The Manga Curmudgeon

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

When in doubt

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Ask a librarian.

I had a few questions about the outcome of the Marshall Public Library controversy and the policy that’s currently being developed, despite strong reporting in the Democrat-News. One thing I wondered was if the developing guidelines were going to be applied to all new acquisitions and if that new additions to the collection would be suspended until the guidelines were in place.

Amy Crump, library director, was kind enough to answer my questions via e-mail:

“The library will not suspend shelving of all new acquisition until the new policy is developed and approved. In addition, books that are currently in the collection will not be examined one by one – we don’t have the staff for that type of job and that was never the Board’s goal. If at any point, other materials are challenged, they will be examined with the guidelines set by the policy.”

So the policy being developed is directed at challenged material rather than general collection development, if my understanding is correct. That puts a somewhat different complexion on the Board’s decision.

Mangaviews

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ChunHyang gets into the spirit of the season by looking at vampire comics:

“I’ve read a little bit of everything, from gothic angst to straight-up horror and can honestly say it’s a rare vampire manga that rubs me the wrong way.”

Will this be the reminder that finally gets me to pick up Model, which sounds like Paradise Kiss starring the mysterious undead?

Tony Salvaggio is back with a new installment of Calling Manga Island at Comic Book Resources, looking at Air Gear and Old Boy:

“No matter what your age, there is plenty of action and adventure to be had in manga lately, and these two titles are certainly ones I will be following for the near future.”

At Manganews, anitra gives a tidy summary of why Antique Bakery is so appealing:

“Antique Bakery is a character piece. I forgot most of the plot about five minutes after I read it, but I know the characters as if they are my friends. It is a funny story, and that is what the plot is for, but what makes it profound and compelling is its depth of character.”

I’m a sucker for character-driven stories. And pastries.

At MangaCast, Christian overcomes an aversion to manga maids to become smitten with Emma:

“It’s hard not to be charmed by Emma. Much of the first tankōbon has a quiet, almost lazy feel to it. For a series so light on action, a surprisingly large amount of the story elements are conveyed visually, without dialogue, sometimes just with knowing glances.”

Emma’s meditative quality really hooked me on the book.

Over at MangaBlog, Brigid and MangaCast’s Jarred and commiserate over tankoubons of pain.

If you want a snapshot of what comics critics are saying about the books of 2006, swing by The Comics Reporter. Tom Spurgeon is putting together a list.

And this piece at Shaenon Garrity’s LiveJournal is great fun, reporting on some all-time favorite manga lists from Japan and soliciting the same from some manga editors in the U.S. (Found via MangaBlog.)

And bad news

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It seems the Marshall, MO Pubic Library Board of Trustees has evaded a final decision on whether Blankets and Fun Home belong on library shelves. Both Dirk Deppey and Newsarama’s Matt Brady (found via Blog@) have spoken to the Marshall Democrat-News to get a rundown of last night’s meeting. Instead of making a decision specific to the books in question, the Board decided to form a committee to write a “materials selection policy.”

From Newsarama:

“The proposal was agreed to unanimously, and until the policy has been written and adopted by the Board, the two books will remain out of circulation. After the policy is formed, the two books will be evaluated as to their suitableness for the library.”

Kudos to Democrat-News reporter Zack Sims for asking the first question that came to my mind:

“Sims told Newsarama that he asked if all the books in the library would be treated as such, and retroactively run through the yet-to-be-written policy, and said that he was led to believe that they wouldn’t, though the policy will be applied to every new book.”

It’s still unclear as to who will serve this policy committee. The librarians who are already doing materials selection in keeping with their education and training? Concerned citizens? Board of Trustees members? Some combination of the above?

Tom Spurgeon reacts to the pseudo-decision, noting its canniness (and lack of conviction):

“It’s still distressing, because the books are not shelved until the time of their re-evaluation, which in a way means that for now the board gets to avoid making a decision and the heat that comes with it, but still gets the books off the shelves.”

Over at The Beat, a Marshall resident voices displeasure. Final figures at the Democrat-News site indicate that 71.6% of the 303 voters in the paper’s on-line poll were opposed.

I’ll be curious to see how the “materials selection policy” develops, who has final say, and just how much additional work this will be for Marshall’s librarians. Because when was the last time you heard of an over-funded, over-staffed public library?

There's good news

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Gene Yang’s excellent American Born Chinese (First Second) is a finalist for a National Book Award in the Young People’s Literature category. The New York Times (free registration required) confirms that the book is the first graphic novel ever to be nominated.

This makes me really happy, because the book is excellent. It’s already been nominated for the American Library Association’s list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens, but this kind of recognition is sure to put it on the radar of even more librarians and booksellers, and that’s all to the good. It’s an added bonus that the book comes from First Second, because they really seem to sincerely love every book they publish, and to lavish attention and care on them as a result.

Here are some of the reviews for American Born Chinese:

In other award news, I share Brigid’s limited enthusiasm for the Quill Award given to Naruto Vol. 7. But look at the awards program’s guiding principles:

“The Quill Awards pair a populist sensibility with Hollywood-style glitz and have become the first literary prizes to reflect the tastes of the group that matters most in publishing-readers.”

So they’re roughly equivalent to the People’s Choice Awards or the ones Wizard gives out, and I don’t really expect Alison Bechdel to win one of those, either. Plus, just being nominated in the category is bound to give the other books a bump.

