I usually do this on Monday, but I'm traveling tomorrow, so let's see if I can get it finished tonight. UPDATE: looks like I didn't make it. Now we'll see if I can actually get it done on Monday.
New comics this week (Wednesday, 7/23/08):
Black Summer #7
About fucking time. Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp got behind on this one, even starting another series (No Hero, which does seem pretty good so far) before finishing this story about violent superheroes. It's been all right, if not world-shaking or anything. We'll see if they can wrap it up satisfactorily.
Boy Who Made Silence #5
Oh, man, I've been meaning to write about the last couple issues of this series, but I haven't gotten to it. It's been pretty incredible, beautiful, impenetrable stuff, so I look forward to each new installment. Keep it up, Joshua Hagler!
Dan Dare #7
Speaking of delayed miniseries that are finally ending, this Garth Ennis/Gary Erskine revamp of a classic character is finishing up as well, and it has been quite good. Ennis writes war comics like nobody else these days (especially since nobody else seems to want to), and that's basically what he's doing here. It's still quite excellent, and the last issue promised a huge action finale. The issue is $5.99, so I imagine that means it's extra-sized, for more explosions (and probably the reason for the delays). Let's hope Ennis doesn't let us down.
Glamourpuss #2
Who knows what will show up in this issue. Will there be a narrative? More drawing with running commentary on drawing tools and whatnot? Satire? Bizarre rants? Who knows, but it's interesting stuff from Dave Sim. If it's just like the first issue, I don't know if I'll be interested in continuing to read the series (will he just talk about art techniques for 20 issues?), but I won't have regretted buying these two. Sim is a hell of an artist, and I don't mind indulging him a little bit, but only so far. I'm sure he cares immensely about my opinion, so there we go.
Immortal Iron Fist #17
This issue sees the debut of the new creative team to the title, and a probable exodus of a massive amount of readers. I read a review PDF of the issue, and it seems all right, not a horrible drop-off in quality or anything. New writer Duane Swierczynski is following Brubaker and Fraction's formula to a T, with current-day Danny Rand exploits interspersed with Russ Heath-illustrated flashbacks to adventures of a previous Iron Fist. The plot has an attention-grabbing hook, but the threat seems kind of impotent, since Marvel isn't about to kill off a newly-popular character. So, I guess if you're hooked on Iron Fist's kung-fu adventures and need a monthly dose, you can keep reading, but Fraction/Brubaker fans probably shouldn't bother. But I doubt you needed me to tell you that.
Liberty Comics A CBLDF Benefit Book 1 Shot
One of those "for a good cause" books that just happens to contain some really cool stuff. Contributors include Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones, Mike Mignola, Garth Ennis (with a new "Boys" story), Darwyn Cooke, Ed Brubaker (with a new "Criminal" story), and Rick Veitch. Methinks I'll get me a copy.
War Heroes #1
With yet another variation on "what if superheroes were, like, real, man?", Mark Millar gives us this super-powered war story. It should look nice, with Tony Harris on art, but I'm so sick of this stuff, so I won't bother with it. When does that next Ex Machina trade come out?
Wasteland #19
I hope I didn't overpraise the last issue of this series, but I'm really liking it these days. So here's another one. I bet it will also be good.
X-Men #500
If I still cared about the X-Men, I might be interested in this, since it marks the debut of the new writing team of Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction. But I'll skip it, the two-word reason being: Gred Fucking Land (I guess that was three words). I actually read a PDF of the issue, and it seems okay, with some setup for plots that might not suck. And the Terry Dodson-illustrated pages are fine, but god, the Land pages are as terrible as you would expect. I cannot read anything he illustrates. So screw it; there's no way I'm throwing any money away on this.
Aldebaran Vol 1 Catastrophe TP
British publisher Cinebook has this European sci-fi series that looks pretty nice. I doubt I'll ever see it, but I wouldn't mind if I did. Here's the official site, with a couple preview pages.
American Flagg Definitive Collection Vol 1 HC
Okay, it looks like this is the new reprint collection of the famous series. I've almost always been underwhelmed by Howard Chaykin's work, so maybe if I read this, it will help me understand why he's supposed to be so great. I don't really have the fifty bucks to spend on it, but at least it's now out there and easily-attainable. So, someday I might be able to find out what the hell everybody else is talking about.
Apocalipstix Vol 1 GN
Oh, man, here's one of the fairly major releases for the week. Written by Ray Fawkes and illustrated by Cameron Stewart, it's about a girly rock-band trio in a post-apocalyptic world. I've been looking forward to it ever since I first read about it, since I really dig Stewart's art, so I'm all over this one.
Army@Love Vol. 2 Generation Pawned TPB
Ooh, another one that I'm excited for. I decided to wait for the trade after loving the first story arc of this satirical Rick Veitch series, so I'm stoked to read the rest of the first "season" of the series. I guess it didn't sell all that well, so the book went on some sort of hiatus after the twelfth issue, and it's scheduled to return in another (mini-?)series sometime in the next few months. I think I'll have to buy that one monthly, in hopes that it won't get "cancelled" again.
Art of Witchblade TPB
Heh. Ha ha. Ha ha ha! Hee hee hee! Hahahahahahaha! Heh heh. Hoooo. Yes, please enjoy this highly artistic offering of "sexy" girly drawings with goop barely covering the naughty bits. It's like fucking Michelangelo up in here.
Comic Book Tattoo
Here's another big offering for the week, the Tori Amos-themed anthology featuring work from tons of comics creators, including Carla Speed McNeil, Mark Buckingham, Hope Larson, Ryan Kelly, Christopher Mitten, Pia Guerra, David Mack, Jonathan Hickman, Lauren McCubbin, and many others. Fifty bucks hardcover, thirty bucks softcover, for over 500 pages. I'll probably get it, if only because it's something I can get my wife to read. But hopefully I'll like it too.
Complete Popbot TP
A huge collection of Ashley Wood's creation, at $50. I don't think I can afford it, dammit. But it will certainly look cool.
Zot Vol 1 Complete Black And White Stories 1987 To 1991 TP
I mentioned this last week, but I don't know if that was this or not. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Anyway, this is the actual collection that has been under discussion as of late, and I've found that it's not the stuff I've read. I only got to the color stuff, but apparently the series got much better in the stories collected here. Looks like I'm going to have to try to read it.
Flight Volume 5 TPB
While I still have yet to read an actual volume of Flight, I love the look of every one that comes out, and I really need to pick one up one of these days. Yes, my comics to-do list grows ever longer...
Jack Kirby Checklist TP Gold Edition
Now, I love Kirby, but I don't think I'll be spending fifteen dollars for a listing of everything he's ever done. Sure, I bet there will also be pictures and whatnot, but I have enough trouble getting to major Kirby works like The Demon and Kamandi; I don't really need to own a book telling me about all the 40s romance comics I'll never be able to get to. But if you're trying to put together as complete a collection as you can, it looks like this is the resource for you.
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine Prem HC
Isn't this supposed to be terrible (although, since it's by Chris Claremont, I bet Jason Powell will find some way to defend it. Ah, I love ya, Jason!)? Even though it has a reputation as a dreadful miniseries, Marvel is giving it the fancy-pants hardcover treatment; I guess they're running out of ways to bilk the fanboys of their money. My recommendation: don't buy it.
Korgi Vol. 2 Cosmic Collector TPB
I read the first volume of Christian Slade's cute, wordless kids' fantasy series, and while it looked nice, it was feather-light; I think I blew through it in ten minutes or something. So here's the next installment, in which we'll see more monster battles and the characters will continue to develop new powers, I expect. I wouldn't say no to reading it, but I don't plan to spend any money on it.
Madman Atomic Comics Vol 1 TP
I've enjoyed parts of this new volume of Mike Allred's signature characters' adventures, but it's been so meandering and disappointing, with some really anticlimactic resolutions to long-running plots and lots of nonsensical mumbo-jumbo. So I can't really recommend it to anybody, unless you're a long-time Madman fan who was waiting for the trade and has to know what all that business about "the four" was. But you'll almost certainly be disappointed, so you'd be better off hunting down issue #3, which was the one where Allred aped the styles of just about every great comics artist ever. That's about the only one that I would really call "good" out of the bunch.
Maintenance Vol 3 TPB
Here's the third collection of one of my favorite ongoing series. This volume contains the fun story in which the cast goes on a rescue mission to space to retrieve Mendy the receptionist. It's a lot of fun, and it's got a pretty nice climactic finish to the action. Robbi Rodriguez, whose art you might recognize from the recent Tek Jansen issue, continues to do a bang-up job on this series, and Jim Massey doesn't stop with the funny writing. Check it out, if you haven't already.
