Link Blogging

Thanks to my partner, who is never quite as much of a cautious adopter as I am, we’re now proud caregivers of a couple of iPads. I’m still figuring out what exactly to do with it aside from coo over the fact that it’s really neat, but I’m sure I’ll be able to incorporate it into my time-wasting infrastructure without too much difficulty.

So far, I’ve only dabbled with a few comics apps and downloaded a few freebies, mostly from Archie, to see how they read. They’ve all looked fine, and my protests of being a dead-tree partisan will undoubtedly abate as more material becomes available. I won’t be quite so cautious when it comes to making unreasonable requests about just what kind of material I’d like to see.

In that direction, it’s very convenient that Kate posted the latest i-nnouncement from Viz Media over at The Manga Critic. My first reaction to the content available on the Viz app was that it was extremely cautious. That’s a sensible enough decision to make from a business standpoint, but it doesn’t exactly set my consumer’s heart racing. Their initial offerings were exactly the kind of titles I’d have absolutely no difficulty finding in any chain bookstore just about anywhere in the continental United States.

The recent round of additions is a bit exciting in that three of my very favorite current Viz titles – Children of the Sea, Cross Game and The Story of Saiunkoku – have been added to the roster, but that’s the excitement of a partisan seeing increased availability of and exposure for products he enjoys and admires. So while it’s rewarding to see Viz add more shôjo and seinen, they have a ways to go before my personal needs will be served.

One of Kate’s suggestions for Viz particularly resonated for me:

“(3) dig into their archives and resurrect out-of-print gems such as A A’, Banana Fish, Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, Firefighter! Daigo of Company M, From Far Away, Please Save My Earth, and Urusei Yatsura.”

And since I can never resist the urge to list things, I thought I’d throw out five Viz properties that should be made available on the iPad:

Sexy Voice and Robo, written and illustrated by Iou Kuroda: Part of my love for this comic is the physical production of it, with its phone-book dimensions and appropriately pulpy paper. It’s hard to find, though, and if we can assume that the average iPad user might be a little older, I think this book might find a new audience through this device.

Phoenix, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka: Until Vertical works out contractual agreements and unveils its own app, this is seems like a reasonable opportunity to get one of Tezuka’s masterworks available in digital form. You’re in great shape if you can read Japanese, but English-only readers are out of luck so far.

Four Shôjo Stories, featuring works by Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, and Shio Satô: This one is a result of pure selfishness, as the available copies of this out-of-print collection are just too damned expensive. From a more self-righteous place, I think every manga publisher should devote at least some effort to publishing challenging, off-the-beaten-path works by women for women. The iPad seems like a natural habitat for that kind of material.

The Drifting Classroom, written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu: Seriously, is there any mass transit experience that couldn’t be improved by the ability to read deranged Umezu manga? Sure, you risk strange looks from fellow travelers as you giggle at the over-the-top violence and total disregard for the well-being of children, but come on. Tell me this wouldn’t rock. I dare you.

Monster, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa: In spite of near-universal critical acclaim, Urasawa’s works don’t seem to have earned matching commercial success, which has always struck me as odd. He writes the kind of genre-bending, sort-of-intellectual thrillers that a lot of prose readers really love. Maybe digital availability would give those prose readers incentive to give a graphic version of their genre of choice a shot.

So what Viz titles would you like to see on one of their digital platforms?

 

It’s time for the results show, just like on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars! Well, partly, because only one poll depends on popular votes. So the other half is more like when Tom Colicchio decides who gets knifed on Top Chef, except I’m not an icon to the bear community. (I don’t honestly think Colicchio is either, and how would Andy Cohen know if Colicchio is or not? I just don’t see him doing exit interviews at the Green Lantern.) Anyway, thanks to your votes and input, I’ve managed to complete my Previews order.

First up, we’ll discuss this month’s Boys’ Love Blind Date. Now, as I strongly suggested, I eliminated Only Serious about You, as it sounds exactly like something I’d really enjoy, so no vetting was necessary, and I just ordered it. While A Fallen Saint’s Kiss would probably offer valuable insights into adult novelties, the power dynamics might negate that value by making me wish for death. A similar problem taints Private Teacher, and it doesn’t even sound smutty, so why risk it? This leaves Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf as this month’s choice. Characters with animal ears don’t do a single thing for me as a reader (see also: angel wings), but there does seem to be a likelihood that this book may be funny and/or cute.

Moving on to the infinitely more dangerous, fully crowd-sourced Dubious Manga Selection, it is my duty to report that the majority of comments were in favor of Mardock Scramble. This is actually kind of a relief. I can’t honestly imagine any way that Tales of the Abyss won’t be crushingly boring, and reports indicate that Bloody Monday is actually pretty good, as these things go. There’s a giddy, frightening uncertainty to Mardock Scramble. It could be interesting and provocative. It could be dull and formulaic and pandering. It could be so deliriously awful that I may require hypnotherapy to recover from the reading experience. I just don’t know, and that’s the fun of these polls, at least for me.

