This week’s Flipped is up. It’s an interview with the chief Kodansha’s Morning International Manga Competition. The deadline for the second round of entries is just about here.
Upcoming 12/12/2007
The theme of this week’s comic shop arrivals seems to be “new volumes of appealing series,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Dark Horse delivers the fifth volume of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki’s The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. I didn’t think the fourth volume was quite up to standard, to be honest. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as solid a combination of gruesome mystery and strangely heartwarming comedy. I did appreciate the guest appearance by Reiji Akiba from Yamazaki’s other series, Mail, and I hope he returns.
I find Kaoru Mori’s Emma (CMX) extremely soothing. It’s so gentle and precise, and it’s really easy on the eyes. The sixth volume arrives tomorrow. (By the way, does the knowledge that this series was originally published in a seinen magazine influence your reading experience in any way? Or that Yotsuba&! Or Azumanga Daioh had similar origins? I was flipping through the latest Comics Journal at the shop last week, and most of the review of Translucent seemed largely devoted to that conundrum.)
Until the arrival of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), Kiyoko Arai’s Beauty Pop (Viz) was the clear leader in the ridiculous shôjo category. It’s still awfully good, even if it’s moved into second place. The sixth volume arrives Wednesday. I also really enjoyed the preview chapter of Kiyo Fujiwara’s mafia princess comedy Wild Ones that ran in a recent issue of Shojo Beat, so I’ll have to move that up in my “to read” pile.
Among the other new series making their debut, Seven Seas offers a new take on Speed Racer, written by Dwayne Alexander Smith and drawn by Elmer Damaso, whose work seems to bear some resemblance to that of Mike Allred. That’s kind of a cool way to go with the material.
Uncanny alliance
Oh, man, I’ll be buying my first X-Men comic in YEARS.
And I try and avoid running press releases, but dude… please… SHOJO X-MEN. (That sound you heard is probably John Jakala renewing his support for Tintin Pantoja’s Wonder Woman proposal.)
(Full release after the cut.)
MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT AND DEL REY MANGA ANNOUNCE TWO NEW SERIES BASED ON X-MEN, WOLVERINE
NEW YORK, NY – December 9, 2007 – Marvel Entertainment and Del Rey Manga, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today plans to publish two new manga series based on Marvel Entertainment’s highly popular X-Men series.
The manga, created with the cooperation and consultation of Marvel editors, will take the classic characters from the X-Men series and re-imagine them in a manga style. The first project, scripted by the husband-and-wife team of Raina Telgemeier (writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels) and Dave Roman (creator of the comic Agnes Quill), will focus specifically on the X-Men team. Indonesian artist Anzu will illustrate the two-volume series, which will go on sale in Spring 2009.
It’s the X-Men as you’ve never seen them before, with the storyline fashioned as a private school shôjo comedy. (Shôjo manga is aimed at girls and often covers popular subjects such as comedy, romance, and drama.) As the only girl in the all-boys School for Gifted Youngsters, Kitty Pryde, a mutant with phasing abilities, is torn between the popular Hellfire Club, led by flame-throwing mutant Pyro—and the school misfits, whom she eventually bands together as the X-Men.
A second manga series, to be published in Spring 2009, follows the adventures of Wolverine, a breakout member of the X-Men team known for his attitude and unbreakable adamantium claws.
Dallas Middaugh, associate publisher of Del Rey Manga, says, “The X-Men are some of the most well-known characters in the world, and it’s the strength of those characters-along with strong and unique storylines-that make the X-Men a perfect match for the manga form. It’s an amazing opportunity, and we’re eager to bring new interpretations to the fans through the prism of manga.”
The X-Men made their comics debut in The X-Men #1 in 1963 and have since become a mainstream pop culture phenomenon with the development of an animated television series, several video games and a blockbuster live-action film trilogy.
Ruwan Jayatilleke, Vice President of development of Marvel Entertainment, Inc., said “Del Rey Manga has been an innovative force in the manga landscape—-consistently growing the medium and breaking the boundaries of print. We have found a partner who will bring the X-Men and Wolverine into the fastest growing segment of graphic fiction, with superior storytelling and visual fireworks. Comic book fans and manga readers have much to look forward to.”
Manga, the Japanese term for comics, is a Japanese cultural phenomenon that accounts for nearly half of all the books and magazines sold in Japan. Read by men and women of all ages, manga covers a wide variety of themes including adventure, romance, fantasy, and more. Manga has experienced incredible growth in the US and Canadian graphic novel market in the past few years. According to industry source ICv2 manga sales reached between $170 million and $200 million in 2006.
About the Creators
Raina Telgemeier is best known for her work as the writer and illustrator of The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Eisner, Ignatz, Cybil, and Web Cartoonists’ Choice awards.