Meathaus SOS TP
Man, here's another pricey anthology that I definitely want to pick up, since it contains work from so many cartoonists that I dig. You've got the likes of Farel Dalrymple, Jim Rugg, Corey Lewis, Brandon Graham, Dash Shaw, James Jean, Tomer and Asuf Hanuka, Ross Campbell, and many more. Damn, I gotta get this. It's normally $30, but you can get it for $25 along with a postcard set at nerdcore.com (which also has some preview pages).
SCUD The Disposable Assassin The Whole Shebang! TPB
Well, I've still never read any of this series, but it's supposed to be decent. I doubt I'll spend the money to buy it (although it's a pretty good value, at $30 for 24 issues worth of material), but I suppose I could read it and see if it's any good.
Scrambled Ink HC
This collection of comics by animators from Dreamworks looks interesting. It'll cost you $20. You can read more about it in the comments to this post, where one of the artists dropped by to chat.
Schmobots TP
This new graphic novel from Boom! Studios looks like it could be entertaining. It's about a future in which humanity built robots to do menial labor, but they contracted with the lowest bidder, so all the robots are as lazy as the rest of us. It's written by movie guy Adam Rifkin (he directed Detroit Rock City and wrote a bunch of crap like Underdog, Small Soldiers, and Mousehunt) and illustrated by Les Toil. Like all Boom! stuff, I've got a review PDF, so I'll try to write a review if I think it's worth it (and ever get the time and energy to do so).
World War Robot TP
Ashley Wood seems to be trying to get a bunch of my money this week, because here's another book from him that I'll want to buy. It seems like some sort of follow-up (prequel?) to Zombies vs. Robots (vs. whatever), with similarly-designed automatons engaging in a globe-spanning conflict. No, I didn't need a thesaurus for that. Only $12.99, so I might actually be able to afford it. We'll see.
Code Geass Lelouch Of The Revolution Vol 1 GN
On the manga side of things, Bandai has this tie-in to the anime series that I haven't seen, but am aware that it's currently showing on Adult Swim. Can anybody tell me if it's any good? Should I commit myself to the draining work of tuning in on a Saturday night (or rather, setting the DVR) and finding out? And is this manga worth a look? Will we ever know?
Gon Vol 5 TP New Printing
Tiny, angry dinosaurs are awesome. I keep saying I should buy these new editions, and one day I will actually do so.
Kasumi Vol 1 GN
Del Rey has this very shojo-seeming series about a high school girl who can turn invisible when she holds her breath, which somehow leads to romantic complications and whatnot. On one hand, it sounds kind of dumb, but on the other, it's exactly the sort of thing I enjoy every month in Shojo Beat, so who knows, it might be worth a look.
Kujibiki Unbalance Vol 1 GN
Also from Del Rey, this one seems more on the shonen side of the fence (the young girl upskirt on the cover is kind of a tip-off). It's about a boy with bad luck who goes to a school where everything is decided by chance and also has a student council that goes on missions to fight evil. Or something. I dunno, sounds like it could be enjoyable. Or stupid.
Red Colored Elegy HC
Did this already come out? It's the eagerly-anticipated new art-manga volume from Drawn & Quarterly by Seiichi Hayashi. Sure to be a contender for a lot of "best of the year" lists come January. I'll have to try to read it (he said, for the 25th time in this post).
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And I think that's everything worth mentioning. I finally made it back from vacation, and I've got an ass-load of stuff to write about, so expect lots of content over the next week or two. Or a total burnout, and me curled in bed in a fetal position babbling about Wolverine or something. Good times. Later.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Meme-ish content for while I'm gone
Damn, I never got to that post I was going to do before I left. Now I'll have to go crazy trying to catch up when I get back, especially since I'm sure I'll read several more books that I'll want to talk about. Anyway, here's something to fill space while I'm gone, but first, a couple of links.
I've got a review of Universal War One #1 over at Comics Bulletin. It's a pretty interesting comic, so be sure to take a look at it at the shop this Wednesday.
I also wanted to link to a fun little story about superpowered kids by Mike Dawson, creator of Freddie & Me. He should turn it into an ongoing series.
Okay, on to the real (filler) post:
Recently the Onion AV Club's blog did one of those meme posts in which the author listed one favorite album for each year he had been alive. I'm not enough of a music person to be able to do something like that, but another writer followed it up with a movie version. That's more up my alley, so let's see if I can put together a good list, starting in 1979, the year I was born:
Movies of Matt's life:
1979: Alien, I guess. I thought I would say Drunken Master, but that was in 1978. Other contenders: Apocalypse Now, Life of Brian, The Jerk.
1980: Raging Bull. Also good: The Shining, The Blues Brothers.
1981: Pennies From Heaven. I love that movie. That year also had Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Road Warrior, and Time Bandits.
1982: I guess I'll go with Eating Raoul, since all the other choices seem crappy, except maybe The Thing. I really didn't want to say E.T., since that's far from my favorite Spielberg movie. Maybe if I had ever seen Gandhi or Sophie's Choice or An Officer and a Gentleman, I might have a more highbrow choice. And fuck Tootsie, that movie sucks.
1983: Zelig, I suppose. Man, I'm not very schooled in 80s stuff at all. This year also has Scarface, The King of Comedy, The Dead Zone, and Videodrome, which are all pretty good, if not my favorites by any of the directors. And Terms of Fucking Endearment, which I hope I never have to watch. On the "need to see" list: Koyaanisqatsi.
1984: Amadeus. Wow, I agree with the Best Picture Oscar! Also notable: Blood Simple, Broadway Danny Rose, Nausicaa of the Vally of the Wind, This is Spinal Tap. Need to see: Once Upon a Time in America, Paris, Texas.
1985: Brazil, possibly my favorite movie of all time. Otherwise I would have gone with Ran. Also good: Better Off Dead, After Hours, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Need to see: Come and See.
1986: Down By Law. I also like Hannah and Her Sisters a lot, and Aliens is pretty cool. I'm not too big a fan of Blue Velvet, but I should probably watch that again sometime. And I think Platoon is way overrated.
1987: I was trying to decide between Full Metal Jacket and Empire of the Sun, until I saw that Raising Arizona came out that year, so I had to go with that, since it's another contender for my all-time favorite movie. Also good: Radio Days (seems like I'm going to mention just about every Woody Allen movie), Evil Dead II. Probably should see: The Last Emperor.
1988: My Neighbor Totoro. This seems like a fairly weak year, with several decent movies but few that I would say are great (maybe A Fish Called Wanda? Oh, and Grave of the Fireflies is damn good). That said, here are some that I like: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Beetlejuice, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Last Temptation of Christ, They Live, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Need to see: Alice (Jan Svankmeyer!), Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou!).
1989: Do the Right Thing. Also good: Kiki's Delivery Service, sex, lies, and videotape, The Killer. Need to see: Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Meet the Feebles. Probably should see: Glory, Casualties of War.
1990: Goodfellas. Rock. I also really dig Miller's Crossing, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Edward Scissorhands. Need to see: Boiling Point (Takeshi Kitano!), Vincent & Theo (Robert Altman!). Maybe need to see: King of New York, Jacob's Ladder, Miami Blues.
1991: Looks like it's Barton Fink. Kind of a crappy year overall. I also like Slacker, Delicatessen, JFK, and Once Upon a Time in China. About 3/4 of Night on Earth is good, but the Winona Ryder part sucks. Need to see: Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-Wai!), Kafka (Steven Soderbergh!).
1992: Reservoir Dogs, but Hard Boiled and Glengarry Glen Ross come close. You've also got Unforgiven, El Mariachi, and Braindead/Dead Alive. Need to see: Husbands and Wives, Malcolm X.
1993: Schindler's List, in another surprise agreement with the Academy. I also dug Sonatine, Groundhog Day, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Iron Monkey, and Last Hero in China. Need to see: Farewell My Concubine.
1994: Pulp Fiction, fuck yeah. Also: Bullets Over Broadway, Ed Wood, Fist of Legend, Crumb, Pom Poko. I guess Natural Born Killers has its moments. Need to see: Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy (Blue came out in 1993, but White and Red were in 94), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.
1995: I love Toy Story, and The City of Lost Children is awesome, but I think I'll go with Ghost in the Shell. Lots of other good stuff this year, like Dead Man, The Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Mighty Aphrodite, Babe, Before Sunrise, Canadian Bacon, Se7en, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Memories, and Whisper of the Heart. Need to see: My Father Is a Hero.
1996: Jeez, not much to choose from this year. I guess I'll say Bottle Rocket, but I also like Swingers and Everyone Says I Love You. There's Fargo, but while that's pretty good, it's one of my least favorite Coen Brothers movies. I really like the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn, and the second half is kind of fun, but they're not great together. Maybe Shine? Schizopolis? Need to see: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.
1997: L.A. Confidential. Not a bad year, it seems: Boogie Nights, Face/Off, The Game, Donnie Brasco, Jackie Brown, Princess Mononoke, Fireworks (which I just watched the other night). Need to see: Taste of Cherry, The Butcher Boy, Kundun.