To wrap things up, I noticed an omission in my Previews overview post:

Gate 7 vol. 1, written and illustrated by CLAMP, Dark Horse Comics, item code JUN11 0039: I have a mixed history with CLAMP titles, but I’m kind of high on them at the moment, still coasting on my overwhelmingly positive reaction to Cardcaptor Sakura. Here’s the skinny on Gate 7:

“Chikahito Takamoto has always read about the beauty and mystique of Japan’s ancient capital city, Kyoto. Now, two years into high school, he’s finally visiting there for real. But wandering the grounds of Kyoto’s legendary Shinto shrine of Kita no Tenmangu, he chances upon a mystery that his guidebooks didn’t prepare him for – two handsome men and an attractive woman, all strangely-garbed, wielding powers…and fighting monsters! The two men treat poor Chikahito with suspicion – but the girl seems to like him. They aren’t worried about what Chikahito’s just seen, because they have the power to erase his memory…except for some reason, that power doesn’t work! And why does the girl kiss him before sending him away? One thing’s for sure: Chikahito is going to be seeing a lot more of these three strangers…”

Hardly untraveled territory for CLAMP or a hundred other mangaka, but I’m hoping for lots of lovingly drawn scenery and some gender-neutral romantic geometry. These do not seem like unreasonable expectations.

 

As we noted over in the current Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf, this is a positively crushing week for new releases from Viz. As it is at Midtown, so it is with the ComicList. As a result, I’m limiting my Viz picks to one, but it’s a doozy.

Yes, at long last, it’s time for the 57^th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s smashing pirate adventure, One Piece. When we last joined would-be greatest-pirate-in-the-world Luffy, he was desperately trying to save his older but considerably less ambitious brother from execution. Along the way, he inadvertently staged a massive prison break and raised pirate-navy tensions to perhaps their highest pitch in the history of the series. An alternate title to this book could be “How to Succeed in Chaos without Really Trying.” As always, I’m enjoying it enormously, but I miss the heck out of the rest of Luffy’s crew and am eager for their return.

Vizalanche aside, there are a couple of pamphlets I’m eager to purchase. First is Adam Warren’s second Empowered Special which asks Ten Questions for the Maidman from Dark Horse. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, Maidman is one of the few peer superheroes who treats our titular heroine with anything resembling courtesy and respect. I fully expect another outing packed with equal parts satire and sincerity, plus a reasonable amount of equal-opportunity cheesecake.

There’s unlikely to be any cheesecake in Veronica 207, the first issue of the Kevin Keller miniseries created by Dan Parent for Archie Comics. Kevin, as you may recall, is Riverdale’s first openly gay character. As Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson noted in this piece for Publishers Weekly, Kevin is one of the reasons that Archie has reasserted its relevance over the past couple of years and become, dare I say it, kind of cool for possibly the first time in its sturdy but fairly safe-and-steady history. I just like comics about gay people, provided they aren’t Chick Tracts.

What looks good to you?

 

The mighty Manga Bookshelf blogging battle robot expands as frequent contributor Michelle Smith brings Soliloquy in Blue into the fold!

To mark the occasion, Kate Dacey and I joined Michelle and MJ for their latest Off the Shelf discussion. I used the opportunity to examine the sparkly, goodhearted bundle of joy that is CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura (Dark Horse). It’s probably the first CLAMP title that I’ve loved without reservation or blemish, and I can’t believe I have to wait almost two months for the next omnibus to ship.

 

The current Pick of the Week was a tough one, as there are three titles I like very much in the Midtown mix. Fortunately, Kate and Michelle had my back. As for the rest of the ComicList, well, let’s see what looms on the horizon, shall we?

Sticking to the Viz Signature neighborhood, the second volume of March Story ships through Diamond. I was unimpressed with the first half of the first volume of this latest display of comeuppance theatre, but the back half was more interesting. Kate’s review of the second volume indicates that my reservations about the series may stay in place:

For all the skill with which March Story is executed, I haven’t yet fallen under its spell. It’s certainly one of the best-looking titles in the VIZ Signature line, but it has a slick, synthetic quality that prevents the reader from feeling the characters’ pain or appreciating their peril — something that no amount of blood-soaked flashbacks or tearful confessions can solve.

Elsewhere, Oni Press offers up more work by Ted Naifeh, which is always welcome. In this case, it’s Courtney Crumrin Tales: The League of Ordinary Gentlemen #2. Now, when is that Polly and the Pirates sequel coming out? I’m not getting any younger.

On an unrelated but very exciting note, the next Manga Moveable Feast is right around the corner. The Panelists will be hosting a sure-to-be-lively-and-enthusiastic discussion of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game (Viz), a series about which I’m always happy to rave at possibly counter-productive length.

