The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye: Comics will break your heart, and so will Singaporean politics

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye
Presented by Sonny Liew
Published by Pantheon Books



Sonny Liew has always been an excellent cartoonist, but with this book, he really takes things to the next level, both in terms of artistic style and in the depth of his writing, as well as his ability to use the comics form to create something truly unique. Here, he "presents" the story of the title character, a fictional cartoonist from Singapore, and the book functions as a collection of that man's work, including the various comics he created throughout the twentieth century, excerpts from his sketchbooks, illustrations he made, and an autobiographical comic that gives context to his work. In addition to all of this, Liew adds documentary-style comics that show Chan in the present, and even occasionally adds himself as a character to explain things to the reader. It's a fascinating collection of techniques, and it's convincing enough that one occasionally wonders if Chan was a real person.

But no, it's all fiction, and that's probably for the best, since Chan's story isn't a very happy one. Like many creators throughout the history of comics, he had a hard time, slaving away at his art for decades without receiving much in the way of acclaim or success, yet feeling like he couldn't give up. It's a portrait of the artist as somebody who has something to say, even if nobody is listening.

And what he does have to say is where things get really interesting, since it gives Liew a chance to study the history of Singapore, from its status as a British colony, to its occupation by Japan in World War II, to its struggles to achieve independence, to its brief merger with Malaya, to its eventual status as an independent nation ruled by a near-dictatorial regime. As the book progresses, we see Chan use his comics to address current events and support the people he saw as leaders in his nation's struggle for justice, only to become disillusioned as infighting between these leaders led to power struggles and new versions of oppression. The book functions as something of a history lesson, and it's rather educational, providing insight into the changes that Singapore went through over the decades.

That all sounds kind of dry, but Liew makes it sing by having Chan take inspiration from a variety of sources. He starts out as an imitator of Osamu Tezuka, with a comic about a boy who discovers a giant robot and uses it to defend student protestors who are being beaten by British authorities:



Later, he imitates the EC war comics of Harvey Kurtzman to look at how Singapore was caught in the middle between the Axis and Allies during World War II and its aftermath:



Then, he gets inspiration from the British comic Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future to create a sci-fi story about Earth struggling to get out from under the thumb of alien rulers:



He follows that with a Pogo-style allegorical funny animal strip that satirizes Singapore's merger with Malaya and its political fallout:



He goes the superhero route with Roachman, a vigilante who helps people deal with injustices in a changing Singapore:



He creates a Mad Magazine-style satire of Singapore's "official" history, in which the ruling party pats themselves on the back, insists that everything they've done is for the good of the people, and papers over any injustices they've committed:



And perhaps most fascinatingly, he takes inspiration from both Frank Miller and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle to present an alternate history of Singapore in which a different party came into rule, but things seemed to end up much the same:



It's a pretty amazing collection of styles, and it makes for a great way to guide readers through the history of a country that they are most likely not familiar with. Interestingly, Liew sort of sets Chan up to fail by having him insert didactic commentary into his comics, turning them into political treatises rather than can't-miss entertainment. His sci-fi story about alien oppression ends up being an examination of real-world political figures and their struggles. His version of Pogo is so full of impenetrable allegory that Liew has to appear alongside the strips to explain what they mean. It ends up being a demonstration of how an artist's passion to make a statement dooms him to failure and obscurity.

But that seems to be by design. Liew is sympathetic to Chan and his struggle to have his voice heard, but he doesn't turn him into a history-changing genius. Instead, he's an obscurity, a minor figure that provides Liew with a chance to examine the history of his own country and explore how idealism can so easily turn into oppression. It's a fascinating work that demonstrates Liew's mastery of the comics form, and it's one that has a great deal of value, both in helping to understand the history of Singapore and in examining the benefits and drawbacks of the artistic lifestyle. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, don't miss it.

Nijigahara Holograph: I don't think I'd want this comic to be three dimensional

Nijigahara Holograph
By Inio Asano
Published by Fantagraphics Books



I've been a fan of Inio Asano ever since I read his excellent book Solanin, which was a lovely slice of life story with wonderfully realized characters and lots of well-earned emotion. His two-volume collection of short stories, What a Wonderful World!, was pretty good too, but around the time that I read those series, I'd heard rumors of an excellent earlier work focused more on horror than on young people trying to find purpose.

Now that I've finally read Nijigahara Holograph, I can see some of the seeds of Asano's later themes, but here they're mixed with some really disturbing psychological stuff, possibly stemming from a sort of cultural hopelessness, maybe the same sort of thing that Kazuo Umezu explores in Drifting Classroom. But this is pretty different, being the sort of elliptical, somewhat impenetrable style of Japanese horror, with only slight hints of the supernatural and a lot of difficulty figuring out just what the hell is going on.