1998: I'll go with The Big Lebowski, although I also love Rushmore. Life is Beautiful and Saving Private Ryan are both very good, although they don't seem as great as when I first saw them. We're getting into the years in which I started to watch a lot of movies, so there's plenty that I like here, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Truman Show, Buffalo 66, Out of Sight, Run, Lola, Run, Perfect Blue, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Need to see: maybe Central Station?
1999: This one's a tough decision. A few years ago, I would have said Fight Club, or maybe The Matrix, but I think nowadays I would go with The Limey. Tons of other great stuff that year though, including Being John Malkovich, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Iron Giant, Three Kings, The Virgin Suicides, Dogma (which has lost favor with me along with Kevin Smith, but I still think it's a pretty good movie), The Straight Story, Kikujiro, The Insider, Audition, Attack the Gas Station!, Dead or Alive, Magnolia, and The Winslow Boy. Also worth noting: The Sixth Sense, Election, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (all of which have their moments but aren't among my favorite movies). Need to see: Boys Don't Cry, Not One Less, Shower.
2000: I think I gotta say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, although Traffic is also excellent, and so are Amores Perros and Happy Times. A few years ago, I would have said Requiem for a Dream, but that one has kind of faded in the years since it came out. Battle Royale is also up there, if it counts for this year. Plus: Almost Famous, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, You Can Count on Me, American Psycho, Brother, High Fidelity, Joint Security Area, In the Mood for Love, Pitch Black, The Tao of Steve, Unbreakable. I should try to cull these lists a little to cut down on length. Hated: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Scary Movie. Need to see: The Isle, Yi Yi, The City of Lost Souls.
2001: Memento, although I remember having a wealth of good choices that year. So I'll add The Royal Tenenbaums, Amelie, Spirited Away, Waking Life, Millenium Actress, Monsters, Inc., Mullholland Drive, No Man's Land, CQ, The Devil's Backbone, Gosford Park, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Human Nature, Metropolis, Shaolin Soccer (which I thought came out a couple years later. Huh), Visitor Q. Hated: A Beautiful Mind, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The Majestic, Zoolander. Need to see: The American Astronaut, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.
2002: City of God. Wow, that's an amazing movie. I'll also highlight Minority Report, Punch-Drunk Love, Talk to Her, 24 Hour Party People, The 25th Hour, Hero, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Laramie Project, The Ring, and The Rules of Attraction. Need to see: The Pianist, maybe?
2003: Oldboy. Plenty of other good stuff though, like Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, The Station Agent, Lost in Translation, American Splendor, Ong Bak, Elephant, 21 Grams, Kill Bill volume 1, The Triplets of Belleville, Save the Green Planet!, Zatoichi, Intolerable Cruelty, Masked and Anonymous, A Mighty Wind, and The Matrix Reloaded (but not Revolutions). Hated: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Need to See: The Brown Bunny (out of curiosity), The Return.
2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, although I almost went with Kill Bill volume 2. And I tried to cut down on the list of other good movies, but I still have to mention The Incredibles, Sideways, Garden State, Howl's Moving Castle, I Heart Huckabees, Before Sunset, 3-Iron, Closer, Downfall, Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, The Motorcycle Diaries, Three...Extremes, Primer, Spartan. Hated: The Polar Express, The Girl Next Door, Finding Neverland. Need to see: Clean, Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War.
2005: I liked a lot of movies this year, but I have a hard time picking a favorite. I guess I'll say Broken Flowers. And there's also Munich, The New World, King Kong, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, War of the Worlds, Brokeback Mountain, A History of Violence, Grizzly Man, Land of the Dead, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Descent, The Squid and the Whale, The Matador, Match Point, The Corpse Bride, Me and You and Everyone We Know, and Good Night, and Good Luck. Need to see: The Devil's Rejects.
2006: I did a top ten list for this year, and I think my pick for number one, The Science of Sleep, is still in place, but I still think Children of Men is amazingly good. Also: Babel, Shortbus, The Departed, Pan's Labyrinth, Marie Antoinette, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Fountain, A Prairie Home Companion, Sherrybaby, Brick, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Down in the Valley, Edmond, Half Nelson, Water, The Proposition, Wassup Rockers, The Prestige, Friends With Money, Idiocracy, The Notorious Bettie Page. Hated: Clerks II. Need to see: The Wicker Man (it's supposed to be hilariously awful), Letters from Iwo Jima, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.
2007: I went with The Darjeeling Limited in my best-of-the-year list, but it was close with No Country for Old Men, Paprika, and Sunshine, among many others. Those would include: Atonement, Charlie Wilson's War, Gone Baby Gone, Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Black Snake Moan, Rescue Dawn, Away From Her, Grindhouse, There Will Be Blood, Once, Ratatouille, Superbad, The Lookout, Brand Upon the Brain!, 3:10 to Yuma, Eastern Promises, Sweeny Todd, and Black Book. Need to see: La Vie en Rose, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, The Orphanage.
2008: So far, my favorite of the year is WALL-E, but that could definitely change in the next six months. I've also dug Cloverfield, Be Kind Rewind, Funny Games, and In Bruges. Need to see: The Band's Visit, Redbelt, Stop-Loss.
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And that's the list. Holy crap, that took longer than I thought it would, mostly because I couldn't limit myself to one movie each year. Please comment or offer your own blog posts letting me know what you think or making your own choices. This means you, Tucker, Jason, and Caleb!
I've got a review of Universal War One #1 over at Comics Bulletin. It's a pretty interesting comic, so be sure to take a look at it at the shop this Wednesday.
I also wanted to link to a fun little story about superpowered kids by Mike Dawson, creator of Freddie & Me. He should turn it into an ongoing series.
Okay, on to the real (filler) post:
Recently the Onion AV Club's blog did one of those meme posts in which the author listed one favorite album for each year he had been alive. I'm not enough of a music person to be able to do something like that, but another writer followed it up with a movie version. That's more up my alley, so let's see if I can put together a good list, starting in 1979, the year I was born:
Movies of Matt's life:
1979: Alien, I guess. I thought I would say Drunken Master, but that was in 1978. Other contenders: Apocalypse Now, Life of Brian, The Jerk.
1980: Raging Bull. Also good: The Shining, The Blues Brothers.
1981: Pennies From Heaven. I love that movie. That year also had Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Road Warrior, and Time Bandits.
1982: I guess I'll go with Eating Raoul, since all the other choices seem crappy, except maybe The Thing. I really didn't want to say E.T., since that's far from my favorite Spielberg movie. Maybe if I had ever seen Gandhi or Sophie's Choice or An Officer and a Gentleman, I might have a more highbrow choice. And fuck Tootsie, that movie sucks.
1983: Zelig, I suppose. Man, I'm not very schooled in 80s stuff at all. This year also has Scarface, The King of Comedy, The Dead Zone, and Videodrome, which are all pretty good, if not my favorites by any of the directors. And Terms of Fucking Endearment, which I hope I never have to watch. On the "need to see" list: Koyaanisqatsi.
1984: Amadeus. Wow, I agree with the Best Picture Oscar! Also notable: Blood Simple, Broadway Danny Rose, Nausicaa of the Vally of the Wind, This is Spinal Tap. Need to see: Once Upon a Time in America, Paris, Texas.
1985: Brazil, possibly my favorite movie of all time. Otherwise I would have gone with Ran. Also good: Better Off Dead, After Hours, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Need to see: Come and See.
1986: Down By Law. I also like Hannah and Her Sisters a lot, and Aliens is pretty cool. I'm not too big a fan of Blue Velvet, but I should probably watch that again sometime. And I think Platoon is way overrated.
1987: I was trying to decide between Full Metal Jacket and Empire of the Sun, until I saw that Raising Arizona came out that year, so I had to go with that, since it's another contender for my all-time favorite movie. Also good: Radio Days (seems like I'm going to mention just about every Woody Allen movie), Evil Dead II. Probably should see: The Last Emperor.
1988: My Neighbor Totoro. This seems like a fairly weak year, with several decent movies but few that I would say are great (maybe A Fish Called Wanda? Oh, and Grave of the Fireflies is damn good). That said, here are some that I like: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Beetlejuice, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Last Temptation of Christ, They Live, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Need to see: Alice (Jan Svankmeyer!), Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou!).
1989: Do the Right Thing. Also good: Kiki's Delivery Service, sex, lies, and videotape, The Killer. Need to see: Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Meet the Feebles. Probably should see: Glory, Casualties of War.
1990: Goodfellas. Rock. I also really dig Miller's Crossing, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Edward Scissorhands. Need to see: Boiling Point (Takeshi Kitano!), Vincent & Theo (Robert Altman!). Maybe need to see: King of New York, Jacob's Ladder, Miami Blues.
1991: Looks like it's Barton Fink. Kind of a crappy year overall. I also like Slacker, Delicatessen, JFK, and Once Upon a Time in China. About 3/4 of Night on Earth is good, but the Winona Ryder part sucks. Need to see: Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-Wai!), Kafka (Steven Soderbergh!).
