The Manga Curmudgeon

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

But wait! There's more!

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I can’t really call it the Year in Not Fun, can I? But these are the books that made a lingering impression, whether moving, provocative, unsetting or some combination of those qualities.

  • Afterschool Nightmare (Go! Comi): Adolescent identity crises made creepily manifest. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • American Born Chinese (First Second): A moving, funny, and multi-faceted look at cultural assimilation. (Reviewed here.)
  • Deogratias (First Second): A gripping and restrained look at an appalling tragedy. (Reviewed here.)
  • Dokebi Bride (Netcomics): Teen angst, culture clashes, and family dysfunction with a healthy dose of the supernatural. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Emma (CMX): Men do so make passes at girls who wear glasses. Particularly when they’re fetching but secretive housemaids in a wonderfully subdued manga romance. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • ES: Eternal Sabbath (Del Rey): Lots of people love this character-driven science fiction title, but buzz doesn’t seem to have translated to sales. Add it to the hallowed ranks of Planetes and Eden: It’s an Endless World! (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin): An absorbing look at difficult, defining interpersonal relationships told with exceptional skill.
  • Gray Horses (Oni): No one combines beautifully rendered dream logic with a solid, satisfying narrative like Hope Larson. (Reviewed here.)
  • Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (Fanfare/Ponent Mon): In a strong year of collected shorts, this is easily the best, packed with diverse talents. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • The Squirrel Mother Stories (Fantagraphics): Megan Kelso lets her mind and style wander in this terrific collection of short stories. She’s like the graphic novelist love child of Sarah Vowell and Augusten Burroughs. (Reviewed here.)
  • The Ticking (Top Shelf): Lyrical and creepy, beautiful and ugly. It was my introduction to the work of Reneé French, and I can’t imagine a better one. (Reviewed here.)
  • 12 Days (Tokyopop): Unlike anything else being produced in Tokyopop’s global line: a single-volume story with the feel of nouvelle josei. (Reviewed here.)

    • I’ll stop now. I promise.

    Edited: I lied, but in my defense, I pulled one of those “omit one of the books that made you want to write the post in the first place” things, like when you’re standing in front of an open refrigerator and you know you had a reason to be there, but you have no memory of what it is. Or maybe that only happens to me.

    The year in fun

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    As I said over at MangaBlog, I’m reluctant to put together a “Best of” list for a variety of reasons, but I did want to throw together a list of books that provided… well… fun. I think some of the books below would also make the “gravitas” cut, but the common thread for me is imaginative, escapist reading pleasure. So, without further babble, I give you The Year in Fun:

  • Anne Freaks (ADV): Sometimes fun involves murderous, anarchist teens. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Beauty Pop (Viz – Shojo Beat): Oh, sweet, formulaic shôjo. I still love you. (I don’t think I’ve actually reviewed this yet, but Lyle has, and I agree with him completely.)
  • Castle Waiting (Fantagraphics): Great characters, imaginative and rambling storytelling, and very appealing art. (Reviewed here.)
  • The Drifting Classroom (Viz – Signature): Insanely ramped up horror that manages to be both hilariously over the top and still effectively frightening. (Reviewed here.)
  • Dragon Head (Tokyopop): The perfect contemporary companion for Drifting Classroom. Tense survival drama that keeps trying to top itself and often succeeds. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • DVD (DramaQueen): The quirky characters in this book have great chemistry, making for funky, funny reading. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Get a Life (Drawn & Quarterly): In a genre piled with disagreeable losers, Mr. Jean is the most agreeable single straight man on the comics shelves. That sounds more like faint praise than I intended. (Reviewed here.)
  • Klezmer (First Second): No one finds the warmth and character-driven comedy in dark material like Joann Sfar. (Reviewed here.)
  • The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse): Imagine the cast of Scooby Doo attending a Buddhist college and making extra cash by helping restless spirits. Then go buy this book. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Moomin (Drawn & Quarterly): D&Q was clearly determined to make me love them this year, and the promise of a steady diet of this loopy classic was a big factor. (Kind of reviewed here.)
  • Mouse Guard (Archaia): Adorable mice with swords, beautifully rendered in an exciting story. What more do you need? (Reviewed here.)
  • Northwest Passage (Oni Press): Technically this debuted in 2005, but two of its three volumes came out in 2006, so I’m counting it. Like Mouse Guard, it combines wonderful art and a thrilling story, this time steeped in history instead of fantasy. (Reviewed here and here.)
  • Ode to Kirihito (Vertical): You may be thinking, what is this high-end classic doing here? I can answer that in two words: “Human Tempura.” Yes, the book is serious and humane, but it’s also joyful in Tezuka’s aesthetic and just in watching the wildly sprawling story unfold. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Past Lies (Oni): A rookie private investigator delves into the sleazy-stylish world of the Hollywood elite. This had better be the first of a series. (Reviewed here.)
  • Penguin Revolution (CMX): Shôjo screwball comedy, perfectly executed. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness (Oni): Three volumes in, Bryan Lee O’Malley keeps this incredibly novel and hilarious series grounded and warm at the same time.
  • Paris (Slave Labor Graphics): The story by Andi Watson is serviceable, but the art by Simon Gane is eye-poppingly gorgeous. When’s the collection coming out? (Reviewed here, here and here.)
  • Polly and the Pirates (Oni): Shôjo manga isn’t the exclusive domain of schoolgirls with secret identities. Ted Naifeh creates a wonderful protagonist in Polly Pringle, and watching an adventurous spirit emerge from a proper exterior is great fun. (Reviewed here, here, and here.)
  • Shout Out Loud (Tokyopop – Blu): Boys’ love mixed with workplace comedy makes for a witty, heartwarming mix. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Train Man: Densha Otoko (Viz): My favorite of the adaptations because it’s an entertaining manga in its own right. Sweet stuff, but not cloying. (Reviewed in Flipped.)
  • Wings (Purple Bear Books): Glorious wordless storytelling, alternately exhilarating and wistful. (Reviewed here.)
  • Yakitate!! Japan (Viz): Boy-with-a-dream wackiness en croûte. (Reviewed in Flipped.)

    • Vacant lot?

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    Has anyone ever seen a copy of Vanyda’s The Building Opposite (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) in a bookstore or comic shop? I remember ordering it via Previews over a year ago, heard that it was delayed, and check periodically to make sure it’s still on my order list at the local comic shop, but the shop owner insists that it’s never shipped through Diamond.

    I’ve seen a couple of reviews of it, but I can’t remember if the reviewers mentioned if the publisher had provided a complimentary copy or if they’d picked it up in a store. Apparently it’s one of the 10 best manga of 2006, and given Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s track record, that’s certainly plausible, but where can I buy it, exactly? The English version isn’t listed at Amazon or Barnes and Noble (though both offer the Spanish version), and there’s no joy at Buy.Com either.

    Update: At MangaBlog, Brigid tracks down some sightings of this mysterious, reclusive book. In the comments below this post, Patrick provides visual confirmation of the Nessie of nouvelle manga’s presence at The Beguiling in Toronto. Makes sense. I ended up ordering Walking Man and Kinderbook from that fine establishment.

    Beat beat

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    I was wandering through the magazine racks the other day, saw the latest issue of Shojo Beat, and said to myself, “Who the hell is that on the cover?”

    An answer has arrived in the form of a press release from Viz: it’s Beat Girl, the magazine’s new “illustrated spokesperson.” (The text and cover image can be found at MangaCast.) A quick follow-up e-mail from Viz informed me that the image was drawn by Aiji Yamakawa, the first of several artists who will offer their take on the mascot. (Does the selection of Yamakawa hint at a future license in the Shojo Beat line?)

    Beat Girl is the harbinger of some editorial changes to the magazine, including a new ongoing series of features on “real women doing a variety of selfless and charitable works for other people and help inspire readers” and expanded fashion and pop culture coverage. There’s also going to be a new color palette and page design.