Reed Business Information, sponsor of the Quills, is the parent company of Publishers Weekly.

116058365235429033

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Thumbs up to the ComicList. They now provide a full list of releases for the week, plus a manga-centric version. (Of course, David Taylor has been providing the latter for ages.) As the MangaCasters note, it’s a big Wednesday for manga.

NETCOMICS releases six books, including the third volume of the excellent Dokebi Bride. If you’re curious, you can enter Love Manga’s Manhwa Competition to try and win a copy, or you can visit the publisher’s site and sample the first chapter for free.

It’s not on the ComicList, but the aforementioned MangaCasters say Broccoli’s Yoki Koto Kiku gets wide release this week. Adorable, murderous triplets scheme to get their hands on the family fortune, and hatchets fly with alarming frequency. (If my shaky memory serves, you can fill out a Broccoli survey and receive a free dust-jacket for the book.)

Graphix releases the second installment of Raina Telgemeier’s excellent adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club books with The Truth About Stacey.

Go! Comi offers two new titles this week. In Night of the Beasts, a mysterious, dark-haired figure introduces a good-hearted teen-aged brawler to a supernatural destiny. It’s ShôjoBleach! After School Nightmare is set in what has to be the worst sex-ed class ever.

CMX enters the great Train Man race with its version of Densha Otoko, the story that launched a thousand manga. That just leaves Del Rey’s, right?

Causality and coincidence

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There’s interesting chatter in the comments following Heidi MacDonald’s link piece on Marvel’s track record with gay characters.

Chris Eckert provides a quick scan of the current state of LGBT representation in the Distinguished Competition:

“The thing I find more interesting is DC’s LGBT wing of its Diversity Initiative, which thus far has involved having as many chicks making out as possible in as many books as possible. Since the One Year Later jump, I am reasonably sure that the only male homosexual characters we’ve seen are a talking gorilla and his disembodied Nazi Brain lover. Meanwhile they’ve worked in two girls making out into at least four different titles. Which is totally cool, although one questions if a sensitive portrayal of diversity is the primary motive for this.”

Jordan White links to a response from Marvel Team-Up writer Robert Kirkman from the Image boards to questions about his decision to create (then kill) Freedom Ring, the latest gay Marvel corpse:

“In hindsight, yeah, killing a gay character is no good when there are so few of them… but I really had only the best of intentions in mind.”

Basically, Freedom Ring was cannon fodder who just happened to be gay, like Northstar from that Wolverine zombie ninja story. (I thought Marvel had covered the well-meaning-but-incompetent newbie territory with Gravity who, coincidentally or not, is both straight and breathing.)

The world is flat

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I’ve decided that the thing I really love about Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels is that my favorite is always the one I’ve read most recently. At the moment, that’s The Fifth Elephant. Because really, any author who makes the time to fold a pitch-perfect Chekov satire into the narrative without derailing any of the story’s momentum is my kind of author.

I’m not generally a fan of anachronisms. I’ve seen enough conceptualized productions of Shakespeare to actually develop a tic in response to some of it, whether it’s the women of Comedy of Errors striking Charlie’s Angels poses or Richard III humming “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as he wanders through scenographic rubble. It’s not that it can’t be done well; it’s just that it generally isn’t.

But the anachronisms in Pratchett’s books are generally delightful. He throws them in for no other apparent reason than that they might be a hoot; they almost always are. And since Pratchett is building his multifaceted world from scratch, I really can’t call them anachronisms, can I?

And the more of the books I read, the more impressed I am with the craft of them. At this point, Discworld is one of the most well-populated fantasy series on the shelves, and the huge cast of characters shows remarkable internal consistency. Pratchett knows how to shuffle them to keep things fresh, mixing and matching different temperaments and backgrounds to create new comic possibilities.

Sometimes I find the plots more admirable in their construction than interesting in their specifics, but there’s so much great throw-away stuff that it’s rarely a problem. With Discworld, I’ve completely abandoned my anal tendency to read a book series in order. There’s continuity, and it’s surprisingly stringent, but it’s just a nice part of the backdrop rather than a reader prerequisite. Like the good old days when a footnote would make me want to look up another Marvel or DC comic, a reference to a bit of cultural evolution makes me more interested in the books I haven’t read yet as opposed to puzzled by the one I’m reading. It’s a neat trick.

Monday mangablogging

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At MangaBlog, Brigid gives some on-the-scene coverage of the inaugural MangaNEXT in Secaucus, NJ, including today’s wrap-up.

At Love Manga, David Taylor launches his Manhwa Competition with Kye Young Chong’s Audition from DramaQueen.

MangaCast is awash in previews and reviews.

At ¡Journalista!, Dirk Deppey wraps up his scanlation tour.

Icarus exec Simon Jones contemplates manga backlash in France and takes a level-headed view of the place of spandex in bookstore:

“All things considered, I don’t feel the traditional superhero books are as marginalized in bookstores as they appear… much of that comes from our incorrectly grouping all manga into a single entity. If we separate them into their individual genres… shounen, shoujo, seinen, josei… then the superhero genre would compare to each more favorably.”

Lest you think the Frankfurt Book Fair is kind of stodgy, organizers gave free admission to cosplayers, one of whom won a week-long trip to Japan.

And in this week’s Flipped, I stare into the coming digital age, eyes wide with trepidation.