There have been some great articles and bits of news posted over the past few days (and I promise they aren’t all Fantagraphics-related). Time to share!

Just to get the Fantagraphics stuff out of the way, here are a few choice links: First of all, The Comics Journal has now published all four parts of Matt Thorn’s 2005 interview with Moto Hagio online (previously only available in print or on Matt Thorn’s blog). Click for parts one, two, three, and four.

While we’re at TCJ, you should also check out Shaenon Garrity’s recent post about Moto Hagio, I also like her creepy vampire kids. Meanwhile, Deb Aoki interviews Fantagraphics’ president Gary Groth at About.com.

One last piece of related info: Regarding all the press floating around about Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son, I was very gently informed by a transgender reader
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Stepping on Roses, Vol. 1
By Rinko Ueda
Published by Viz Media
Rated T+ (Older Teen)

Buy This Book

Sumi Kitamura is in a bind. Her older brother (a happy-go-lucky male escort with a gambling problem) has a habit of bringing home orphaned children for her to take care of. Unfortunately, what he rarely brings home is money. With the landlady looming and loan sharks at her door, Sumi decides to sell herself in order to keep her family alive and together. The buyer is Soichiro Ashida, a wealthy, jaded young man who must marry immediately in order to inherit his grandfather’s business empire. Soichiro promises Sumi all the money she needs in exchange for her hand in (loveless) marriage. Desperate, Sumi agrees, but is she really prepared to give up everything she loves for a the life of a lonely society wife?

When it comes to frothy romance manga, there are allowances most readers are always prepared to make. Realism? Unnecessary. Depth? Optional. Cliché? Bring it on! In return, these readers ask for just one thing: Romance–heart-stopping, unrestrained, no holds barred romance. Unfortunately, though Stepping on Roses takes full advantage of its readers’ generosity, it fails to deliver on its end of the bargain.

Though Sumi and Soichiro are positioned perfectly for their roles as the plucky commoner and guarded aristocrat who unexpectedly find love while trapped in a marriage of convenience, neither is interesting enough for them to develop any real chemistry. Soichiro is cold and controlling like so many of his ilk, but without any real sense of mystery with which to attract readers, let alone Sumi. Meanwhile, Sumi is bland, dense, and surprisingly shallow–more distraught over having lost out on a chance with Soichiro’s charming best friend than she is about the family she left behind (or even the calculated erosion of her individuality). Gags involving Sumi’s lack of social refinement repeatedly fall flat. And without any context provided for the story’s Meiji Era setting, it’s hard to know what conclusion to draw when her ignorance of western manners and customs is characterized as near-barbarianism.

Rinko Ueda’s artwork, a highlight of her series Tail of the Moon, feels tired and lifeless here. The work is nicely detailed and generally attractive (especially its period settings and dress), but offers little character or passion, much like the story itself. Even opportunities to engage readers in the unique dynamics of the period, visually or otherwise, are passed by with little enthusiasm.

Though it’s tempting to hope that subsequent volumes may offer something more to grab onto, even dedicated fans of romance manga may find their optimism hanging by a string. With all its trappings carefully in place, Stepping on Roses simply lacks heart.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

As you all know, the manga blogosphere exploded yesterday with the news that Fantagraphics is launching a new manga line, edited and curated by Matt Thorn. Thorn is widely acknowledged as the west’s leading authority on shojo manga, particularly the works of The Year 24 Group/Magnificent ‘49ers, very little of which has ever been translated into English.

For shojo fans (and indeed serious manga fans as a whole) this announcement is beyond exciting, a fact plainly demonstrated by the massive outpouring of joy between manga bloggers and fans yesterday afternoon on Twitter. Many have expressed speechlessness over the news. At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh is keeping a running list of blog reactions and official news.