 

It’s ComicList time! First, go take a look at the Manga Bookshelf crew’s Picks of the Week, then peruse the latest installment of Bookshelf Briefs, in which I gush about an arriving shôjo volume that makes me as happy as another makes me sad.

This week also brings the fourth and final volume of Nobuaki Tadano’s Eisner-nominated 7 Billion Needles (Vertical). I’ve enjoyed this series throughout its run, mostly for the evolution of its heroine, Hikaru, a grieving teen who’s forced out of her isolated state by the arrival of warring interstellar entities Horizon and Maelstrom. Their destructive, survival-of-the-fittest squabbling puts the people around Hikaru in danger and forces her to acknowledge the fact that she cares about them. Emotionally speaking, the conclusion is essentially Hikaru’s victory lap, her chance to prove how far out of her shell she’s come. In an odd way, that lowers the finale’s stakes and forces Tadano to inflate the science-fiction mayhem to almost incoherent levels.

It’s easy enough to ignore the twaddle about weaponized evolution, though, as Hikaru is still compelling, even though her personal journey is pretty much over before the story begins. She’s held the series together this long, and it’s nice to see her put the things she’s learned into action, even if that action doesn’t make much sense at all.

The only thing not covered above that I look forward to reading is the eighth volume of Karuho Shiina’s consistently delightful Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Viz). The good shôjo arriving this week certainly overpowers the bad.

What looks enticing to you?

 

Over at Otaku Champloo, Khursten Santos does a perfectly splendid job exploring the complex and varied works of Natsume Ono, one of the most interesting creators currently working in manga and certainly one of my personal favorites:

There’s more to Natsume Ono than Italian restaurants and kidnappers. In fact, doing this spotlight for Natsume Ono requires a journey for my readers. If you would allow me, I’d like to take you to a journey down to Ono’s lane because knowing her works takes more than just looking at her pictures. You’ve got to immerse yourself and experience her works to understand how Natsume Ono is definitely not simple.

It’s a great look at Ono’s body of work, especially welcome for its examination of some of her yet-to-be-licensed stories.

 

It’s one of those weird weeks on the ComicList where all of the highlights have already been mentioned elsewhere, so let’s use the lull for some linkblogging!

Okay, I will just remind the Diamond-dependent that the third volume of Natsume Ono’s Eisner-nominated House of Five Leaves arrives in comic shops on Wednesday. It’s one of the books discussed in the latest round-up of Bookshelf Briefs. One other SigIKKI arrival worth noting is the third volume of Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books, which Johanna Draper Carlson reviewed at Manga Worth Reading.

The dearth of new comics arrivals did not deter the denizens of the Manga Bookshelf from offering a Pick of the Week (or four). We just piggybacked on the Rumiko Takahashi Manga Moveable Feast for a themed list of recommendations. Speaking of the feast, today’s list of links indicates that this will be a lively installment of this always enjoyable effort.

The Toronto Comic Arts Fetival continues to develop as a highly desirable manga event with the announcement that Fantagraphics will debut Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son there.

But enough about manga that we can already or will soon be able to read. Sean (A Case Suitable for Treatment) Gaffney looks at the top properties lists of the big three Japanese publishers to see what we have, what we don’t, and to examine the likelihood that we’ll get the rest.

 

The next round of the Manga Moveable Feast begins this week, hosted by Rob (Panel Patter) McMonigal and focusing on the works of the wonderful Rumiko Takahashi. Rob has been conducting ongoing examination of her work with his Year of Takahashi project.

For today’s question, what’s your favorite work by Takahashi? There are lots to choose from, though some are sadly out of print. Is there an unlicensed work you’d like to read?

 

After you’ve taken a look at the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week, we’ll tiptoe through the current ComicList.

Are you back? Great! I’m so excited! Sort of! Also frightened! Because this week sees the arrival of my first chosen-by-committee dubious manga! For those of you who have forgotten, the “winner” was Arata Aki’s The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High from Digital Manga. It’s about a girl who likes girls whose mother sends her to an all-boys’ school so that she’ll start liking boys. I’ve tried to refrain from reading early reviews of the book, partly not to color my own opinion and partly to stave off the ominous despair that Wednesday may bring, but even quick glimpses at these analyses suggest that the book is kind of terrible. We’ll soon find out! (Oh, and please help me pick between the two titles left standing in the last round of this exercise in horizon-expanding masochism.)

Perhaps I’ll turn to Digital Manga to recover from that reading experience, as they’re kindly also delivering the fifth two-volume collection of Kaoru Tada’s totally adorable Itazura na Kiss. I’m not quite caught up with this series at the moment, but it’s nice to know that more volumes are out there, waiting to provide the healing power of snarky shôjo romance.

While Midtown is a week ahead of Diamond in terms of new Viz releases, those dependent on the distributor can at least count on the arrival of the 14^th volume of Naoki Urasawa’s excellent, Eisner-nominated 20^th Century Boys. This is possibly my favorite Urasawa series to be published in English.

What looks good to you?