So, what's it actually about? The story jumps back and forth in time, alternating between following a group of kids and teachers at an elementary school and then checking in with them eleven years later as they're still reckoning with the things that happened. A lot of the details get teased out over the course of the book, so it takes a while to figure out what exactly happened in the past and how it is still affecting everyone in the present.

Much of the oddness seems to surround a spooky series of tunnels that some of the kids pass when walking between home and school, and there are also a bunch of butterflies that may or may not be supernatural that regularly appear in huge swarms. It's only slightly creepy, and the build to some eventual reveals is slow, but we eventually see that several of these kids are rather troubled. There's a transfer student who doesn't seem to get along with anyone, to the point of angrily lashing out at anyone who tries to get close to him. There's another kid who is a bully, with some of his misanthropy stemming from the way all the other kids treated a girl who he liked. And there's also a teacher who was assaulted when trying to defend a student and is slowly losing confidence in herself and feeling like she has nothing to offer the children in her care.

In the present, we check in with everyone and see how the events of their past messed them up, and the book slowly builds to some reveals that eventually show how some original sins led to a great deal of suffering. It ends up being pretty effective, if not especially scary, although there is one very disturbing scene in which someone who seemed to be a kindly character turns out to be one of the main sources of the horror that has been affecting everyone.

In the end, I'm not completely sure what to make of this story. I think I can see what Asano is going for, examining the way past sins can affect the present and looking at how small decisions can spiral out to result in larger consequences. I think there might be a bit of social commentary going on, looking at how the failure to give children the love and support they need can result in pretty severe consequences later in life.

Whatever the case, the book ends up working fairly well, but I'm glad Asano went in a different direction in his later works, trying to focus on how people can struggle to live and thrive in a difficult world. There's a place for horror and nastiness, but I think Asano is better suited for positivity and hopefulness, as well as capturing the moments of beauty in life. He manages to do that here too, even amidst all the psychological anguish:



So, I'm glad I read this so I could see some of the evolution of a great cartoonist, and I'm excited to see what Asano does next. Whatever it is, I expect that it will surprise and delight me. Don't let me down, Asano-san!

Multiversity: And I thought getting one degree was going to be expensive...

The Multiversity

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Cameron Stewart, Chris Sprouse, Frank Quitely, Ben Oliver, Doug Mahnke, Jim Lee, et al.

Published by DC Comics

I really want to like Grant Morrison. He’s written some of my favorite comics of all time, and most of the time, even his less successful projects are crammed full of interesting ideas. But something seems to have happened to him over the course of the last decade, most of which he has spent slaving away in the halls of DC Comics. There are stories about him filling notebooks with concepts for reimaginations of various characters pulled from the forgotten margins of the publisher’s 70-plus year history, and there are his extended runs on series like Batman, Action Comics, 52, and Final Crisis, much of which has since been paved over by rebooted continuity. It seems like at some point, he became so engulfed by all this silly, spandex-clad nonsense that it seemed to grow in importance, as if it all really meant something and really contained the key to, I don’t know, the meaning of life or some profound shit like that (his memoir, Supergods, seems like a cry for help from within these trenches).

That’s about the only way I can explain this odd mess of an “event” series that probably only mattered to dedicated Morrison fans. He seems to have taken one last big swing at sorting out the mess of DC mulitiversal continuity, as if that’s a goal that anyone should aspire to. So, this series not only posits yet another threat that promises to destroy Earths across the multiverse, but in fighting it, the heroes (none of whom actually come from the “true” DC universe that all of DC’s other comics take place in, as far as I can tell) discover the makeup of DC’s multiversal reality, and all 52 variants in said reality are defined (with a few “unknown” Earths left over, in case somebody gets a really neat idea for an Elseworlds story somewhere down the line).

The story does start off kind of intriguingly, with some freaky monsters called The Gentry that seem pretty unstoppable destroying some universes, some “haunted” comics (which are actually the various comics that make up this series) popping up on various Earths and causing the people who read them to get sucked into the conflict, and one of Morrison’s pet characters, Nix Uotan, first setting off to fight the Gentry and then becoming corrupted by them, giving the first “bookend” issue of the series its cliffhanger ending.