In the wake of the initial announcement, both Fantagraphics and Matt Thorn have come forward with further details, including a list of stories
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A thousand giddy manga bloggers just raced to their keyboards in rapturous joy. Why? Because Dirk Deppey has announced officially in his blog that “Fantagraphics has signed an agreement with Shogakukan to launch a full manga line edited and curated by Matt Thorn.”

What does this mean? MOTO HAGIO, that is what it means. The first item being listed by Amazon is A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. I, for one, am counting the days until September when I can own this volume for myself. So little of Hagio’s work has been available in English up to this point, exactly none of which remains in print. This is truly a crime.

For more background and further understanding of why this is so significant for fans of shojo manga, take a look at this brilliant 2005 interview with Hagio
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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

As an update to last week’s discussion of March releases, let’s talk a bit further about NETCOMICS. As Michelle Smith pointed out this week on Twitter, all of NETCOMICS’ scheduled chapter updates for March are for its current manhwa series, including The Adventures of Young Det, Full House, Small-Minded Schoolgirls, and Please, Please Me. New chapters for each of these series will be debuting each week.

It’s worth noting that each of these series (mainly for adult women) made an appearance on our Manhwa Monday special edition, Favorite Manhwa of 2009, being recommended by at least one of that feature’s contributors.

Also in the realm of recommendations, the Library Journal came out with a list of “27 Graphic Novels for Women’s History Month,” including Kim Dong Hwa’s
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Reading Club, Vol. 1
By Cho Ju-Hee & Suh Yun-Young
Published by Udon Entertainment
Rated: Older Teen (16+)

Buy This Book

Eun-Sae is thrilled when dreamy bookworm Kyung-Do asks her to volunteer with him to clean up their school library. Unfortunately, a couple of surprises await her as she takes on this new task. Though Kyung-Do is clearly interested in reading everything in the library’s sprawling collection, he shows very little enthusiasm for actually organizing the place. Secondly, the collection includes a book with some sinister supernatural qualities that may have played a part in several tragic deaths, including that of Kyung-Do’s father. Can Eun-Sae save Kyung-Do from meeting the same fate?

Reading Club is billed as “Korea’s first horror comic for girls,” and while I can’t speak to the accuracy of that statement, I can vouch for it being very effectively geared to its target audience. The first volume favors story over romance, but with an intimate feel reminiscent of the plotty romance novels that drew me in most as a teen, like Mary Stewart’s Touch Not the Cat or The Gabriel Hounds. Her stories were always favorites of mine, marrying heart-stopping fear and heart-pounding romance, all experienced through the tight POV of her sophisticated heroines. Though Reading Club does not stick with Eun-Sae’s POV for the entirety of its first volume (nor is Eun-Sae the equivalent of Stewart’s snappy young ladies of leisure) the effect is the same. Plot is the focus of the volume throughout, but it is Eun-Sae’s feelings that drive the story, whether she’s fighting off ancient evil or boldly taking the initiative with her new crush.

One particularly refreshing aspect of the story, especially for young female readers, is the reversal of traditional heroine and hero roles. While Kyung-Do is portrayed as a passive beauty who sparkles only in the presence of good books, Eun-Sae is all action, vowing to protect her delicate boyfriend from coming to a tragic end. This reversal is never played as parody and Eun-Sae in particular is wonderfully nuanced, despite limited “screen time” in this volume. She’s sometimes brave, often lazy, occasionally dishonest, and definitely driven by hormones, just like any teen. Kyong-Do is more of a mystery, both to Eun-Sae and to us, which is exactly as it should be so early on in this kind of story.

Reading Club’s greatest weakness at this point is its length, or rather its lack thereof. Though the series’ first volume effectively introduces both its cast and major plot points, so little is understood about the book’s sinister powers (let alone the mysterious “Reading Club”) even by the end of the volume, there is a sense of shallowness to the story’s supernatural elements that could be avoided by revealing just a bit more. Presumably deeper insight is yet to come, but it would be nice to have a stronger taste early on to better whet the appetite for future volumes. Though the volume delivers a sufficiently spooky premise along with some genuinely frightening imagery, the connection between the two is not yet solid enough to hold up under scrutiny. Why does one of the book’s victims commit suicide, while another is simply found dead with a creepy severed tongue? The story’s mythology has not yet been explored deeply enough for us to know, keeping real terror safely at arm’s length.