1992: Reservoir Dogs, but Hard Boiled and Glengarry Glen Ross come close. You've also got Unforgiven, El Mariachi, and Braindead/Dead Alive. Need to see: Husbands and Wives, Malcolm X.
1993: Schindler's List, in another surprise agreement with the Academy. I also dug Sonatine, Groundhog Day, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Iron Monkey, and Last Hero in China. Need to see: Farewell My Concubine.
1994: Pulp Fiction, fuck yeah. Also: Bullets Over Broadway, Ed Wood, Fist of Legend, Crumb, Pom Poko. I guess Natural Born Killers has its moments. Need to see: Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy (Blue came out in 1993, but White and Red were in 94), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.
1995: I love Toy Story, and The City of Lost Children is awesome, but I think I'll go with Ghost in the Shell. Lots of other good stuff this year, like Dead Man, The Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Mighty Aphrodite, Babe, Before Sunrise, Canadian Bacon, Se7en, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Memories, and Whisper of the Heart. Need to see: My Father Is a Hero.
1996: Jeez, not much to choose from this year. I guess I'll say Bottle Rocket, but I also like Swingers and Everyone Says I Love You. There's Fargo, but while that's pretty good, it's one of my least favorite Coen Brothers movies. I really like the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn, and the second half is kind of fun, but they're not great together. Maybe Shine? Schizopolis? Need to see: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.
1997: L.A. Confidential. Not a bad year, it seems: Boogie Nights, Face/Off, The Game, Donnie Brasco, Jackie Brown, Princess Mononoke, Fireworks (which I just watched the other night). Need to see: Taste of Cherry, The Butcher Boy, Kundun.
1998: I'll go with The Big Lebowski, although I also love Rushmore. Life is Beautiful and Saving Private Ryan are both very good, although they don't seem as great as when I first saw them. We're getting into the years in which I started to watch a lot of movies, so there's plenty that I like here, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Truman Show, Buffalo 66, Out of Sight, Run, Lola, Run, Perfect Blue, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Need to see: maybe Central Station?
1999: This one's a tough decision. A few years ago, I would have said Fight Club, or maybe The Matrix, but I think nowadays I would go with The Limey. Tons of other great stuff that year though, including Being John Malkovich, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Iron Giant, Three Kings, The Virgin Suicides, Dogma (which has lost favor with me along with Kevin Smith, but I still think it's a pretty good movie), The Straight Story, Kikujiro, The Insider, Audition, Attack the Gas Station!, Dead or Alive, Magnolia, and The Winslow Boy. Also worth noting: The Sixth Sense, Election, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (all of which have their moments but aren't among my favorite movies). Need to see: Boys Don't Cry, Not One Less, Shower.
2000: I think I gotta say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, although Traffic is also excellent, and so are Amores Perros and Happy Times. A few years ago, I would have said Requiem for a Dream, but that one has kind of faded in the years since it came out. Battle Royale is also up there, if it counts for this year. Plus: Almost Famous, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, You Can Count on Me, American Psycho, Brother, High Fidelity, Joint Security Area, In the Mood for Love, Pitch Black, The Tao of Steve, Unbreakable. I should try to cull these lists a little to cut down on length. Hated: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Scary Movie. Need to see: The Isle, Yi Yi, The City of Lost Souls.
2001: Memento, although I remember having a wealth of good choices that year. So I'll add The Royal Tenenbaums, Amelie, Spirited Away, Waking Life, Millenium Actress, Monsters, Inc., Mullholland Drive, No Man's Land, CQ, The Devil's Backbone, Gosford Park, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Human Nature, Metropolis, Shaolin Soccer (which I thought came out a couple years later. Huh), Visitor Q. Hated: A Beautiful Mind, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The Majestic, Zoolander. Need to see: The American Astronaut, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.
2002: City of God. Wow, that's an amazing movie. I'll also highlight Minority Report, Punch-Drunk Love, Talk to Her, 24 Hour Party People, The 25th Hour, Hero, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Laramie Project, The Ring, and The Rules of Attraction. Need to see: The Pianist, maybe?
2003: Oldboy. Plenty of other good stuff though, like Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, The Station Agent, Lost in Translation, American Splendor, Ong Bak, Elephant, 21 Grams, Kill Bill volume 1, The Triplets of Belleville, Save the Green Planet!, Zatoichi, Intolerable Cruelty, Masked and Anonymous, A Mighty Wind, and The Matrix Reloaded (but not Revolutions). Hated: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Need to See: The Brown Bunny (out of curiosity), The Return.
2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, although I almost went with Kill Bill volume 2. And I tried to cut down on the list of other good movies, but I still have to mention The Incredibles, Sideways, Garden State, Howl's Moving Castle, I Heart Huckabees, Before Sunset, 3-Iron, Closer, Downfall, Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, The Motorcycle Diaries, Three...Extremes, Primer, Spartan. Hated: The Polar Express, The Girl Next Door, Finding Neverland. Need to see: Clean, Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War.
2005: I liked a lot of movies this year, but I have a hard time picking a favorite. I guess I'll say Broken Flowers. And there's also Munich, The New World, King Kong, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, War of the Worlds, Brokeback Mountain, A History of Violence, Grizzly Man, Land of the Dead, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Descent, The Squid and the Whale, The Matador, Match Point, The Corpse Bride, Me and You and Everyone We Know, and Good Night, and Good Luck. Need to see: The Devil's Rejects.
2006: I did a top ten list for this year, and I think my pick for number one, The Science of Sleep, is still in place, but I still think Children of Men is amazingly good. Also: Babel, Shortbus, The Departed, Pan's Labyrinth, Marie Antoinette, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Fountain, A Prairie Home Companion, Sherrybaby, Brick, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Down in the Valley, Edmond, Half Nelson, Water, The Proposition, Wassup Rockers, The Prestige, Friends With Money, Idiocracy, The Notorious Bettie Page. Hated: Clerks II. Need to see: The Wicker Man (it's supposed to be hilariously awful), Letters from Iwo Jima, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.
2007: I went with The Darjeeling Limited in my best-of-the-year list, but it was close with No Country for Old Men, Paprika, and Sunshine, among many others. Those would include: Atonement, Charlie Wilson's War, Gone Baby Gone, Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Black Snake Moan, Rescue Dawn, Away From Her, Grindhouse, There Will Be Blood, Once, Ratatouille, Superbad, The Lookout, Brand Upon the Brain!, 3:10 to Yuma, Eastern Promises, Sweeny Todd, and Black Book. Need to see: La Vie en Rose, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, The Orphanage.
2008: So far, my favorite of the year is WALL-E, but that could definitely change in the next six months. I've also dug Cloverfield, Be Kind Rewind, Funny Games, and In Bruges. Need to see: The Band's Visit, Redbelt, Stop-Loss.
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And that's the list. Holy crap, that took longer than I thought it would, mostly because I couldn't limit myself to one movie each year. Please comment or offer your own blog posts letting me know what you think or making your own choices. This means you, Tucker, Jason, and Caleb!
Monday, July 14, 2008
This week might also be slow?
Man, nothing new this weekend, for some reason. And I'm about to go on vacation again, so there will probably be little of note around here for the next few days either. Ah, lazy summer!
For your reading enjoyment, I've got a review of The Goon #26 up over at Comics Bulletin.
In other news, the newest installment of Smith Magazine's Next-Door Neighbor is by Harvey Pekar and Rick Veitch, which is a good combination. Check it out.
Brandon Graham is apparently having trouble getting Tokyopop to actually publish the second volume of King City (bastards!), so he has posted the first twelve pages on his blog (you have to scroll down a little bit to get to them), and might continue posting chapters if it never gets printed. So, uh, check that out, I guess, since that might be the only way we ever get to read it. Too bad; I loved the first volume of that book.
Anyway, I won't be picking these up until next week, but here they are:
New comics this week (Wednesday, 7/16/08):
Charlatan Ball #2
Man, I totally dug the first issue of this Joe Casey/Andy Suriano series. I should have written a review or something. Maybe when I get back, I can do something about these first two issues. Watch for it!
Godland #24
Speaking of Joe Casey, this issue should make enough for a fourth collection, right? Then I'll be able to catch up on the story. It's good; I've been missing the cosmic craziness of the series.
Gwaii #1
Is the title of this book supposed to be a play on "kawaii", the Japanese word for cute? It's a kids' book about a little sasquatch trying to find his lost mother. Could be fun. You can see some preview pages here.
Lois #1
Lois Gilbert, an acquaintance of Harvey Pekar, does her own American Splendor-style book here, telling about her experiences as a stand-up comedian, exotic dancer, and other adventures. Pekar co-writes some stories, and Gary Dumm and Greg Budgett, two regular Splendor contributors, provide the art. Could be worth a look.