But before getting to the concluding bookend issue, Morrison dives into the real meat of the series, which are a bunch of one-shot stories taking place on various Earths. Some of these tie into the larger story, while others are just variations on standard superheroic tropes or Morrisonian takes on other creators’ styles. Let’s look at each one:

Society of Superheroes, illustrated by Chris Sprouse, is a pretty enjoyable take on superheroes as old-fashioned pulp characters, with Doctor Fate, Immortal Man, the Atom (the original Golden Age strong-guy-in-a-mask, not the guy who shrinks), and a few others fighting an invasion from another alternate Earth, leading to lots of fights with bad guys like Vandal Savage, Lady Shiva, and Felix Faust. It’s decent enough, especially since Sprouse’s art makes most any story look good, but it’s also pretty grim, with the battle between heroes and villains turning into a years-long war that leads to untold death and destruction around the globe. With its easy to follow action (something Morrison can do well when he’s teamed up with the right artist), this ends up being one of the better installments, although it ends with a portentous indication that seems to point to something important happening in the big series finale, but when that finale does roll around, this issue doesn’t really end up mattering to the big picture.

The Just, illustrated by Ben Oliver, seems to be Morrison’s attempt to slot superheroes into another genre, the teen soap opera. On this Earth, Superman, Batman, and the other heroes we’re used to are all dead, and their children are left to sort of fill their shoes. However, there’s also no crime, due to an army of super-robots that Superman left behind. This means that all the superpowered children are left to hang around and exhibit angst and ennui, while legacy versions of heroes, like Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and Green Arrow Connor Hawke, spend their time restaging past battles in the abandoned wreckage of their original locations. The issue ends up being kind of interesting, like a better-thought-through version of Mark Millar’s Jupiter’s Legacy, with character relationships that are fleshed out quite well (Superman Chris Kent and Batman Damian Wayne are at odds, mostly because Batman is dating Lex Luthor’s daughter, while other heroic offspring spend their time worrying about parties and fame) and a mystery that seems to tie into the larger Multiversity plot (but, like many of these one-shots, doesn’t really). Unfortunately, it ends with a cliffhanger that seems like it could go somewhere interesting and exciting, but we’ll never get to see what that is.

Pax Americana, illustrated by Frank Quitely, is probably the most ambitious of these one-shots, since it provides Morrison with a chance to take on one of his perpetual adversaries: Alan Moore. Yes, this is Morrison’s take on Watchmen, using the Charlton characters (Blue Beetle, the Question, Captain Atom, etc.) that Moore used as inspiration for his magnum opus, inadvertently setting Morrison on the course of jealousy and antagonism ever since. With Quitely providing the art, Morrison is free to go crazy with formal ideas, a non-chronological plot, and pages that stick to a rigid format (he uses variations on a 4x2 grid here, rather than Moore’s 3x3 structure), but while it certainly looks good, it doesn’t rise to the level he’s shooting for. Instead, it’s kind of a bunch of nonsense and riffs on the characterization of the versions of the various figures from Watchmen. The take on Captain Atom/Dr. Manhattan is interesting, with the fractured chronology pushing scenes that take place in the past toward the end of the issue, revealing the character struggling with his loss of humanity and being given purpose by the man who will later become president and engineer his own death, for reasons that don’t necessarily make sense. In the end, it’s kind of sad, a naked attempt by Morrison to reckon with his primary influence’s most influential (if not necessarily his best) work, and he comes up short, creating something mysterious and empty, without the fully realized characters and bold ideas of the original.

Thunderworld Adventures, illustrated by Cameron Stewart, is probably the most enjoyable part of the entire series, and interestingly, it’s also one of the stories that has the most impact on the overall plot. It’s a take on the classic Captain Marvel stories of C.C. Beck, and it’s a hoot, with Captain Marvel and his various sidekicks facing off against Dr. Sivana, who, with the help of a bunch of his alternate selves from across the DC multiverse, has engineered his own version of the Rock of Eternity, created Sivana-imitating evil versions of Captain Marvel and his sidekicks, and also managed to add a new day, Sivanaday, to the calendar, during which he always wins. The resulting battles are fun and exciting, and Morrison comes up with inventive ways to use the crazy combinations of magic and technology that this milieu provides. And we see that what happens here even actually matters to the overall story, with the various alternate Sivanas causing more trouble in later chapters of the series and the issue ending with the Marvel family charging off to help fight the big bad guys. If the rest of the series had been more like this, maybe I wouldn’t be complaining about it.