    As names go, “Beat Girl” doesn’t exactly set the heart aflutter, though I guess it could be viewed as a witty inversion of the magazine’s title. It avoids the redundancy of “Shojo Girl,” and they couldn’t exactly call her “SB,” since the initial approach is already taken. I’m wondering how much of a branding force she’ll be, what with a bunch of different artists rendering her. Maybe that’s intended to keep her open to reader identification: if you don’t like Yamakawa’s interpretation, just wait a month and you might get a look that’s more to your taste.

    Though my preferred delivery system is digests, I’m all in favor of targeted anthologies, and it never hurts to try keep things fresh. (Just look at what’s happening in Riverdale.) And given how invested Viz is in getting reader response through polls and the like, these changes couldn’t have come out of thin air.

    I need to come up with a tag for these Wednesday posts

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    Major booksellers seem to be on a mission to clog my e-mail in-box with in-store and on-line offers. I think I’ve made pretty good use of some of them, though I managed to resist the one-day discount thing Barnes and Noble sent yesterday, since it was only usable yesterday and, well, I had things to do that didn’t involve extra left turns.

    And I do have to save some of my retail expenditures for the local comics shop, because I’ll feel like a soulless Big Box pawn if I don’t. So let’s look at the week’s ComicList, shall we?

    If the season’s huggy, over-stuffed sentiment is getting to you and you want something a little faster and leaner, Dark Horse offers a tonic in the form of the second volume of Banya: The Explosive Delivery Man. While the title character hasn’t actually exploded yet, he’s done just about everything short of it in terms of action-adventure behavior. It’s a lot of fun, and Kim Young-Oh’s art is gorgeous.

    One of these days, I’m going to have to delve further into Clamp’s xxxHOLiC (Del Rey). I read the first two volumes long ago, was baffled and put off by the irrelevant crossovers with other Clamp series, then read the third and became intrigued. So perhaps I’m not quite ready for the eighth volume, but I will be someday.

    I’ve heard nothing but good things about So-Hee Park’s Goong (Ice Kunion). In spite of a massive recent overhaul of its web site, the publisher still doesn’t seem to have any previews available for the series, but it’s a what-if story about what Korea might be like if the monarchy was still in place. It was popular enough in Korea to be adapted into a television drama, which I believe is still an unusual development. Wikipedia has a spoiler-y summary of the manhwa.

    Oni launches Maintenance, a sci-fi workplace comedy from Jim Massey and Robbi Rodriguez. I read a preview a while back and really enjoyed it.

    Viz provides new volumes of Monster and Train Man: Denha Otoko. Monster is always reliably entertaining, and this volume seems to promise more of the Knots Landing antics of saintly Tenma’s hell-on-wheels ex-fiancée, so there’s really no down side. As for Train Man, Hidenori Hana’s adaptation of the story is easily my favorite of the competing versions.

    In the kitchen: Ellie Krieger

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    No one really likes to feel like they’re being scolded. If people aren’t eating as well as they should and are devoting too much time to sedentary activities (watching television, for example), they probably aren’t going to plop down on the sofa in front of the Food Network for a reminder, are they?

    Healthier cooking doesn’t have an illustrious history in food television. I think executives feel a certain responsibility to provide programming that promotes it, but it’s hard to find the right balance of educational and entertaining, without sending the associated message that network darling Paula Deen is trying to kill you every time she empties a jar of mayo to make a salad.

    Past attempts have fallen into some readily identifiable categories. I remember some PBS cooking shows that fell very much into the scolding category, with hosts who pretended they were speaking to a like-minded audience while sending coded disapproval to the people who were actually watching them simply because the show came on after Julia and Jacques and they were too lazy to change the channel.

    Then there was a brief wave of shows on the Food Network featuring fad chefs. Low Carb and Loving It tried to capitalize on the Atkins wave without success, coming just as the Atkins backlash was gathering momentum. Calorie Commando had the production values and vibe of an infomercial and focused too much on the mathematics of nutrition; if people aren’t interested in fresh vegetables and exercise, you certainly won’t sway them by adding a lesson in caloric algebra to the equation.

    So what about Ellie Krieger, host of Healthy Appetite? Does this registered dietitian avoid the pitfalls that seem endemic to the category? And does it matter?