Dave Roman currently works for Nickelodeon Magazine as an associate editor. The co-creator of the Harvey Award-nominated series Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden and the Ignatz award-winning Teen Boat, he also pens his own webcomic, Astronaut Elementary. He is also the creator of the comic Agnes Quill.
Anzu, a manga artist based in Indonesia, will make her US manga art debut in April 2008 with the first volume of The Reformed, written by Chris Hart. She has contributed to Hart’s bestselling How to Draw Manga series.
About Del Rey Manga
Del Rey Books (http://www.delreybooks.com ) was founded in 1977 as an imprint of Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the best of modern fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history. Ballantine Books is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, which is a publishing group of Random House, Inc, the U.S. publishing company of Random House, the trade book publishing division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s leading international media companies. In 2004 it expanded by launching Del Rey Manga (www.delreymanga.com), which has grown to be a major force in the U.S. graphic-novel field. Bestselling titles include Tsubasa, Negima, xxxHolic, and The Wallflower.
About Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
With a library of over 5,000 high-profile characters built over more than sixty years of comic book publishing, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios), publishing (via Marvel Comics) and toys, with emphasis on feature films, home DVD, consumer products, video games, action figures and role-playing toys, television and promotions. Marvel’s strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world. For more information visit www.marvel.com.
X-Men, Wolverine: TM & © 2007 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Omissions
In the last Previews review, what laughably passes for my “system” kind of failed me. Who knew that dog-eared pages in a thick catalog weren’t especially effective?
Anyway, it was extremely negligent of me not to mention Jeff Smith’s Rasl #1 (Cartoon Books, page 238). After the excellence of Bone and Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil, anything by Smith goes on the must-buy list.
And noted for history’s sake is the arrival of the 28th volume of Naruto (Viz, page 354). This is the “two years later” launch pad that prompted the extremely successful, ramped-up Naruto Nation initiative, with lots and lots of volumes coming out in rapid succession and still selling extremely well.
Read the label
Tom Spurgeon points to a manga flap in Lexington, KY, involving a copy of Yuu Watase’s Absolute Boyfriend (from Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint and serialized in the magazine) in the children’s section of a Books-A-Million. I don’t really have anything much to say about the story itself, which reads like one of those “Can too much applesauce be fatal?” stories that local news outfits love so much. But Tom did make a couple of points about the Books-A-Million chain, and I wanted to chime in:
“The one thing that jumps out at me is that Book-a-Million is a big growth account for manga recently, and it’s my understanding that the chain has shown up in some towns that haven’t had a bookstore in a while. That would mean the store has increased coverage for manga in addition to simply increasing the number of outlets where it’s available.”
That was certainly the case here in north-central West Virginia. Books-a-Million was the first stand-alone chain bookstore in town, and it’s had a reasonably sized (and growing) manga section since it opened a few years back. It’s since been joined by a Barnes & Noble, which has its own substantial graphic novel/manga section.
I vaguely remember reports of Books-a-Million having a special “adult graphic novel/manga” section separate from the general population for some of the spicier, plastic-wrapped offerings, though I’ve never seen that set-up personally. And I’ve never seen manga or graphic novels shelved in the children’s section, though admittedly I don’t spend a lot of time there.
I can say without qualification that I think Absolute Boyfriend is probably the worse thing Watase has ever created, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s rated for older teens, as is a fair amount of the Shojo Beat line (or just for teens), so it sounds like it might have been carelessly shelved, if in fact it was in the children’s section.
Previews review Dec. 2007
It’s time again for a quick tour through the latest Previews catalog.
In Andi Watson’s Princess at Midnight (page 140), a sheltered, home-schooled girl becomes a capricious, adorable despot when the lights go out. The story was one of the highlights of the first Mammoth Book of Best New Manga, and now Image is publishing a stand-alone version. I’m half-heartedly debating whether ten new pages merit buying it again, but I think I will for two reasons. One, if sales are strong, Watson might be more inclined to do a follow-up, and two, it seems like a reasonable enough way to thank Image for publishing Glister. (I’d thank them even more wholeheartedly if I could ever find anything on their website.)
I try and resist mentioning new volumes of ongoing series when I do these things, but when the series is as good as Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! (volume six on page 191, ADV), I weaken.
The same flexible ethics apply to Fuyumi Soryo’s ES (volume 8 on page 250, Del Rey). This is great, character-driven science fiction. (Does anyone know if this is the last volume in the series?)
Sometimes a premise sounds so delightfully idiotic and tacky that I’m unable to resist. That’s the case with Kei Azumaya’s All Nippon Airline (Juné, page 265):
“ANAL – All Nippon Air Lines – is a unique airline company. All of its employees are beautiful gay men. On top of that, relationships between employees, or even between passengers and employees, are highly encouraged!”
I’m not proud.