The Multiversity Guidebook is an odd combination of comics and informational text, awkwardly slotted into the middle of the series. It features some scenes that pertain to the overall plot, with alternate versions of Dr. Sivana causing trouble for people on other Earths, including one where all the characters are cutesy kid versions of themselves and one where Batman is a freedom fighter in a techno-dystopian landscape. There’s also an interesting bit following Kamandi and some friends (including Ben Boxer, who is able to turn himself into BiOMAC, the Bio-factored One-Man Army Corps) as they investigate Darkseid’s tomb and find out about the origin of the DC multiverse, which is actually pretty interesting, and much better than the silly version of the Judeo-Christian creation myth that Geoff Johns came up with in Blackest Night. But then the book pauses in order to provide a map of the multiverse and illustrated descriptions of every Earth therein, and frankly, this collection of alternate versions of DC superheroes is pretty underwhelming. Look, there’s a steampunk Earth! Hey, it’s a vampire Earth! I guess this one is a sort of sciencey Earth? And maybe in this one everybody just has different names and costumes? After the umpteenth version of “Superman, only this time he’s dressed like a pirate/robot/woman”, you begin to wonder what happened to Morrison’s boundless imagination. And then the story kicks back in, and while it’s kind of cool that the characters are holding the very book you are currently reading and using it to discover the secrets underpinning their reality, one begins to wonder if maybe the creativity well is running dry, and this is all less of an exercise in possibility than one in inevitability.

And sure enough, we proceed on to Mastermen, illustrated by Jim Lee, in which Superman is a Nazi. Yawn. Morrison tries to wrest some interest out of the concept by having Nazi Superman try to reckon with the crimes that his nation has committed (but which he didn’t participate in; we see a flashback in which he returns to Earth after he apparently decided to spend three years in space right in the middle of World War II, and he is horrified to discover that the Holocaust occurred in his absence). There are some gestures at a plot involving Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters rising up to proclaim the spirit of the United States and fight back against their Nazi oppressors, but it’s all rather uninteresting, and like most of these one-shots, it doesn’t end up making a lick of difference to what happens in the series’ main plot.

Things seem to be looking up with Ultra Comics, illustrated by Doug Mahnke. This one seems to be Morrison’s bizarre take on Superboy Prime, who was the only superhero on Earth-Prime, the “real” world that we, the readers and creators of DC comics, live in. This is certainly the most inventive story in the series, breaking the fourth wall on nearly every page, with the main character and other, more sinister figures addressing the readers directly. The character himself is actually called Ultra Comics, and he’s the living embodiment of the actual comic that you’re reading, which is one hell of a goofy concept, and he gives Morrison a chance to let his freak flag fly and go nuts with all sorts of crazy ideas, like the fact that the comic is being read by thousands of people across a long period of time gives the character untold powers of imagination, as well as a chance to influence the reader directly and maybe even cause them to be endangered by the big villains of the series. He also comes up against some really bizarre villains, jumps around within the chronology of the comic itself in order to gain the power to fight the Gentry, and utilizes the demoralizing power of internet commenters as a weapon. I don’t know if it all really makes sense, but it’s one of the few places in the series where the old Morrison seems to resurface, and I kind of love it.

Unfortunately, things dive back into yawnsville with the concluding chapter of the series, which resembles nothing so much as Morrison’s own Final Crisis, which also featured versions of DC heroes from across the multiverse fighting against a barely-comprehensible threat. This one is mostly one long fight scene of the type that’s hard to follow because it’s on a large enough scale that it doesn’t really make sense. There are a few interesting bits, like when the various Dr. Sivanas trick each other into fleeing into alternate Earths that happen to be inhabited by heroes that can easily defeat them (for instance, vampire Sivana ends up going to a world where a team of monster-hunters led by Superdemon Etrigan take him out pretty much instantly), or a bit during the big battle when Captain Carrot, the rabbit superhero who follows cartoon logic, gets decapitated and has to reunite his head with his body before his superpowers stop working. 

The main conflict in most of this final issue takes place between a bunch of heroes and the corrupted Nix Uotan, who, it turns out, has managed to undo the Gentry’s plan from within, since by opening doors to every Earth, which they wanted him to do so they could invade and conquer, he allows all the heroes to come together and defeat them. Or something like that. We also apparently learn that the Gentry are called that because their ultimate goal is gentrification, which I guess is Morrison’s way of saying that DC continuity shouldn’t be cleaned up and made “proper”, but should remain crazy and hard to understand and full of all sorts of weird versions of stuff. But doesn’t this entire series (not to mention the whole “New 52” reboot) kind of go against that premise? It’s a weird, self-contradictory stance to take, if that’s even what Morrison is doing.

He takes an even weirder tack with the revelation of the Big Bad, a shadowy figure controlling the Gentry from behind the scenes and who, as far as I can tell, is meant to be a stand-in for the readers themselves. After this revelation, the story ends kind of anticlimactically, with this villain simply disappearing, maybe to return in a sequel that will probably never happen. But we do get a final statement of purpose from another Morrison pet character, the alternate version of Superman who is an African-American President of the United States, in which he threatens the readers of the comic and says he and his new team of multi-dimensional heroes are coming to get them.

