The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Rambling and linking

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No, I won’t be needing a gift receipt: Whenever I set my mind to getting a start on holiday shopping, I always end up buying a lot of stuff for myself. I’m not proud of this, obviously, but there it is. I did manage to resist towels from Macy’s Hotel Collection, which are about as hot as linens can get, because they’re cripplingly expensive.

Survey says: I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but based on anecdotal experience, the best manga selection to be found in Pittsburgh is probably at the Borders in South Hills.

Weaponized baking: I always thought those cookie guns were among the stupidest kitchen gadgets imaginable until my partner bought one over the weekend. We made cheese crackers, and they are unimaginably delicious. And it really is fun to fire perfectly shaped drops of dough onto a baking sheet. I think my arteries are trembling in fear at this point.

So I don’t have to: I can move the second volume of Kazuhiro Okamoto’s lovely Translucent (Dark Horse) out of my “to review” pile, because Katherine Dacey-Tsuei has perfectly summed up the book’s merits in the latest Weekly Recon.

Minx links: J. Caleb Mozzocco takes an interesting qualitative/quantitative look at the Minx line to date over at Every Day Is Like Wednesday. The Washington Post names The Plain Janes one of the ten best comics of 2007. I don’t even think The Plain Janes is the best Minx book of 2007, but the inclusion of Aya delights me to no end.

Must-y

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It’s fickle of me, but I only ever pay attention to Entertainment Weekly when I agree with it. (And I won’t link to the magazine’s site because it’s pop-up hell.) This week (the December 7, 2007 issue) they’ve put Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together on “The Must List.”

“Behold, the fourth chapter of this story of a young Canadian dude looking for love and fighting crime and rocking out. And it’s a comic book! Woo-hoo!”

They didn’t run a cover image, because we apparently need to be reminded of what Edie Falco and Jay-Z look like, and I don’t really recall Scott fighting crime, but it’s the thought that counts. I hope bookstores start stocking up so people can find it when they go to Borders and Barnes and Noble. (I’ve heard that if you special-order a book from a brick-and-mortar outlet, they’ll order a couple of additional shelf copies as well. Just a thought.)

In other Must List news, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis snags the “Reader’s Choice” slot.

One year later

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At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson contemplates the first year and future of DC’s Minx imprint:

“Is the line a success? I don’t pay attention to sales figures much, so I don’t know how well the books are selling either in the direct market or in the bigger bookstore field. That they’re doing a second year says to me that they still are optimistic about the idea. I’m guessing the books are most popular among schools and libraries, since they’re classically styled stories (teenage girl learns life lesson) that are easy to justify for purchase. I have yet to hear anyone really excited about them, though, in any market.”

I’ve kind of been wondering about that too, so I took a quick look around. Here’s what Paul Levitz had to say in this September interview with ICv2:

“[ICv2:] We wanted to talk a little bit about Minx, the new DC imprint, which was another event since the last time we talked. It looked to us from the first numbers we saw that the direct response was stronger than the bookstores which was sort of the opposite of what I would’ve expected. Can you comment on whether you’re finding that the case and what the overall response is on Minx?

“[Levitz:] I don’t think the direct absolute numbers were larger than the bookstore numbers, but we certainly had an enormous enthusiasm in the direct market that was above and beyond what we were initially expecting which was great. There was a lot of passion for reaching out to the other audiences. We got some good support in the bookstores for the launch.

“It’s a challenging project. You’re reaching out to a very different kind of audience. There’s not a natural connection immediately there day one that says these people are walking past this shelf, put it out and make it happen, but we’re nurturing it, we’re doing ok, and we think the material is very strong, and we’re optimistic that it will continue to build from here.”

I can understand the desire to quash the notion that the books actually sold better in specialty comic shops than bookstores, because that certainly couldn’t have been the desired outcome. I don’t know if I’ll ever be clear on exactly who constitutes the “different kind of audience.” I’m sure there is a constituency of girls who might like graphic novels but aren’t interested in anything manga has to offer, though I don’t know if I’d think it was large enough to throw a lot of money at it. (We went to a play last night, and there was a tween a couple of rows in front of us who had a library volume of Guru Guru Pon-Chan. I don’t really like the series, but the play was so boring that I would have gladly given her ten dollars to borrow it.)

As far as critical response goes, I haven’t seen much outside the blogosphere, and almost none from the target audience. (I could probably look a little harder, but I suspect that would lead me to the valley of MySpace, and I’d rather not.) There have been a few reviews in some newspapers, which I suspect was a result of the formidable PR push the imprint got at the outset. Some of the books have been nominated for the Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, so the imprint is on librarians’ radar.