Normal #1
An interesting project in which writer Stephen Orlando wrote a one-page story and had a bunch of different artists illustrate it, showing the differences in people's interpretations. I don't recognize the names of any of the artists apart from Matt Silady (The Homeless Channel), but it still looks like something I wouldn't mind reading. Here's a page with some information and some preview pages.
Paradise Lost #1
Also from Stephen Orlando's House Spirit Press, we've got an adaptation of the classic poem by John Milton. I have no idea if it will be any good, but the cover looks nice.
Sky Doll #3
Ending the Marvel translation of the extant issues of the French sci-fi/political-religious satire/sexploitation comic. I liked the first issue well enough, but I didn't read the second one. Maybe I'll pick up the collected version.
Universal War One #1
And then we've got the next addition to Marvel's Soleil lineup. This one appears to be a sci-fi story about a big war and a weird space anomaly that appears in the solar system. I should have a review up at Comics Bulletin tomorrow, but so far, I would say it's kind of interesting, and pretty nice-looking, but fairly sterile. I'll see what else I have to say when I finish reading it.
War is Hell: First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #5
Concluding the Garth Ennis/Howard Chaykin WWI miniseries. This has been an excellent read, and I can't wait to see how Ennis finishes it. Don't let me down, Garth!
Blue GN
From Desperado Publishing (that's a division of Image, right?), it's a reworked/modernized/whatever version of the Bluebeard fairytale by Elizabeth Genco and Sami Makkonen. The art looks cool (here's a preview), with sort of an Ashley Wood style. I might have to check it out.
Dock Walloper Vol 1 TP
So did this turn out to be any good? From what I remember, it was a story about a dockworker with a big hand, "created by" the actor Ed Burns. Virgin Comics' stuff seems to miss more often than hit, but you never know when they might put out something pretty good. Did anybody bother to read this and find out?
Dominion TPB
From Boom! Studios, it's some sort of alien-invasion tale "created by" Keith Giffen, but actually written by Michael Alan Nelson and drawn by Tim Hamilton. I've got an electronic review copy, so I'll let you know if it's any good whenever I get around to looking at it.
Fatal Faux Pas TP
A collection of gag comics from Samuel C. Gaskin, previously published as minicomics. It looks pretty good, and Nina Stone over at The Factual Opinion reviewed it recently. I'll have to try to obtain a copy. Here's the official page on publisher Secret Acres' site.
Goddess Of War #1
This new series by Lauren Weinstein has been getting some really good buzz on the comics inter-blags, so it's another one I'll have to try to pick up sometime. It follows the adventures of a valkyrie named Valerie, and it's kind of expensive for a 32-page pamphlet ($12.95), but it's huge at 14.5" x 10". Sounds neat; here's Jog's review; he can tell you why it's interesting much better than I can.
Houdini Handcuff King TPB
I don't know if this is a new version of the book or what, but maybe it means I'll actually read it now. It's about one of Houdini's famous escapes, and it's written by Jason Lutes and drawn by Nick Bertozzi. I've heard it's not bad. I may even one day be able to judge it for myself rather than just parroting what I've heard from others.
Howard the Duck Omnibus Vol. 1 HC
Marvel puts out a huge collection of Steve Gerber's creation, containing over 30 issues of the series and some other appearances (including some issues of Giant-Size Man-Thing, hee hee). A hundred bucks seems pricey, but that's a lot of material. I wish I could afford it.
Jeff Smith Bone & Beyond HC
I guess this is the portable version of the Jeff Smith museum exhibit that people have been talking about for a while now. Sounds like it's got some interviews with Smith, original art from the series, and other artwork from people who have influenced him. Probably would look nice on a coffee table, but I'm fine just reading the actual comics rather than spend money on a book celebrating how awesome they are.
Method Man GN
Hahahaha, this looks hilariously, stupidly silly. It's about a private investigator who is a member of a secret order of Cain's descendants that has to fight evil, or something. And hilariously, the rapper who co-wrote it named it after himself. I guess that's a selling point, but it kind of brands the whole thing as an ego-trip vanity project, doesn't it? Eh, it might be funny to look at, but I doubt it would really be worth reading, even with art by Sanford Greene. Here's an article about the thing on CBR, if you care.
Sparrow Boxed Set
75 bucks gets you a slip-cased set of all those artbooks that IDW has put out, featuring people like Ashley Wood, Phil Hale, and others. Probably good stuff, but too rich for my blood.
Tiki Joe Mysteries Vol 1 High Stakes Patsy TPB
This could be fun. It's an Ocean's 11-style crime story set in 1959 Las Vegas, about a guy who gathers his friends to pull a job against the mafia, who have been pressuring him for protection money. It's by Mike Murphy, from Slave Labor Graphics. I'll see if I can check it out. Here's the official site, which contains a preview.
Who Can Save Us Now TP
I don't think I would normally even bother mentioning this collection of superhero-themed short stories (because god knows we need more superhero stories; that well hasn't been plumbed already or anything), especially since I don't recognize any of the contributing writers, but I see that it contains illustrations by Chris Burnham, artist of Nixon's Pals. So I wouldn't mind opening it up and looking at it, I guess.
Wormdye TP
Also from Secret Acres, this is a collection of Eamon Espey's comics, and it also looks interesting, in that odd, artcomixy way. Maybe I'll check it out sometime? Here's the publisher's page.
ZOT TP VOL 01
I think this is the collection of the black and white issues of Scott McCloud's comic. I've read a little of the color version (I think), and it's pretty good stuff. McCloud is more famous these days for his non-fiction books, but this series is very well-regarded. I should try to read more of it. Here's an article that Tom Spurgeon wrote about the book.
Oh My God Vol 1 GN
From Aurora Manga, this is a shojo/shonen-ai comic about a guy who makes friends with an amnesiac deity that takes the guise of a high school student. Could be enjoyable?
Real Vol 1 GN
Takehiko Inoue's wheelchair basketball manga hits stores. I totally dug this first volume, so I highly recommend that you check it out. Yes, I mean you!
Star Trek Manga Vol. 3
I often hear that this series is hilarious, but I've never read it. I should try to do so sometime. Library?
Vassalord Vol 1 GN
From Tokyopop, this is about a cyborg vampire who works for the Vatican. What? Hey, sometimes when you throw a bunch of genre elements into a blender, it can come out pretty tasty. I don't know if that's the case here, but it's got my interest at least. We'll see if I ever bother reading it.
-----
And I think that's everything for the week. As I said, I'm going on vacation, so while I'm hoping to have something up tonight, I might not be around until next week. But please don't forget me in my absence! I'll be back!
For your reading enjoyment, I've got a review of The Goon #26 up over at Comics Bulletin.
In other news, the newest installment of Smith Magazine's Next-Door Neighbor is by Harvey Pekar and Rick Veitch, which is a good combination. Check it out.
Brandon Graham is apparently having trouble getting Tokyopop to actually publish the second volume of King City (bastards!), so he has posted the first twelve pages on his blog (you have to scroll down a little bit to get to them), and might continue posting chapters if it never gets printed. So, uh, check that out, I guess, since that might be the only way we ever get to read it. Too bad; I loved the first volume of that book.
Anyway, I won't be picking these up until next week, but here they are:
New comics this week (Wednesday, 7/16/08):
Charlatan Ball #2
Man, I totally dug the first issue of this Joe Casey/Andy Suriano series. I should have written a review or something. Maybe when I get back, I can do something about these first two issues. Watch for it!
Godland #24
Speaking of Joe Casey, this issue should make enough for a fourth collection, right? Then I'll be able to catch up on the story. It's good; I've been missing the cosmic craziness of the series.
Gwaii #1
Is the title of this book supposed to be a play on "kawaii", the Japanese word for cute? It's a kids' book about a little sasquatch trying to find his lost mother. Could be fun. You can see some preview pages here.
Lois #1
Lois Gilbert, an acquaintance of Harvey Pekar, does her own American Splendor-style book here, telling about her experiences as a stand-up comedian, exotic dancer, and other adventures. Pekar co-writes some stories, and Gary Dumm and Greg Budgett, two regular Splendor contributors, provide the art. Could be worth a look.
Normal #1
An interesting project in which writer Stephen Orlando wrote a one-page story and had a bunch of different artists illustrate it, showing the differences in people's interpretations. I don't recognize the names of any of the artists apart from Matt Silady (The Homeless Channel), but it still looks like something I wouldn't mind reading. Here's a page with some information and some preview pages.
Paradise Lost #1
Also from Stephen Orlando's House Spirit Press, we've got an adaptation of the classic poem by John Milton. I have no idea if it will be any good, but the cover looks nice.
Sky Doll #3
Ending the Marvel translation of the extant issues of the French sci-fi/political-religious satire/sexploitation comic. I liked the first issue well enough, but I didn't read the second one. Maybe I'll pick up the collected version.