    Pros:

  • She’s not big on reproducing unhealthy foods by substituting ingredients, a strategy that rarely ever works anyways. Instead, she focuses on bold flavors combined into easily reproduced recipes.
  • She avoids scolding in favor of informing. She highlights the nutritional benefits of the foods she’s preparing in comprehensible ways, pointing out what they can do for the body rather than giving viewers impression that they’ll drown in your own fat if they don’t change things right this minute. Her strategies are achievable.
  • She doesn’t dwell on calories at all, in my experience, concentrating more on packing dishes with nutritional value and flavor.

    • Cons:

  • She’s not an especially charismatic television presence.
  • Her portion sizes are generally sensible, but they don’t make for very gripping presentation. Her recipes sound tasty but can look lost on the plate.

    • Summary:

    Free of diet-fad gimmickry and schoolmarm severity, Krieger seems to have found the best approach yet to presenting healthy cooking on television – combine nutritionally packed ingredients in flavorful ways and portion them out reasonably. But she’s book-ended by chefs who are unfettered by anything resembling nutritional conscience who can provide the escapism factor that’s an essential ingredient of this kind of programming. I hope she succeeds, because she’s miles better than any of her predecessors, but I remain unconvinced that she can stake out territory on a landscape slathered with room-temperature butter.

    Filed Under: TV

    Whither and yon

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    A Comics Journal reader stops by the magazine’s message board to ask:

    “[D]oes anybody else find it disheartening that Michael Dean’s opening shot (in which he discussed the possible futures of comics in general and the Journal in particular) failed to even hint that manga exists? Michael talked a lot about the pros and cons of covering super-hero comics, and even promised a new super-hero column, but there was at best, only a single, oblique reference to shoujo and its (relatively) enormous audience.”

    Dirk Deppey first suggests that the reason TCJ’s manga coverage hasn’t expanded since the shoujo issue isn’t due to a lack of interest on the magazine’s part, but owes instead to finding writers who combine ability, knowledge, and availability. But he comes back to point out another conundrum for some comics pundits: that manga often manages to be both commercially and creatively successful:

    “The contradiction that writers will need to overcome is the fact that the better manga are simultaneously populist yet still well-constructed and even literate. We’re conditioned by American comics history to assume that most genre comics are created (at best) under assembly-line conditions by creators using comics as a way station until better, more legitimate work comes along, or (at worst) hacks with low standards who genuinely think they’re the soul of the medium. This isn’t true in Japan — its better creators approach genre work as the fulfillment of their worth as creators, strive hard to be worthy of such fulfillment, and it often shows.”

    It’s an interesting thread, and a nice palate cleanser for another recent conversation in that forum.

    *

    And speaking of commercially successful (at least in the context of comics specialty shops), Brigid sifts through ICv2’s November graphic novel sales figures for the manga and finds the usual suspects: comics for boys and young men, and comics about boys and young men falling in love with each other. Not that those two categories suggest mutually exclusive audiences, obviously.

    Understated, underrated

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    Every time a new volume of Chigusa Kawai’s La Esperança (Juné) arrives, I wonder why more people aren’t reading it and talking about it. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it has an abundance of really lovely moments.

    Okay, so it doesn’t move at lightning speed. The pace is generally measured at its briskest. (It took five volumes for anyone to kiss.) Kawai has a tendency to milk her characters’ ambivalence, sometimes to excess. But the delicacy of her approach also allows for tremendous depth of character development, in spite of the accompanying impatience. Angelic Georges and bitter Robert have layers, and their initially simplistic, even stereotypical dynamic takes on additional detail with each discovery.

    The book also has an extremely solid supporting cast. The leads aren’t isolated in their romantic angst. I love the scenes between Georges and his deceptively frail mother, and her more recent encounters with Robert have been filled with surprises and nuance. If there’s a better best friend in manga than Henri, I can’t think of him. His combination of protectiveness, impatience and support rings very true.

    Maybe the pacing is less problematic than I think, because the careful unfolding of the story places more emphasis on its themes. It’s all about how people cope with pain and how they can unintentionally cause more by isolating themselves. Kawai finds ample modulations on her themes, making for ultimately rewarding reading.