None of the Minx books that I’ve read have been bad, and one (Re-Gifters) was actually great. But I do get the sense that the line could benefit from more editorial rigor at the story phase.

From the stack: Glister 1 and 2

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Andi Watson’s Glister (Image) is set in one of those places I kind of want to live. Chilblain Hall is a big old wreck of a country house filled with oddities, yet it’s strangely inviting. Weird things happen there, but the worst of them never come close to being menacing. Irritating, maybe, but they’re nothing the titular heroine can’t handle, and life would be dull without them.

So when a haunted teapot arrives and dictates the most tedious novel imaginable to poor Glister Butterworth, she rolls up her sleeves and works towards a solution, one that hopefully won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. When a stuck-up neighbor makes disparaging remarks about Chilblain Hall and it wanders off in a huff, Glister’s imaginative coping skills kick in again.

Charming without being sickly, witty without any bite, these are really delightful comics. This isn’t really a surprise, given Watson’s track record for tremendously appealing work. His heroine sets the tone for everything – sensible but not completely without sentiment, quick-witted, and ready to roll with whatever her strange home and life present.

For all of the weirdness, the comedy is very low-key. It’s almost observational, except Glister deals with pushy bridge trolls and tourists renting the dungeon for war games instead of the line at the DMV or bad cell phone connections. What’s the opposite of magical realism? Because that’s what Glister is.

(I haven’t even tried to describe Watson’s illustrations, mostly because Tom Spurgeon described them so well and anything I wrote would seem kind of pitifully derivative.)

(Oh, and I have to admit that when I looked at the back cover and saw that this had been published by Image, my first thought was, “No, really? Image? Not Oni? Do I even have a category for Image?” My second was, “Good for them.”)

Quick comic comments: Shifts

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I’m happy to report that Hiroki Endo’s Eden: It’s an Endless World! (Dark Horse) makes an exhilarating return to form with the ninth volume. Endo leaves the cartels and brothels of South America behind for a thrilling, multilayered hostage crisis in Asia. Rebels have occupied an oil facility owned by evil empire Propator. The facility itself is less meaningful to the rebels than shedding light on the plight of their people, who are the targets of systematic cultural assimilation. As Propator tries brutally to put a lid on the situation, other forces are working to broadcast the situation as widely as possible. In other words, the forces of money, politics and media are swirling around in the kind of crazily complex yet strangely humanistic way that Endo executes so very well.

Endo folds in a number of new narrative elements and characters with apparent ease. I’m particularly impressed by the introduction of the rebel group. With so many outside forces pulling the strings, they could easily come across as idealistic dupes, but Endo gives them a much more layered portrayal. They know they’re out of their depth, and the knowledge sparks dissent over method and means. But they’re strangely admirable all the same, and it’s fascinating to watch their leader, Marihan, walk a tightrope of morality, influence and survival.

On the other hand, there’s the fifth volume of Marley’s Dokebi Bride (Netcomics). I’ve always had the sense that Marley doesn’t have much of an attention span for the various plot threads she weaves together, but it’s usually part of the book’s charm. It generally seems more expansive than scattered.

This time around, the shift in focus is rather jarring. Things open with a blistering, extremely effective confrontation between troubled Sunbi and a rival shaman. The fallout pushes Sunbi’s family situation from difficult to impossible, and she runs away. Suddenly we find ourselves in what I can only describe as an Afterschool Special produced by Lifetime. Sunbi winds up in a community of runaways and fades into the background as her new, emotionally damaged roomies suck up all the oxygen. If there was anything particularly surprising about their woes or if it all influenced Sunbi in the slightest, it might not have been a problem. Unfortunately, there wasn’t and it didn’t, so I found myself clinging to the brief glimpses of what was happening back at home with Sunbi’s endearingly bratty stepsister.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Dokebi Bride a lot, particularly for Sunbi’s belligerence. (She’s earned it, to be honest.) I even like the general sense that it isn’t going anywhere in particular, or at least not very quickly. But with so many inviting side streets already on its narrative map, a big detour into social problem drama territory didn’t do the book any favors.

Upcoming 11/29/2007

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This week’s ComicList constitutes almost an embarrassment of riches. Maybe it’s because of the extra day before shipment. There’s even a three-way tie for Pick of the Week, with some serious runners-up.

Any week that offers a new title from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is going to be special. This boutique nouvelle-manga publisher has a sterling track record for quality, and I can’t imagine that new work from Jiro Taniguchi will do anything to undermine it. With The Ice Wanderer, Taniguchi seems to be channeling Call of the Wild, offering six man-versus-nature short stories. The subject matter isn’t automatically my cup of tea, but it’s Taniguchi, so it will be gorgeous.