Universal War One #1
And then we've got the next addition to Marvel's Soleil lineup. This one appears to be a sci-fi story about a big war and a weird space anomaly that appears in the solar system. I should have a review up at Comics Bulletin tomorrow, but so far, I would say it's kind of interesting, and pretty nice-looking, but fairly sterile. I'll see what else I have to say when I finish reading it.
War is Hell: First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #5
Concluding the Garth Ennis/Howard Chaykin WWI miniseries. This has been an excellent read, and I can't wait to see how Ennis finishes it. Don't let me down, Garth!
Blue GN
From Desperado Publishing (that's a division of Image, right?), it's a reworked/modernized/whatever version of the Bluebeard fairytale by Elizabeth Genco and Sami Makkonen. The art looks cool (here's a preview), with sort of an Ashley Wood style. I might have to check it out.
Dock Walloper Vol 1 TP
So did this turn out to be any good? From what I remember, it was a story about a dockworker with a big hand, "created by" the actor Ed Burns. Virgin Comics' stuff seems to miss more often than hit, but you never know when they might put out something pretty good. Did anybody bother to read this and find out?
Dominion TPB
From Boom! Studios, it's some sort of alien-invasion tale "created by" Keith Giffen, but actually written by Michael Alan Nelson and drawn by Tim Hamilton. I've got an electronic review copy, so I'll let you know if it's any good whenever I get around to looking at it.
Fatal Faux Pas TP
A collection of gag comics from Samuel C. Gaskin, previously published as minicomics. It looks pretty good, and Nina Stone over at The Factual Opinion reviewed it recently. I'll have to try to obtain a copy. Here's the official page on publisher Secret Acres' site.
Goddess Of War #1
This new series by Lauren Weinstein has been getting some really good buzz on the comics inter-blags, so it's another one I'll have to try to pick up sometime. It follows the adventures of a valkyrie named Valerie, and it's kind of expensive for a 32-page pamphlet ($12.95), but it's huge at 14.5" x 10". Sounds neat; here's Jog's review; he can tell you why it's interesting much better than I can.
Houdini Handcuff King TPB
I don't know if this is a new version of the book or what, but maybe it means I'll actually read it now. It's about one of Houdini's famous escapes, and it's written by Jason Lutes and drawn by Nick Bertozzi. I've heard it's not bad. I may even one day be able to judge it for myself rather than just parroting what I've heard from others.
Howard the Duck Omnibus Vol. 1 HC
Marvel puts out a huge collection of Steve Gerber's creation, containing over 30 issues of the series and some other appearances (including some issues of Giant-Size Man-Thing, hee hee). A hundred bucks seems pricey, but that's a lot of material. I wish I could afford it.
Jeff Smith Bone & Beyond HC
I guess this is the portable version of the Jeff Smith museum exhibit that people have been talking about for a while now. Sounds like it's got some interviews with Smith, original art from the series, and other artwork from people who have influenced him. Probably would look nice on a coffee table, but I'm fine just reading the actual comics rather than spend money on a book celebrating how awesome they are.
Method Man GN
Hahahaha, this looks hilariously, stupidly silly. It's about a private investigator who is a member of a secret order of Cain's descendants that has to fight evil, or something. And hilariously, the rapper who co-wrote it named it after himself. I guess that's a selling point, but it kind of brands the whole thing as an ego-trip vanity project, doesn't it? Eh, it might be funny to look at, but I doubt it would really be worth reading, even with art by Sanford Greene. Here's an article about the thing on CBR, if you care.
Sparrow Boxed Set
75 bucks gets you a slip-cased set of all those artbooks that IDW has put out, featuring people like Ashley Wood, Phil Hale, and others. Probably good stuff, but too rich for my blood.
Tiki Joe Mysteries Vol 1 High Stakes Patsy TPB
This could be fun. It's an Ocean's 11-style crime story set in 1959 Las Vegas, about a guy who gathers his friends to pull a job against the mafia, who have been pressuring him for protection money. It's by Mike Murphy, from Slave Labor Graphics. I'll see if I can check it out. Here's the official site, which contains a preview.
Who Can Save Us Now TP
I don't think I would normally even bother mentioning this collection of superhero-themed short stories (because god knows we need more superhero stories; that well hasn't been plumbed already or anything), especially since I don't recognize any of the contributing writers, but I see that it contains illustrations by Chris Burnham, artist of Nixon's Pals. So I wouldn't mind opening it up and looking at it, I guess.
Wormdye TP
Also from Secret Acres, this is a collection of Eamon Espey's comics, and it also looks interesting, in that odd, artcomixy way. Maybe I'll check it out sometime? Here's the publisher's page.
ZOT TP VOL 01
I think this is the collection of the black and white issues of Scott McCloud's comic. I've read a little of the color version (I think), and it's pretty good stuff. McCloud is more famous these days for his non-fiction books, but this series is very well-regarded. I should try to read more of it. Here's an article that Tom Spurgeon wrote about the book.
Oh My God Vol 1 GN
From Aurora Manga, this is a shojo/shonen-ai comic about a guy who makes friends with an amnesiac deity that takes the guise of a high school student. Could be enjoyable?
Real Vol 1 GN
Takehiko Inoue's wheelchair basketball manga hits stores. I totally dug this first volume, so I highly recommend that you check it out. Yes, I mean you!
Star Trek Manga Vol. 3
I often hear that this series is hilarious, but I've never read it. I should try to do so sometime. Library?
Vassalord Vol 1 GN
From Tokyopop, this is about a cyborg vampire who works for the Vatican. What? Hey, sometimes when you throw a bunch of genre elements into a blender, it can come out pretty tasty. I don't know if that's the case here, but it's got my interest at least. We'll see if I ever bother reading it.
-----
And I think that's everything for the week. As I said, I'm going on vacation, so while I'm hoping to have something up tonight, I might not be around until next week. But please don't forget me in my absence! I'll be back!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Town Boy: I'm glad I don't need the definition of "town" explained to me
Hey, this is a good one. Sorry, spoiled the review.
Town Boy
By Lat
Malaysian cartoonist Lat's book Kampung Boy was a wonderful look at growing up in a small Southeast Asian village, providing a window into a part of the world that most Americans never even consider (and maybe one that doesn't even exist anymore). He has followed it up with Town Boy, a sort of sequel that continues the (semi-?)autobiographical story of Mat, who has grown into a teenager and moved with his family into Ipoh, a new "Cheap Housing Scheme" south of the city of Sungai Roman. The story continues, giving plenty of slice-of-life details about Mat's life as he attends school, makes friends, becomes interested in music and art, and develops a crush on a pretty girl.
As with the first book, the storytelling is perfectly charming. There are more panels and word balloons here, but there's still plenty of the ol' illustrated text, so the debates about whether this is comics can continue to rage. But I don't really care about that; I just love reading this stuff. The landscape-format book gives Lat a chance to deliver plenty of sweeping, double-page vistas of busy houses, classrooms and streets:
I love the sheer amount of detail that gets packed into these pages; every square inch has something going on. And man, does he add tons and tons of personality to even the most incidental of characters! His style is so unique, with skinny, rubbery-limbed people who sport huge overbites, funny-shaped heads, and wide mouths full of teeth. They all look so goofy, especially when they're running or dancing, and their legs are depicted as crossed:
But it totally works; you really believe that these are real people going about their lives. And Lat's art is so energetic, whether depicting kids coming home from school:
Or Mat and his pal Frankie experiencing the joy of rock and roll:
And he totally nails the depiction of teenagers, whether it's in their slouched walk:
Or the way boys are so nervous when they try to talk to girls:
And it's funny! And not just in goofy drawings; the stories themselves are frequently very amusing, especially a scene in which an art teacher tells his students that anything can be art, even a drawing of a naked woman, so all the students draw pictures of sexy girls.
So it's a great book, full of comedy and sweetness and fascinating cultural tidbits. I hope more of Lat's work gets published in the United States, because I've never seen anything else like it. Thank goodness a publisher was so willing to import it; we need more of this kind of thing. Comics are produced all over the world, and we should be able to experience much more than the narrow slice that we are usually exposed to.
Town Boy
By Lat
Malaysian cartoonist Lat's book Kampung Boy was a wonderful look at growing up in a small Southeast Asian village, providing a window into a part of the world that most Americans never even consider (and maybe one that doesn't even exist anymore). He has followed it up with Town Boy, a sort of sequel that continues the (semi-?)autobiographical story of Mat, who has grown into a teenager and moved with his family into Ipoh, a new "Cheap Housing Scheme" south of the city of Sungai Roman. The story continues, giving plenty of slice-of-life details about Mat's life as he attends school, makes friends, becomes interested in music and art, and develops a crush on a pretty girl.