That’s certainly an odd note to end on, with a threat to readers, apparently condemning them for not liking DC comics enough, but it’s kind of evocative of the strange nature of this series. On one hand, it’s Morrison’s chance to demonstrate the untapped possibilities of DC superheroes, spinning them off into different sub-genres and coming up with either new ideas or interesting ways to approach genre standbys. But on the other hand, it certainly seems to shows the limitations of superhero comics in a way that’s kind of dispiriting for fans of the both the genre and Morrison. If the best that the most imaginative man in comics can come up with when given a limitless field in which to play is a fourth-wall-breaking experiment (something Morrison already did 25 years ago in Animal Man) and a couple examples of the kind of action that should be filling comics shops every Wednesday, does that mean the genre as a whole is just withering on the vine? I don’t really think that’s the case, since there are plenty of solidly enjoyable superhero comics coming from a number of talented creators. Unfortunately, despite some glimmers of excitement, this series as a whole isn’t one of them.

The many marvelous monsters of Shigeru Mizuki's Kitaro

Shigeru Mizuki's Kitaro is a classic manga that's tons of fun, even though it's kind of an odd read. The pacing is strange, and it seems as if Mizuki was making up the stories as he went along, which sometimes means that Kitaro, a boy who interacts with yokai (traditional monsters and creatures from Japanese folklore), has powers that can easily defeat threats, and other times he gets taken out rather easily. Some stories wrap up in a few pages with semi-abrupt endings, while others drag on for much longer than is really necessary. That may be related to the era in which these stories first appeared; comics from the 1960s don't follow the same rhythms that we're used to these days.

But whatever the case, the comic is worth reading just to see all the crazy monsters that Mizuki included. Here are some of my favorites:

I like this hair monster, especially the way it seems to grow a pair of eyes as it's attacking Kitaro:



A collection of monsters welcoming some criminals to "hell":



I think I see a kappa in there, and I like the guy with the long neck. And also the regular human-looking fellow just hanging out in the back; he seems hilariously out of place among all the other freaky things.

I like the bipedal weirdness of this cat demon, as well as Kitaro's Plastic Man-style method of fighting it:



There's a story where Kitaro assembles a baseball team of monsters, who make a formidable bunch:



And the game's umpire is even crazier; he has tons of eyes, so he's a perfect choice to call the game:



Another memorably weird one is this eyeball/centipede guy:



In another case of "regular guys being freaked out by encountering spooky stuff", some guys end up boarding a train for dead spirits, who reveal themselves as creepy, sometimes inhuman skeletons:



Another interesting (if overlong) story sees Kitaro fighting a bunch of "Western yokai", which include a witch, a wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, and Dracula:




But their leader is this crazy guy named Backbeard:



Another long but enjoyable story sees Kitaro encountering this prehistoric ancestor of whales:



This one gives Mizuki a chance to create some giant monster action, which eventually leads to a fight between the creature and a huge robot:



Here's an amusingly goofy group of monsters who decide to rent out some office space:



I really like this giant head guy:



And this lady, who has prehensile snakes for hair and a gross mouth on the back of her head, kind of freaks me out:



I love the inventively bizarre illustrations that Mizuki came up with here, and even if the stories themselves aren't all that amazing, it's worth a read just to see what fantastically weird things will pop up next. If you like this sort of thing, I definitely recommend checking it out.

A Bride’s Story: Thanks for the mammaries

A Bride’s Story, Volume 7

By Kaoru Mori

Published by Yen Press

Wow, I never expected a female centered comic like this to contain so much nudity. Naked bodies have shown up in this series before, but never to this extent. I’m not sure exactly which genre this manga fits into in Japan (that is, whether it is published in a magazine aimed at men or women), but based on the subject matter, I’ve always considered it to be a josei (women’s) series. The emphasis on naked women here, and especially large, shapely breasts, has me wondering though.

The large increase in nudity in this volume comes from a plot centering around women’s bathhouses. Since portions of the series follow the English journalist Mr. Smith as he travels back home, Kaoru Mori uses this conceit to have him meet various women along the way and explore their stories, making for a rich look at the various cultures in Central Asia and the Middle East in the 19^th century.

Actually, Mr. Smith never meets the main character of this volume, even though he spends a month staying in her house. The culture in this area (part of Turkey, I think) hides women away from public sight, with them wearing head-to-toe coverings in public and only removing them in the presence of their husband or other women. We meet Anis, who is married to a rich man and living what she supposes is a happy life, but she’s very lonely, with only her baby boy and his nursemaid to keep her company.