A new paperback volume of Rick Geary’s A Treasury of Victorian Murder series (NBM) is also cause for celebration. The Bloody Benders might well be subtitled “Deadly Inn on the Prairie” from the solicitation text.

It’s a great week for Del Rey in general, but I have to make special mention of the last volume of Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken. Nothing much has really happened in nine volumes, but the characters are so great that I really don’t care. The charming interpersonal dynamics and the insanely detailed art are more than ample compensation.

As to the rest of Del Rey’s large-ish slate of releases, I’ve gone from really liking Fuyumi Soryo’s ES to absolutely loving it. The seventh volume arrives on Thursday, and the tension ratchets up considerably as Soryo forces just about everyone in her cast into dark and dangerous corners. On the lighter side, there’s the third volume of Ai Morinaga’s very funny anti-sports manga, My Heavenly Hockey Club. I devoted half of last week’s Flipped to Ryotaro Iwanaga’s very promising Pumpkin Scissors, so go take a look if you haven’t already.

I don’t think I’ll ever be inclined to read comics online if there’s a print alternative. Take Morim Kang’s 10, 20, and 30 (Netcomics). I sampled some chapters via the Internet and liked them a lot, then read the first paperback and liked it quite a bit more. Either way you consume it, it’s got charming cartooning and wonderfully rounded characters offering multi-generational slices of life. The second volume arrives this week.

I’m still kind of on the fence about MPD Psycho (Dark Horse), written by Eiji Otsuka and illustrated by Sho-U Tajima. I read the second volume over the weekend, and while I found it less aggressively lurid than the first, I thought it was a little harder to follow. I’m inclined to give Otsuka a lot of leeway based on his work on The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, so I’ll stay on board for a bit longer.

I was quite taken with the first volume of Kyoko Shitou’s The Key to the Kingdom (CMX), a race-for-the-crown fantasy adventure. I’m eager to see what happens in the second installment.

Buckeye country

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I had big plans for reading and writing over the Thanksgiving holiday, but I got sidetracked by an unusually active visit to family in Columbus. (These visits usually involve moving from couch to couch between random snack consumption, but we kept going places and doing things. I’m not complaining.)

First up was a touring production of Spamalot, which was amusing if not life-changing. By pure coincidence, I happened to be there on the same night as Mark Evanier, so I’ll just point to his description of the evening. (No matter how many Thanksgiving holidays I spend in Columbus, I always manage to forget that the Mid-Ohio Con is going on at the same time. It doesn’t really seem like the kind of convention I’d enjoy, to be honest.)

We had dinner before the show at Thai Taste. If you’re in Columbus and you like Thai food, GO. If you like pomegranate martinis and Thai food, GO OFTEN.

A large group of us hit a matinee of Enchanted on Saturday. I’m normally very pro-musical, though this movie wasn’t really on my radar before a niece or two expressed their profound interest in seeing it. A lot of reviews have described it as subversive, though I think they might have mistakenly identified cleverness. The real world that’s juxtaposed to the cartoon landscape isn’t really any more realistic, and there’s a weirdly retro vibe to everything. (It’s still reaffirming conventional relationships as much as any other Disney princess musical, so I’m not sure where the progressive, edgy underpinnings are supposed to be.) Amy Adams is spectacular, though. I’m getting sick of seeing the finest actresses of a certain generation (Michelle Pfeiffer, Meryl Streep, and, in this case, Susan Sarandon) reduced to playing vicious, oppressive harridans who hate youth even as they covet it, to be honest. And Patrick Dempsey’s appeal is entirely lost on me, apparently. He’s just grumpy.

That evening was spent at a hockey game, of all places. As far as interesting, fast-paced sports to watch, I’d rank hockey fairly highly, though I’m never going to be the target audience for any of them. And there was interesting people-watching to be done, especially if you sat there and looked for parallels to comic fandom in the puck head set. (There was this guy in front of us who was maniacally, microscopically attentive throughout and seemed utterly miserable to this casual observer, but everyone has his or her own idea of fun, I suppose.)

I did manage to work in a visit to The Laughing Ogre, one of my favorite comic shops in the entire world. Maybe it was just because I was outnumbered by staff three to one, but they were tremendously helpful and friendly and readily admitted that none of them were really big manga experts though they were happy to look stuff up for me. See how that works?

And while I did get some reading done, this week’s Flipped will still be a day late because I’m lazy and tired.

From the stack: Human Diastrophism

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In the stories collected in Heartbreak Soup (Fantagraphics), Gilbert Hernandez erected the Central American town of Palomar and populated it with an indelible citizenry the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in comics. In the stories collected in Human Diastrophism, Hernandez lays siege to Palomar and its residents, introducing a daunting array of outside forces that threaten the apparent idyll. Archeologists, surfers, leftist ideology, and even a plague of monkeys chip away at the community.

