously selfish neglect rather than on trying to reunite them, but maybe that’s just me.) But Ueda is more interested in portraying the sisters’ prickly dynamic than explaining how they arrived at it.

Since Ueda portrays the relationship with feeling and detail, I can mostly overlook the omitted exposition. Ageha is discontent in Hana’s shadow, and she’s been nurturing a crush on a classmate who spent summers in the country near her grandmother’s house. A trainee school counselor (hunky and irresponsible, but amusing all the same) encourages her to pursue the boy and come out of her cocoon in the process. Instead of concocting wacky, demeaning schemes, Ageha begins generally standing up for herself. Her displays of confidence have positive results, earning her new friends.

Hana hates that, of course. She’s used to being the sleek, sparkling city girl in comparison to Ageha’s country mouse bit, partly since Ageha generally played along. It helps Hana maintain her identity by having a drabber mirror image for contrast. So she takes steps to maintain the status quo. But Ueda is generous enough to refrain from making Hana completely horrible, acknowledging that Hana might actually have some feelings for the boy she stole from her sister.

It’s possible that I’m being too generous to Hana based on my distaste for her parents’ past behavior, but I find her and Ageha fairly evenly matched. That balance makes for a more interesting story than a pure underdog portrayal for Ageha. I’m looking forward to future twists and turns, as Ueda has set up a believable dynamic that should be able to generate them without stretching things too far. I admit that I’ll be bitterly disappointed if the sisters don’t go off on Mom and Dad at some point, but for now, I’m content to enjoy the soapy, slightly nasty sister act.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Upcoming 10/29/2008

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This week’s ComicList offers a happy hodgepodge of choices, from cross-cultural curiosities to comic strips to creepy classics. (It also allows for a lot of alliteration.)

First and foremost is the fourth volume of Adam Warren’s razor-sharp but still endearing super-hero and fan-service parody, Empowered (Dark Horse). Rarely is the enduring fortitude of the human spirit celebrated with such enthusiastic bad taste.

I can rarely resist a travelogue comic, and Enrico Casarosa’s The Venice Chronicles (AdHouse) looks like an extremely pretty one.

A new volume of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s old-school horror manga, Parasyte (Del Rey) is always a welcome arrival, and the fifth installment shows up Wednesday.

As much as I enjoy Vertical’s manga releases, I’ve missed the design genius of Chip Kidd. I can kind of get over it thanks to the arrival of Kidd’s Bat-Manga! (Pantheon).

While I strongly suspect The Venice Chronicles will be much more to my narrative-friendly tastes, I’m sure there will be much to admire in Yuichi Yokoyama’s Travel (PictureBox).

I’ve heard nothing but raves about the anime adaptation of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and I keep meaning to put it in the queue, but I’m just not that much of an anime geek. And besides, I tend to like to read the manga first. (Except in the case of Inu Yasha, because that series is like 75 volumes long, so I’ll stick with the animated version for now.) But thanks to Yen Press for launching the series this week. Yen is also delivering the second volume of Satoko Kiyuduki’s four-panel fairy tale, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro. I really enjoyed the first volume, so this is another welcome arrival.