It’s been running in Shojo Beat, and now the first collection of Chica Umino’s sweet, hilarious Honey and Clover (Viz, page 357) will be available for people who pass on the magazine.
The premise sounds really familiar (Wild Adapter Junior, maybe), but the full-page ad for Saki Otoh and Nakamura Tomomi’s Switch (Viz, page 359) is really eye-catching and clever.
Okay, and since I’m indulging in mentions for ongoing series, I’ll note that the second volume of Keiko Tobe’s With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child (Yen Press, page 363) is due. It’s a really admirable series, executed well, and it’s unlike pretty much anything else in the manga category, though I wish it weren’t.
And the nominees are…
The final roster of nominees for this year’s list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens is available for perusal. It’s an amazing list, and I don’t envy the people who have to whittle it down to finalists.
I thought it might be interesting to see how the nominations broke down by publisher. Keep in mind that some figures represent multiple volumes of a single series, but I decided to go for just a book-by-book breakdown. In the case of some publishers, I kept imprints separate (like DC with its super-hero universe, Vertigo and Minx books), particularly if they had very different target audiences.
Tokyopop leads the pack with 23 books nominated. [I initially put that at 24, but Kevin Melrose is better at counting than I am.] Del Rey took second place with 11, followed closely by Viz with 10, CMX and DC with 9 each, and Go! Comi with 8. First Second and Marvel each took 7 spots on the list.
Three nominations: Digital Manga, HarperCollins, Image, Minx, Vertical.
Two nominations: Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Hyperion, Oni, Penguin, Vertigo, Villard, Virgin.
One nomination: Abrams, ADV, Archaia, Arthur Levine, Atheneum, Aurora, Candlewick Press, Devil’s Due, Drawn & Quarterly, Fiery Studios, Frances Foster Books, Graphix, Henry Holt, Hill and Wang, Ice Kunion, Juné, Last Gasp, NBM, Riverhead Trade, Sparkplug, Top Shelf, Viking, Viper.
From the stack: The Saga of the Bloody Benders
I’m so crazy about Rick Geary’s Treasury of Victorian Murder series (NBM). The Saga of the Bloody Benders is the latest, and it upholds the excellent standard that Geary has set.
I do find them kind of difficult to review, and I think that’s because Geary makes what he does seem so effortless. I know it can’t be; the books are meticulously researched and wonderfully drawn. But the chapters of history Geary chooses are so engrossingly grisly that it’s hard to imagine how they wouldn’t make a good comic.
In this case, his subject is a murderous family of Kansas settlers who set up shop in a relatively bustling byway. Unwary travelers check in to the Benders’ grocery and restaurant, never to be seen again. Even after their reign of profitable terror is ended, mysteries remain, and Geary spends a good half of the book examining the rumors and theory that swirled around the crimes.
Geary uses the crimes to articulate qualities about their era, which deepens the pleasures of the comics. There’s a subplot in The Murder Room by P.D. James about how certain crimes could only have taken place in their given historical era and setting, and Geary seems to be an adherent to that philosophy.
While I love comics like Action Philosophers (Evil Twin) that make use of the outlandish possibilities of cartooning to educate, I’m equally taken with Geary’s straightforward approach. He resists the urge to embellish or put words in people’s mouths, and he doesn’t need to. The facts in evidence and the way he presents them are gripping enough that they don’t need flourishes.
Upcoming 12/5/2007
I hear that in some cultures, people actually drive more cautiously in inclement weather conditions. Has anyone actually seen this behavior manifest itself? Because it’s apparently only folk legend in these parts. Anyway, if I live until then, here’s what caught my eye on the ComicList for Wednesday.
I’m a little confused. The list says that the fourth volume of Andy Runton’s charming Owly series is due out, calling it Don’t Be Afraid. Top Shelf calls it A Time to Be Brave and says it doesn’t come out until January. Amazon agrees with ComicList on the shipping date and Top Shelf on the title. Eh… it’ll show when it shows, and I’ll be happy.
Oni sent me a preview copy of James Stokoe’s Wonton Soup, and it’s interesting. There’s some serious mash-up going on… bits of Iron Wok Jan! and Men At Work and ninja-pirates in space, though no zombies that I can recall. It’s not bad, but I’m not quite sure it combines its ingredients to become its own thing. Stokoe certainly seems talented, though.
Tokyopop and Viz make up for essentially abdicating last week, pumping out about 40 volumes between them. I’ve been meaning to catch up with Welcome to the NHK once Genshiken finished (as it seemed ill-advised to cross the beams between those two), though I’m not quite ready for tomorrow’s fifth volume. And I seem to recall that Nosatsu Junkie got a really good review in Manga: The Complete Guide, so I’ll have to put that on the catch-up list as well. I’ll only be four behind on that one.
Eye candy
In spite of my shortcomings in terms of artistic vocabulary, I devote this week’s Flipped to really attractive comics.