As with the first book, the storytelling is perfectly charming. There are more panels and word balloons here, but there's still plenty of the ol' illustrated text, so the debates about whether this is comics can continue to rage. But I don't really care about that; I just love reading this stuff. The landscape-format book gives Lat a chance to deliver plenty of sweeping, double-page vistas of busy houses, classrooms and streets:
I love the sheer amount of detail that gets packed into these pages; every square inch has something going on. And man, does he add tons and tons of personality to even the most incidental of characters! His style is so unique, with skinny, rubbery-limbed people who sport huge overbites, funny-shaped heads, and wide mouths full of teeth. They all look so goofy, especially when they're running or dancing, and their legs are depicted as crossed:
But it totally works; you really believe that these are real people going about their lives. And Lat's art is so energetic, whether depicting kids coming home from school:
Or Mat and his pal Frankie experiencing the joy of rock and roll:
And he totally nails the depiction of teenagers, whether it's in their slouched walk:
Or the way boys are so nervous when they try to talk to girls:
And it's funny! And not just in goofy drawings; the stories themselves are frequently very amusing, especially a scene in which an art teacher tells his students that anything can be art, even a drawing of a naked woman, so all the students draw pictures of sexy girls.
So it's a great book, full of comedy and sweetness and fascinating cultural tidbits. I hope more of Lat's work gets published in the United States, because I've never seen anything else like it. Thank goodness a publisher was so willing to import it; we need more of this kind of thing. Comics are produced all over the world, and we should be able to experience much more than the narrow slice that we are usually exposed to.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Shonen Jump: A different sort of animal from the manga magazine I usually read
Quickly, before I start the real post, here are a couple links to neat stuff. First, Chip Zdarsky (using his real name, Steve Murray) has a funny comic strip up for Canada's National Post describing a journalistic-minded trip in which he and another reporter spent a weekend at a nudist colony. Good stuff.
Then, NBM has a lengthy excerpt from the upcoming book Moresukine, by Dirk Schweiger, which collects a blog he did while living in Tokyo and performing "assignments" that readers asked him to do, like sleep in a pod hotel or check out the crazy local fashion. It looks quite good; I'll have to check out the book when it comes out.
Okay, on to the good stuff:
Shonen Jump: Fifth Anniversary Collector's Edition
I spend so much time reading shojo comics, it's always interesting to look at the other side of the pond. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with the shonen stuff, but luckily, this fancy special version of the popular magazine arrived in the mail, giving me a good opportunity to get acquainted with some popular series. It's a pretty nice-looking package, a $25 hardcover volume (I guess Viz is banking on their audience getting older and having "nostalgia money" to spend) that reprints all the manga that appeared in the first issue of the magazine, along with the first chapter of Naruto (which didn't show up until the second issue), and a best-of selection of the magazine's articles from over the five-year run. There are also some editorials, some puzzles, a gallery of every cover from those five years, and a timeline of the history of manga (with special focus, of course, on Shonen Jump-brand manga) on the back side of the dust jacket. There's some good stuff in the articles, like a neat flowchart looking at the process of creating a manga series, a series of Japanese tongue twisters, and a travelogue-style guide to Bleach's Soul Society. I especially liked a lot of the creator interviews, where I learned things like Hellboy is one of Shaman King creator Hiroyuki Takei's favorite manga, or that Bleach's Tite Kubo is more involved than the average manga artist on the animated adaptation of his series, especially working on character designs. I was especially amused by a series of questions that readers sent in to Akira Toriyama about Dragon Ball, since they were all incomprehensible to me. Here's a typical one:
Anyway, as with Shojo Beat, the main thing here is the manga, so let's look at the various series. Interestingly, I've seen episodes of the anime versions of almost all of them, but this is the first time I've ever read any of them in manga form. How about that?
Yu-Gi-Oh!
By Kazuki Takahashi
I've seen a few episodes and the movie of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and it's entertaining enough, if a bit simplistic. I do enjoy the dramatic way characters play their cards, saying things like, "You think you have won, but I still have one more card: Shining Valkyrie Armor Beast! Now attack, with Ultimate Sword Energy Blast!" I don't know why, but that always amuses me. But none of that matters here, since I found that the card game didn't show up until around seven volumes into the manga series. In the beginning, the story was about all sorts of games, like dice and puzzles, but once Takahashi introduced the cards, there was no going back.
This first chapter is kind of an awkward start, focusing on short, dorky little Yugi, who gets picked on by other kids because he would rather mess around with puzzles instead of play sports. He has an ancient puzzle that he's been trying to complete, which he manages to do, of course, giving him access to the Shadow Games. This chapter sees him play a dangerous game with a greedy hall monitor that tried to extort protection money from him. It works like this: each person takes turn putting a stack of money on the back of their hand, which is pressed flat on a flat surface. Then they try to stab as many bills as they can with a knife. That's not what I expected for this series, but it's interesting. Yugi's "shadow self" seems really sinister here, and it seems like the story could go in some kind of dark directions, if not for a lot of sappy talk about friendship. Eh, I don't think I have much interest in reading more, but it seems competent enough. I did like one bit of art, in which the bully is magically fooled into thinking he's surrounded by a pile of money:
The leaves there look like the ones in Andy Runton's Owly. Cool.
Dragon Ball Z
By Akira Toriyama
As popular as it is, I think this is the series I know the least about, having not even managed to make it through a whole episode of the anime. I always hear that it's really good though, so I suppose I could try to read it sometime (which is a virtual certainty, since I've got the first VizBig volume in my review pile). It's just so intimidatingly massive though, so I approach it with trepidation. For instance, the storyline which starts here is 28 volumes into the series. Damn. Fortunately, there is a pretty good plot summary and character guide (which takes up two whole pages), so I was able to get caught up fairly well. At this point in the story, the hero Goku had defeated a villain called Freeza and then apparently perished after a planet was destroyed. The rest of the cast ends up hanging out on Earth for about a year and resurrecting various dead characters, before being faced with a huge threat and a cliffhanger ending. Crap, who knows when I'll ever find out the resolution to that one.
It's all ridiculously complicated, but the thing is, it doesn't feel too exclusionary. I feel like I could keep reading from this point and still get an entertaining story and a good understanding of what is going on, which is probably more than I could say for anybody picking up current issues of X-Men or Avengers. Maybe it's my age though; when I was a teenager, I enjoyed throwing myself into series with a long history (like, well, X-Men) and trying to figure them out. But I imagine Toriyama's skill at storytelling is probably the explanation here for the ease of entry. He's very clear in depicting what is going on, and he does a great job of conveying the drama and danger through characters' expressions:
He throws in some good humorous moments too; it's good all around. Yeah, I've definitely got to read more of this, but it could take me years to get through it. We'll see what happens.
Sand Land
By Akira Toriyama
I take back what I said earlier; I had never even heard of this series before, but I definitely feel like I want to follow it further. And it's only one volume long, so I should go for it. The story involves a post-apocalyptic desert inhabited by demons, with our hero being the spiky haired Prince Beelzebub, son of Lucifer. He and his demon buddies hang out hijacking water from human vehicles, but they get recruited by a human sheriff named Rao, who wants them to help him find a lake in the middle of an unexplored, monster-filled area (the payment he offers is a working Playstation 6, including Dragon Quest 13). Adventure ensues! It looks like a fun time, with some excellent art that is full of neat details, cool monsters, and nice character designs. And some brooding:
That scene is really just an excuse for exposition though. Yeah, I've gotta check the rest of this one out.
YuYu Hakusho
By Yoshihiro Togashi
I think this is my least-favorite of the series included here, if only because of the wonky artwork. Togashi's main character Yusuke often sports a strangely-shaped head and lots of weird facial expressions. That's probably due to the style of the time in which it originally came out, in 1990. It seems like an interesting concept though, as the thuggish troublemaker Yusuke dies on the first page, then flashes back to what happened. He was a no-good punk who was always getting in fights and skipping school, but he did one good deed, pushing a kid out of the way of a car, and getting run over in his place. But it turns out it was a pointless death, as Botan, the cute girl guide to the afterlife informs him, since the kid was supposed to survive miraculously. So rather than go to heaven or hell, he has a chance to take a test to come back to life. I don't know if he makes it or not, but I think he turns out to be a ghost detective/psychic karate master or something, judging by the episode or two I've seen of the anime.
Once you get used to the art, it seems like it could be a fairly enjoyable series, but I don't know if I would bother reading more of it. There is one nice moment, in which a rival of Yusuke's flips out at his wake, angry that he'll never get the chance to defeat him in a fight. Then, a teacher badmouths Yusuke, and gets chastised by the guidance counselor for his lack of respect for the dead. But that's not really enough to make me thirst for more.