The most obviously sinister is a serial killer who seems to be targeting victims at random. There’s the obvious threat to life and safety, but the crime wave is most telling in its individual effects. As one might suspect from Hernandez, it’s less a mystery or crime drama than a catalyst for personal and sociological seismic waves. There are moments that have the tension of the thriller, but these chapters are most notable for the personal and moral conundrums they trigger.

I’m perpetually amazed at how well Hernandez can juggle seemingly disparate narrative elements. The cast is absolutely sprawling, but no one gets lost. With figures as outsized as Luba, that heartbreaking, voluptuous monster, or passionate, impressionable Tonatzin, searching and failing to find the thing that will fill the void, it would have been simplicity itself to put someone in the driver’s seat. And while that still would have resulted in a marvelous comic, Hernandez’s shifting focus and diffuse point of views make things even richer.

It’s all ultimately about Palomar, even when it isn’t set there. The bulk of the second half tracks expatriates from the hamlet who are trying to build new lives in the United States but keep getting drawn back to their home, either emotionally or physically. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the bittersweet connection to a place be articulated as well as it is here. And since the characters have been impeccably and richly conceived, there’s no limit to their possibilities.

The short pieces are also marvelous. My favorite follows sexy, outgoing Pipo as she goes from being the prettiest girl in Palomar to a woman of surprising power and substance. Broken down in sixteen-panel grids, Pipo narrates her personal journey as a sort of film strip unfolds visually.

I really can’t say enough about these comics. The world that Hernandez has created is so rich in detail and possibilities, and the characters are so engrossing, even when they’re horrid. If you’ve never read these stories, you really should, not because of their place in some abstract comics canon, but because they’re spectacularly, richly entertaining.

From the stack: Maybe Later

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I think I’m impossibly picky about autobiographical comics. I tend to resist them when the creators give their lives too much of a narrative arc, because it always strikes me as kind of fishy, but I also don’t like to feel like my time has been wasted with meandering, disconnected episodes. Self-deprecation is always welcome, but not at the expense of some core of sincerity and self-expression. And introspection is appreciated, as long as nobody loses perspective.

At the same time, I’m reluctant to sit down and say, “I’m sorry, but your life is just kind of dreary,” or “You really don’t tell your own story very well.” I mean, how awful is that? (I realize that it’s an artificial distinction, because surely creators care at least as much about their fictional constructs, and I have no problem digging into the strengths and weaknesses of made-up stories. Still…)

I’m also fairly results-oriented. I’m not especially interested in the creative process as I am the creative product. I tend to edge towards the door when people start talking about “the work” or “the process,” and I think there’s probably a circle of hell devoted to nothing but repeated airings of Inside the Actors Studio.

But I was really taken with Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian’s Get a Life, Drawn & Quarterly’s collection of their Mr. Jean stories. So I put Maybe Later, Dupuy and Berberian’s comic journals of the creation of a volume of Mr. Jean stories, on my wish list, and someone was kind enough to send it to me.

Alternating chunks of chapters from Dupuy and Berberian, who take an entirely collaborative approach to Mr. Jean, skirt most of my autobiography aversions. D&Q’s cover text warns that, “Above all, it’s about the creative process,” which should have had me running in the opposite direction, but my faith in the creators’ companionable charm was rewarded.

I don’t know that I’m any more informed on the actual process of creating Mr. Jean, but it’s good fun to read Maybe Later and speculate as to how the creators’ individual personalities intersect in their shared fictional creation. Berberian takes a lighter, more caustic approach to his journal entries, though he does sneak in thoughtful, amusingly framed bits on why creative people create. (They end up involving archers, divers, and the Dynamic Duo. It’s weird, but it works.)

Dupuy is more of an introspective bent. He’s got marriage problems, health problems, work problems, depression and insecurity. (He’s even a bit undone by the finished quality of Berberian’s early contributions to the journal.) His chapters are more serious and sincere, but they stop short of being mopey. It’s hard to explain, but I think if you added Berberian and Dupuy together and divided by two, you’d get Jean. I’m sure the reality is nowhere near that simple, but I like the idea all the same.

And their disconnected approaches actually end up being mutually supportive. Dupuy’s darker musings balance Berberian’s sharper, more satirical bent. I can’t really decide which I liked better, because they’re so distinct, but they flow together quite nicely.

It’s not a finished narrative by any means, but the episodes and the reflections do accumulate into something that stands on its own. I liked it quite a bit.