The plot kicks in when Anis learns of the concept of “avowed sisters”, women who pledge themselves to each other as best friends and confidants for life, taking vows that seem to be as serious as marriage. She resolves to go to the public baths to try to meet someone who could be her avowed sister, and that’s where we get lots and lots of nudity. These scenes have so much flesh on display, with such pointed emphasis on sexual characteristics, that there must be at least some intent to attract male readers. The combination of this copious nudity with a plot emphasizing mutual female yearning even lends a lesbian subtext to things, which can’t be accidental.

However, this is still very much a women-centered story, focusing on the characters’ feelings and desires, and it even takes a bit of a melodramatic turn when tragedy strikes almost immediately after Anis befriends a woman named Sherine and achieves her goal of finding a lifelong friend/partner. It’s a good combination of heartfelt yearning and drama, and while it doesn’t reach the satisfying heights of previous volumes in the series (possibly due to its complete lack of questioning the way women are treated in this society), it’s still quite good.

Much of that comes from Mori’s skill, both at weaving good drama and at creating a fully-realized environment for her characters to move through. Her attention to detail is incredible, whether she’s drawing an opulent mansion or a dirty hovel, and whether she’s filling pages with naked bodies of varied shapes and sizes or demonstrating emotions by cramming panels with flower petals or intricate designs. I especially like the little details of human or animal interaction she always includes, like the way Anis’ cat alternately craves and rebuffs affection:

So, if you’re new to this series, I’d recommend reading the other volumes first (that’s the way numbers work), but if you like what you see there, you’ll be glad to know that the series continues to delight. I’m looking forward to the next volume, which promises to return focus to its original characters, and hopefully find a suitable match for young Pariya. If the seven extant volumes of the series have led me to expect anything, it’ll be full of good, moving drama, and hopefully an ending that will make me happy.

One Piece: Yes, It’s Still Awesome

One Piece, Volume 76-77
By Eiichiro Oda
Published by Viz Media



This many parts into a looooong storyline, it may seem that Eiichiro Oda might start running out of steam, trying to keep his myriad plates spinning as he keeps charging toward a finale that is still in the future. But no, he manages to make it work, as always, checking in regularly with the dozen or so mini-plots and battles that are going on while Luffy and company keep charging toward a final confrontation with the villainous Don Quixote Doflamingo. He even manages to spend a good half volume on a flashback filling in the backstory of Trafalgar Law and his history with Doflamingo, bringing some additional emotion to the fighting. It’s kind of impressive to watch him juggle so many things going on at once; every time you wonder what’s happening with, say, Zolo’s battle with the stone-man Pica, Oda checks back in to see how it is progressing, providing a promise that a larger focus will eventually return to that subplot before zooming off to whatever is currently holding the spotlight.

So, to make an attempt to sum up, the evil Doflamingo has trapped everyone in the land of Dressrosa in a giant “birdcage” and is making them either attack each other or the Straw Hat Pirates, who are trying to fight their way up to the palace on the top of a plateau. Luffy is leading the charge, but he is joined by a large group of gladiators that he helped free from the arena, all of whom get into a huge battle with Doflamingo’s powerful officers. Meanwhile, the kingdom’s population of tiny people, the Tontattas, are trying to break into a factory that Doflamingo uses to make artificial devil fruits in hopes of freeing their enslaved brethren and rescuing their princess. On the surface, that doesn’t seem like too much to keep track of, but it’s only the starting point for these two volumes, and things get substantially crazier and more chaotic as they progress.

How crazy? Well, there’s a big fight involving a bad guy named Gladius, who is attacking Nico Robin, a gladiator named Cavendish, and another pirate named Bartolomeo who is a total Straw Hats fanboy, meaning that he is awed to the point of blubbering tears to get the chance to help out his heroes:



There’s another goofy battle going on between Franky and the tough guy Señor Pink, who dresses as a baby. They both act super badass and make manly proclamations about toughness, but when they fight, this is the sort of thing that happens:



Usopp gets a pretty great moment when he realizes that Luffy is about to be turned into a toy by the creepy-cute Sugar, which would make them all forget he ever existed, so he makes an amazing sniper shot from halfway across the kingdom to take her out at the last minute:





And there’s also plenty of really silly comedy, with moments like the elderly kung fu master Lao G facing off against a couple of gladiators and almost dying of old age in the middle of the fight:




But while that stuff all advances the overall plot, the real crucial part here is the flashback, which gives us some insight into Law’s need for revenge against Doflamingo, as well as some speculation about what message about the real world Oda is trying to convey here (if any). It turns out Law was from White Town, in the country of Flevance, where the main industry was mining a mineral called white lead, which was used to make all sorts of luxury items, but was actually toxic, slowly poisoning everyone in the kingdom. The world government let this happen even though they knew the people were dying, and even though the sickness wasn’t contagious, they allowed people to think it was, quarantining the country and eventually killing all of its inhabitants. Law managed to escape, but being infected with the sickness, he faced a certain death within a few years, so he joined Doflamingo’s pirates in hopes of killing as many people as possible in revenge. While he fit in well with the pirates, Doflamingo’s brother, Corazon, who was secretly a good guy trying to stop his brother’s evil schemes, couldn’t bear to see him waste his life, so he kidnapped him and went in search of a cure. This was eventually found in the form of the Op-Op fruit, which gave Law his super-surgeon powers and allowed him to heal himself, but Corazon died getting it for Law, demonstrating the only kindness anyone had ever shown him.

So there’s the latest heartbreaking backstory, and it works fairly well, although it seems like ground that we’ve trod before. The stuff about rich governments exploiting people’s suffering is interesting though, calling into mind the way the diamond trade destroys lives in Africa. Whatever Oda is going for, I expect it will make for some compelling emotion as the final battle plays out, with Luffy demonstrating his brotherhood and compassion for Law by kicking Doflamingo’s butt.

In the meantime, we’ve got some definite awesomeness, like in this move, when Law uses his powers to move Luffy into place for a decisive punch against Doflamingo:





That one actually happens pretty early in the fight, and things go in some unexpected directions from there, but as the various battles occurring elsewhere begin to wrap up, it’s clear that we’re heading for a finale (which will probably still take at least a volume or two to get here). That only means that Oda is going to start piling awesomeness upon awesomeness, so I expect what’s coming next to really knock my socks off. Don’t let me down, One Piece!

The Divine: It's pretty wicked

The Divine
Written by Boaz Lavie
Art by Tomer Hanuka and Asaf Hanuka
Published by First Second



This is kind of an odd graphic novel, and not just because it's full of all sorts of weird shit. No, what's especially odd about it, and probably the biggest knock against it, is the pacing. The story involves an American getting in crazy adventures in a small island country in Southeast Asia, but it spends nearly a quarter of its page count getting there. Instead of grabbing the reader and jumping into the action, we are slowly introduced to the main character, an explosives technician named Mark who lives in Texas with a kid on the way, seeing him forced to listen as a colleague brags about the money he made working for the government on a job in some tiny country called Quanlom. We get to see Mark worry about getting promoted at his job, his relationship with his wife, some odd dreams that he has, and maybe a hint of ennui that leads him to accept his friend's offer at the spur of the moment. It's possible that all this material is supposed to give you an idea of Mark as a person before plunging him into unknown territory, but there's really not much there; he's only slightly less of a blank slate than if the book had simply elided this entire opening section.

Once we get to Quanlom, things still take a little while to get going, as Mark and his Ugly-American friend Jason go about setting an explosives charge in the local volcano, for not-very-well-explained purposes that I think have something to do with mining. They are supposed to wait a day or two, set off the bombs, and head home, but Mark notices a young boy who fell climbing the mountain, and over Jason's objections, he decides to help him, bringing him to get patched up by their medic and then escorting him back home to his family. And that's where things finally get interesting, as Mark ends up going alone with the kid on foot due to an uprooted tree blocking the road, at which point he is attacked by a group of kids wielding guns and machetes, tied up, tortured, and told he has the choice to either help them disable the explosives that he had just set or die. And finally, we're off on a crazy adventure!



Things take a turn for the bizarre when we meet the leaders of the kid gang, a pair of brothers who claim to have magical powers that they got from a dragon that lives in the volcano. That seems pretty nuts, but when one of them starts to demonstrate telekinetic abilities, all bets are off. And sure enough, things get pretty wild when the kids end up facing off against the country's army (who Mark and Jason had been working with) in a battle that involves ancient giant magical soldiers and people getting their insides forcibly separated from their bodies.



This section is where the book really shines, due to what one would expect to be incredible artwork by the Hanuka brothers. They fill scenes with awe-inspiring imagery that recalls Akira and European sci-fi comics alike, while still nailing the personal details, the facial expressions and body language that demonstrate awe, fear, hatred, or determination. The color scheme is especially well done, with the inclusion of pinks and reds among the greenery of the jungle to make things seem unsettling and wrong even before things go nuts.

