The Manga Curmudgeon

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

Birthday book: Real

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Hey, today is the birthday of manga superstar Takehiko Inoue! How, oh how, shall I choose to observe this special occasion? Well, since I never pass up an opportunity to do so, I’ll suggest you celebrate by once again recommending that you buy yourself a volume or seven of Inoue’s brilliant Real (Viz).

If you’re sick of hearing me make recommendations of this kind, well, that’s just tough, because it truly is one of the best series of any provenance to be published in English in the last ten years. It just is.

And if that’s not enough, I’ll simply have to hit below the belt, because you know what? You people owe Inoue, not just for his own great comics, but for the fact that, were it not for Inoue, there might be no Fumi Yoshinaga as we know her. Yoshinaga came from the world of doujinshi, fan-created comics. And do you know what one of the series was that she repurposed to her own glorious ends? That’s right. It was Inoue’s Slam Dunk.

So if the fact that Real is amazing isn’t enough for you, if the fact that it’s Inoue’s birthday isn’t enough for you, do it for Yoshinaga. There must be sufficient incentive in there somewhere.

Upcoming 1/13/2010

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This week’s ComicList gives us all an opportunity to dig out from under last week’s avalanche. There are still items of note, of course.

“David,” you may ask, “just how many comics about people who see dead people or other supernatural beings can one actually read?” My answer is, “All of the ones that sound any good at all.” Your answer may be different, obviously. This week’s entry into the crowded, often awesome genre is Lola: A Ghost Story (Oni) by J. Torres and Elbert Or. Bask with me in the enticing familiarity of the blurb text:

“Jesse sees dead people, monsters, demons, and lots of other things that go bump in the night that no one else can see. No one except his ailing grandmother — a woman who used her visions to help those living in her small town. The same rural community in all the scary stories Jesse’s heard as a child. Man-eating ogres in trees. Farmhouses haunted by wraiths. Even pigs possessed by the devil. Upon his grandmother’s passing, Jesse has no choice but to face his demons and whatever else might be awaiting him at grandma’s house.”

I’ve reached the point that I would inject Banri Hidaka’s V.B. Rose (Tokyopop) directly into a vein if such a thing was possible, but I’ve been a little slow in exploring her other licensed work. For instance, Tears of a Lamb (CMX) reaches its conclusion with the seventh volume. This just means that I can order the whole thing in one massive, presumably discounted order and spend an entire weekend reading it. A plot that features both eating disorders and amnesia sounds like a really good week on All My Children in its long-ago prime, and that’s always a selling point for me.

Go, vote: book about manga

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I can’t believe we still don’t have a serious piece of popular scholarship dedicated to manga for girls and women. When such a tome is published, and if it’s any good, I’ll certainly vote for it in Deb Aoki’s Best Manga Book poll. In the meantime, I have no qualms voting for…

Wishes, hopes and dreams

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After what feels like a solid month of gray skies and falling snow, it’s therapeutic to think of good things to come, like ice-free roads, the color green, and temperatures above freezing. That kind of optimism (or mitigation) was the inspiration for this week’s Flipped. But you know what? Awesome as those titles may well prove to be, I’m hoping they’re joined and perhaps even trumped by another 2010 possibility.

Last week, a certain publisher was teasing the Twitterati about an imminent announcement of a new license of a work by Osamu Tezuka featuring a “great female lead.” If you’re me, this can only mean one thing.

I could be wrong, but I’ll let that mistake live in my heart for as long as contrarian reality allows. This would make a certain publisher the fulfiller of two of my license requests, not to mention the only publisher to fulfill any at all. It’s a good thing I don’t make any unseemly promises when I make these requests.

Okay, back to the exciting books we know we’re going to get in 2010: one of them is by Fumi Yoshinaga, who has a one-shot coming out soon, courtesy of Viz. Christopher Butcher also adds Yoshinaga’s Antique Bakery (DMP) to his roster of Ten Manga That Changed Comics. It’s an excellent choice, and I thought it was a particularly intriguing one in juxtaposition to his other recent choice, Gutsoon’s Raijin Comics. Raijin fairly dripped testosterone, as Chris notes, but what some might forget is that DMP’s manga catalog was also quite the men’s locker room pretty much right up until the publication of Antique Bakery. Bambi and Her Pink Gun, Worst, IWGP and the Robot anthology were the books that defined DMP’s output prior to the launch of Juné, and Antique Bakery certainly seems like the fulcrum point for that shift.

From the stack: Time and Again vol. 1

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I’m not going to argue that JiUn Yun’s Time and Again (Yen Press) will have the same cultural durability, but the book kind of reminds me of a character played by the young Barbara Stanwyck: sexy, funny, moving and often ruthless. It’s about an exorcist-for-hire who seems more inclined to give his clients what they deserve than what they request.

The malicious charm elevates the book from the already strong pack of ghost-hunter comics. Baek-On, the exorcist, is a lazy drunk. The delicate elegance of his wardrobe is undone almost entirely by the bags under his eyes from last night’s bender. And his skills with the unquiet dead are virtually moot in balance with his indifference towards the unquiet living. For Baek-On, exorcism isn’t a calling; it’s a job, and barely that. Dignity is a paycheck.

Ho-Yeon, Baek-On’s assistant and bodyguard, may view things a little differently. He’s certainly fresher than Baek-On, and he seems more compassionate than his employer, but he’s not quite forceful enough to make Baek-On do anything Baek-On doesn’t care to do. That’s all to the good, because a sober, diligent Baek-On would be no fun at all.

A sober, diligent Time and Again wouldn’t be nearly as much fun either. Rather than telling the specific story of her spiritual mercenaries, Yun seems more interested in the mechanics and possibilities of the ghost story itself. Half of the chapters in this volume require no participation from Baek-On or Ho-Yeon, wandering off to other realms of supernatural despair. While the protagonists may vanish, the tone remains the same. Yun has a real knack for blending heartbreak and horror.

The other running thread is how lanky and gorgeous the illustrations are. While Yun favors long, lean figures, there’s a satisfying variety of body type and facial expression on display. Yun doesn’t shy away from low comedy or gruesome imagery, either. It’s just the right kind of toolbox for this kind of work.

I would have been eager to read the second volume in any case, but Yun ups the ante with an off-kilter cliffhanger. What kind of parent, you may wonder, could unleash a Baek-On onto the world? Yun teases an answer to that question, and it involves a bouffant that might be the most ominous image in the book. I can’t wait to find out more about Baek-On’s mother.