The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Seconded

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I’m really glad Tom Spurgeon reviewed American Widow (Villard), because some variation on cowardice has been keeping me from writing about my own negative response to the book. I’m reluctant to review autobiographical works in the first place, which springs from the probably false assumption that creators are more sensitive to criticism of their own stories as opposed to criticism of ones they’ve invented. (There’s also the unpleasant prospect of essentially telling someone either that their life story is kind of boring or that they don’t tell it very well, or both.)

Anyway, Tom makes a fine argument against the book, and the only thing I’d add is that I felt like I knew less about the subject after I read it than I did before.

I'm in the "Liked it" column

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Well, really, after Jog and Chris Butcher have discussed it, what else is there to say? In my defense, I did not yet know that they’d both already gone over Solanin (Viz) when I wrote this week’s column.

And really, there’s only so much I could have written about the terrorist fist-bump in the eighth volume of Beauty Pop. I’m not fooled by you, seemingly innocent, would-be beauty experts.

Sad news

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This news makes me very sad. I’ve always liked Hillerman’s novels, solid mysteries set in one of my favorite parts of the world (the Southwest), and I think the Times does a good job summarizing his appeal and impact:

“Mr. Hillerman’s evocative novels, which describe people struggling to maintain ancient traditions in the modern world, touched millions of readers, who made them best sellers. But although the themes of his books were not overtly political, he wrote with a purpose, he often said, and that purpose was to instill in his readers a respect for Indian culture. The plots of his stories, while steeped in contemporary crime and its consequences, were invariably instructive about ancient tribal beliefs and customs, from purification rituals for a soldier returned from a foreign war to incest taboos for a proper clan marriage.”

Angoulême selections

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Awards season plows forward as the legendary Angoulême Comics Festival announces its official selections, including some comics from Japan and one from China:

  • “La Force des Humbles,” by Hiroshi Hirata, published by Delcourt
  • “Les Gouttes de Dieu,” by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto, published by Glénat (and yes, it’s that wine manga)
  • “La Pluie du Paradis,” by Yu Lu, published by Casterman
  • “Undercurrent,” by Tetsuya Toyoda, published by Kana
  • “Le Voleur de Visages,” by Junji Ito, published by Tonkam

    • (Via Dirk Deppey.)

    Upcoming 10/22/2008

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    I’m in an easily confused state, so I’ll just note that the stuff on this week’s ComicList looks an awful lot like stuff that was on it the last couple of weeks. So click on the ComicList category and marvel at my prescience, or something.

    I’m going to confine myself to a “pick of the week,” and that pick would be Asano Inio’s Solanin, arriving courtesy of Viz. I thought it looked promising when I first thought it was shipping, and I’ve actually read it in the intervening weeks thanks to a preview copy from the publisher. I don’t want to go into too much detail and rob myself of column fodder for next week, but I really liked Jog’s blurb about the book:

    “Actually, it sounds just like Seiichi Hayashi’s 1970-71 lingering youths landmark Red Colored Elegy (in English this year from Drawn and Quarterly), although I’m sure this latter work is 7,000% more straightforward and contemporary mainstream-palatable. And Asano could certainly go places with it.”

    If there was a highly conceptual costume partly, Solanin would kind of be like what you would get if Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad went dressed as Red Colored Elegy, had a little too much to drink and started getting sort of Method-actor about it all. That’s intended as a compliment. There are lots of stories about aimless 20-somethings in all kinds of media, but I would argue that there are only a handful of really good ones, and I think Solanin makes the cut.

    Revenuers

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    Who doesn’t like to kick off the weekend pondering an ethical conundrum. Dirk Deppey points to David Doub’s attempts to inform Google that they were profiting from advertisements that promote sites that traffic in illegal distribution of other people’s intellectual property:

    “The problem is further complicated because a lot of sites for the anime and manga industry uses Google Ads as a source of revenue and in turn you’re linking to sites that then cause a loss in revenue.”

    Swampy!