So, I would say this does end up being pretty good overall, even though it takes too long to get going. The afterword, in which writer Boaz Lavie talks about how he was inspired by a photograph of two Taiwanese child soldiers, kind of gives the game away. The magical twin characters are the heart of this book, the only ones that really come to life as more than ciphers or stereotypes, and trying to build the narrative around people who are much less compelling doesn't really work. I wish the whole thing had focused on them, rather than spending so much space getting to the point where they can appear. But even with those faults, this is still worth checking out, if only just to see the eye-popping images that the Hanukas create. Once they get going, they can grab the attention like few others.

Fragments of Horror: Junji Ito Is a Weirdo

Fragments of Horror
By Junji Ito
Published by Viz Media



It's not exactly news that Japanese horror can get pretty weird, but if you're looking for another example to reinforce that stereotype, here's a new collection of short stories by Junji Ito, who has created lots of strange, creepy manga like Uzumaki and Gyo. These stories are a little bit mixed, ranging from kind of silly with occasional grotesque imagery, to pretty weird and disturbing, to stuff that probably makes more sense to a Japanese audience.

On the silly side, there's "Magami Nanakuse", about a girl who is a fan of a quirky author who gets a chance to meet her literary hero, only to discover that she is a cross-dressing creep (Ito doesn't seem to be making any sort of statement about transgender issues here; when the girl meets the author, her first thought is "She's a man...") who berates the girl and tries to get her to display "tics" that will inspire her to write her next book. It all leads up to a sort of jump scare that's really more funny than creepy.

"Blackbird" kind of fits into this category as well, following the story of a hiker who falls and breaks his legs in a remote location, being kept alive for a month by a strange, bird-like woman who feeds him raw meat and blood by chewing it up and spitting it into his mouth. The eventual reveal of where the meat is coming from doesn't really make much sense, but Ito's depiction of the woman is pretty creepy.

There's also "Dissection-chan", about a girl who is obsessed with dissecting animals, and even ends up wanting to be dissected herself, to the point that she tries to imitate a cadaver that medical students train on. It's goofy as hell, and it leads up to a crazy reveal that occurs when she finally dies and gets dissected for real.

On the WTF side of things, "Wooden Spirit" starts off interestingly, with a father and daughter who live in a historical house getting a visit from an architecture student who professes a love of the building and manages to worm her way into their lives. But once she starts humping the walls and the beams and floorboards all sprout eyes, it ends up just being strange, seemingly reflective of Japanese folklore. It's creepy, but I feel like it would be more so if I really understood how it fits into those sorts of legends.

The same goes for "Tomio - Red Turtleneck", which has a marvelously icky premise in which a boy falls in love with a fortune teller who tries to remove his head by wrapping one of her hairs around his neck, which ends up severing it, forcing him to hold his head in place to keep it from falling off. It's gross and strange and horrific, but the WTF part comes in when he and his girlfriend end up facing off against the fortune teller and killing her, after which her body turns into three childlike figures who call him "Daddy" and climb all over him, forcing his head to finally fall off. It's a real head-scratcher of a moment, and one that makes me feel like I'm missing something.

On the genuinely creepy end of the spectrum, I enjoyed the first story, "Futon", about a woman whose husband refuses to get out of bed because he sees monsters everywhere. She thinks he's crazy, but when she starts seeing them too, the reveal (and its eventual explanation) is pretty great:



"Whispering Woman", the books' final story, is kind of creepy as well, although it ends with a twist that didn't really grab me. It's about a young woman who can't make any decisions for herself, so her father hires a caretaker who shadows her and gives her constant instructions. The creepy part comes from the way the caretaker slowly wastes away, putting so much energy into the girl in her charge that she becomes a husk of a person, simply following behind the girl and whispering instructions into her ear. That's a great image, but Ito had to try to bring in some other plot threads to give it a bit of a shocker of an ending, and I didn't find that to work all that well.

The one story that I thought did work pretty effectively is "Gentle Goodbye", which also happens to be the least creepy and grotesque one here. It's about a young woman who marries into a rich family and discovers that they have a tradition of creating "afterimages" of their dead family members, sort of ghosts that hang around for a couple decades until they fade away, allowing the family to come to terms with their deaths. As the story proceeds, various characters are revealed to be ghosts, and it's strange and sad and pretty effective. Probably my favorite story in the book, even though it's the least out-there.

Overall, this is a fun read, especially if you enjoy the craziness of Japanese horror and culture, or if you like seeing Junji Ito come up with bizarre, grotesque imagery. I can't say it's great (if I was recommending an Ito work to check out, I would probably suggest Uzumaki), but it has its moments. If weird Japanese horror is something you enjoy, you'll probably like it.