The series’ artwork is sparse yet vivid, helping to set the story’s dark, tense tone right from the start. Its character designs are unremarkable yet nicely distinctive from one another, helping to shape characters immediately within the story’s plotty framework. Unfortunately, the volume’s text is less easy on the eyes, printed in a small, cramped font that is sure to force some readers into squinting from page to page.

As the first of Udon’s manhwa catalogue I’ve had the pleasure to read, this volume fortunately leaves me wanting more. For smart teen romance paired with genuine chills, Reading Club is a promising choice.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

One of this month’s most interesting releases is the first volume of Yuu Watase’s recent shonen series, Arata: The Legend. Arata has been serialized online at Viz’s Shonen Sunday website since July of last year. This is its first print release.

I have mixed feelings about Watase’s classic Fushigi Yugi, though much love for its current spinoff, Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden. A quick glance at Arata proves that Watase’s art style lends itself well to shonen, which comes as no surprise at all. One of Genbu Kaiden’s strengths is its energetic but clear action sequences–a rare virtue in shonen manga.

There are few reviewer reactions to refer to at this point, though Connie at Slightly Biased Manga seems to have enjoyed the first volume. Fortunately, readers can preview the series for free themselves, now up to eight chapters at Shonen Sunday. Here’s the full press release from Viz:
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Time for some quick mid-week linkblogging!

First of all, Rob at Panel Patter has been reading/reviewing Yumi Tamura’s classic shojo series Basara, a favorite series of mine (and quite possibly Michelle Smith’s most-loved manga series of all time). Since Michelle is always right, I feel compelled to share Rob’s reviews with the world. He’s just finished volume two. Click here to check out what he has to say so far.

Over at The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh presses on with his Shojo-Sunjeong Alphabet, now on letter “T“. I went over to express support for CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon (probably my second-favorite of all their work) and Moto Hagio’s They Were Eleven, both on which I’ve reviewed for my Tokidoki Daylight column at CBR’s Comics Should Be Good. These two series probably couldn’t be more different, but I love them both very much.
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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! I’ll get to the reviews in a moment, but first let’s take a look at some of this month’s upcoming releases. It’s all Yen Press this month (at least in print) but they are giving us plenty to look forward to. In March, we’ll see new volumes of Angel Diary, Very! Very! Sweet, Raiders, You’re So Cool, The Antique Gift Shop, and Time and Again.

My personal picks from the lot would be the next installment in JiUn Yun’s Time and Again (see my review of volume one here) and new installments of JiSang Shin and Geo’s Very! Very! Sweet and Lee Young-hee’s You’re So Cool, both in their sixth (and final, in the case of YSC) volume.

Meanwhile, NETCOMICS will be offering at least one new chapter of Sooyeon Won’s Full House (see my reviews of chapters one and two) and Youngran Lee’s There’s Something About Sunyool, both due on March 5th.
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I’m sure by now everyone has heard the news about Nick Simmons’ alleged (and meticulously documented) plagiarism in his fledgling comic, Incarnate. For those who haven’t, Deb Aoki has a collection of links and Twitter conversations here in her blog. As you’ll see from her post, discussion of plagiarism has segued into discussion of piracy. I was foolish enough to wade into the comments section yesterday evening, which turned out to be frustrating, exhausting, and really nothing else.

As I mentioned to someone later on Twitter, I was not nearly as anti-scanlation when I entered the conversation as I was when I left. In the end, the pro-scanlation crowd had turned me against them to the point where I not only could no longer see any merit in what they were saying, but was frankly disgusted by the idea of being part of the same fan community. I have some examples to share, but first, a confession:
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