One Piece
By Eiichiro Oda
Now this is a series I could read more of; I love Oda's goofy comic style and crazy character designs. I probably don't need to explain the concept of the series, since it's a pretty popular one, but suffice to say it's about the adventures of the stretchy-limbed Monkey D. Luffy, who longs to one day be "king of the pirates". This first chapter sees his early days as a young boy who hangs out with a local band of non-threatening, hilariously-designed buccaneers:
I especially like the fat guy, who seems to always be chomping on a giant turkey leg, even when he's shooting a bad guy in the face (really!). This chapter sees some drama of the "stand by your friends" sort, as well as some of the "true courage involves more than getting in meaningless fights". You've also got the scene where Luffy eats a magical fruit that turns his body all rubbery, in an indication of the goofy plots and characters to come. It's all good times, with lots of energetic action and some ridiculously over-the-top expressiveness; I don't know if anybody can draw hugely wide-open mouths like Oda:
So, yeah, I'll have to try to read more of this.
Naruto
By Masashi Kishimoto
And here's another one that I really don't need to describe to anybody, since I'm probably the last person around to actually read some of it. It's also a lot of fun, with some nice-looking art and a lot of potential for action and drama. I like the over-the-top nature of the story, with a ninja academy, garish outfits, and weird weaponry, not to mention the crazy ninja techniques that get used. The main one focused on here is the doppelganger, in which a "spirit double" is conjured to confuse the enemy. Young Naruto, being a troublemaker, has his own take on the exercise:
Gotta love the projectile nosebleed. We get some good drama here as well, as Naruto discovers his true nature as the host of a dangerous fox spirit, battles the treachery of a rogue instructor, and learns to focus his power and do awesome feats of ninja badassery. It's a good beginning, and surprisingly violent for a kids' series:
That's gotta be the biggest throwing star I've ever seen. I'll definitely have to check out more of this one of these days.
-----
And I think that's everything. At the very least, it's given me a desire to read more shonen manga, so look for more discussion of that sort of thing here. Or maybe just more girly stuff; we'll have to see what happens.
This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
Then, NBM has a lengthy excerpt from the upcoming book Moresukine, by Dirk Schweiger, which collects a blog he did while living in Tokyo and performing "assignments" that readers asked him to do, like sleep in a pod hotel or check out the crazy local fashion. It looks quite good; I'll have to check out the book when it comes out.
Okay, on to the good stuff:
Shonen Jump: Fifth Anniversary Collector's Edition
I spend so much time reading shojo comics, it's always interesting to look at the other side of the pond. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with the shonen stuff, but luckily, this fancy special version of the popular magazine arrived in the mail, giving me a good opportunity to get acquainted with some popular series. It's a pretty nice-looking package, a $25 hardcover volume (I guess Viz is banking on their audience getting older and having "nostalgia money" to spend) that reprints all the manga that appeared in the first issue of the magazine, along with the first chapter of Naruto (which didn't show up until the second issue), and a best-of selection of the magazine's articles from over the five-year run. There are also some editorials, some puzzles, a gallery of every cover from those five years, and a timeline of the history of manga (with special focus, of course, on Shonen Jump-brand manga) on the back side of the dust jacket. There's some good stuff in the articles, like a neat flowchart looking at the process of creating a manga series, a series of Japanese tongue twisters, and a travelogue-style guide to Bleach's Soul Society. I especially liked a lot of the creator interviews, where I learned things like Hellboy is one of Shaman King creator Hiroyuki Takei's favorite manga, or that Bleach's Tite Kubo is more involved than the average manga artist on the animated adaptation of his series, especially working on character designs. I was especially amused by a series of questions that readers sent in to Akira Toriyama about Dragon Ball, since they were all incomprehensible to me. Here's a typical one:
Q: What happened to Vegeta's tail after he was defeated on Earth? A: The tail lets you gain tremendous strength instantly by transforming into a giant ape, but the risks are equally great--you'll lose your strength if it's squeezed. Once you're as powerful as Vegeta and Goku, the tail just gets in the way. It is thought that the bodies of Saiyans, who are a fighting species, decided that their tails are unnecessary appendages.Maybe that makes sense if you're a regular reader of the series, but for me, it's a bunch of gobbledygook.
Anyway, as with Shojo Beat, the main thing here is the manga, so let's look at the various series. Interestingly, I've seen episodes of the anime versions of almost all of them, but this is the first time I've ever read any of them in manga form. How about that?
Yu-Gi-Oh!
By Kazuki Takahashi
I've seen a few episodes and the movie of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and it's entertaining enough, if a bit simplistic. I do enjoy the dramatic way characters play their cards, saying things like, "You think you have won, but I still have one more card: Shining Valkyrie Armor Beast! Now attack, with Ultimate Sword Energy Blast!" I don't know why, but that always amuses me. But none of that matters here, since I found that the card game didn't show up until around seven volumes into the manga series. In the beginning, the story was about all sorts of games, like dice and puzzles, but once Takahashi introduced the cards, there was no going back.
This first chapter is kind of an awkward start, focusing on short, dorky little Yugi, who gets picked on by other kids because he would rather mess around with puzzles instead of play sports. He has an ancient puzzle that he's been trying to complete, which he manages to do, of course, giving him access to the Shadow Games. This chapter sees him play a dangerous game with a greedy hall monitor that tried to extort protection money from him. It works like this: each person takes turn putting a stack of money on the back of their hand, which is pressed flat on a flat surface. Then they try to stab as many bills as they can with a knife. That's not what I expected for this series, but it's interesting. Yugi's "shadow self" seems really sinister here, and it seems like the story could go in some kind of dark directions, if not for a lot of sappy talk about friendship. Eh, I don't think I have much interest in reading more, but it seems competent enough. I did like one bit of art, in which the bully is magically fooled into thinking he's surrounded by a pile of money:
The leaves there look like the ones in Andy Runton's Owly. Cool.
Dragon Ball Z
By Akira Toriyama
As popular as it is, I think this is the series I know the least about, having not even managed to make it through a whole episode of the anime. I always hear that it's really good though, so I suppose I could try to read it sometime (which is a virtual certainty, since I've got the first VizBig volume in my review pile). It's just so intimidatingly massive though, so I approach it with trepidation. For instance, the storyline which starts here is 28 volumes into the series. Damn. Fortunately, there is a pretty good plot summary and character guide (which takes up two whole pages), so I was able to get caught up fairly well. At this point in the story, the hero Goku had defeated a villain called Freeza and then apparently perished after a planet was destroyed. The rest of the cast ends up hanging out on Earth for about a year and resurrecting various dead characters, before being faced with a huge threat and a cliffhanger ending. Crap, who knows when I'll ever find out the resolution to that one.
It's all ridiculously complicated, but the thing is, it doesn't feel too exclusionary. I feel like I could keep reading from this point and still get an entertaining story and a good understanding of what is going on, which is probably more than I could say for anybody picking up current issues of X-Men or Avengers. Maybe it's my age though; when I was a teenager, I enjoyed throwing myself into series with a long history (like, well, X-Men) and trying to figure them out. But I imagine Toriyama's skill at storytelling is probably the explanation here for the ease of entry. He's very clear in depicting what is going on, and he does a great job of conveying the drama and danger through characters' expressions:
He throws in some good humorous moments too; it's good all around. Yeah, I've definitely got to read more of this, but it could take me years to get through it. We'll see what happens.
Sand Land
By Akira Toriyama
I take back what I said earlier; I had never even heard of this series before, but I definitely feel like I want to follow it further. And it's only one volume long, so I should go for it. The story involves a post-apocalyptic desert inhabited by demons, with our hero being the spiky haired Prince Beelzebub, son of Lucifer. He and his demon buddies hang out hijacking water from human vehicles, but they get recruited by a human sheriff named Rao, who wants them to help him find a lake in the middle of an unexplored, monster-filled area (the payment he offers is a working Playstation 6, including Dragon Quest 13). Adventure ensues! It looks like a fun time, with some excellent art that is full of neat details, cool monsters, and nice character designs. And some brooding:
That scene is really just an excuse for exposition though. Yeah, I've gotta check the rest of this one out.
YuYu Hakusho
By Yoshihiro Togashi
I think this is my least-favorite of the series included here, if only because of the wonky artwork. Togashi's main character Yusuke often sports a strangely-shaped head and lots of weird facial expressions. That's probably due to the style of the time in which it originally came out, in 1990. It seems like an interesting concept though, as the thuggish troublemaker Yusuke dies on the first page, then flashes back to what happened. He was a no-good punk who was always getting in fights and skipping school, but he did one good deed, pushing a kid out of the way of a car, and getting run over in his place. But it turns out it was a pointless death, as Botan, the cute girl guide to the afterlife informs him, since the kid was supposed to survive miraculously. So rather than go to heaven or hell, he has a chance to take a test to come back to life. I don't know if he makes it or not, but I think he turns out to be a ghost detective/psychic karate master or something, judging by the episode or two I've seen of the anime.
Once you get used to the art, it seems like it could be a fairly enjoyable series, but I don't know if I would bother reading more of it. There is one nice moment, in which a rival of Yusuke's flips out at his wake, angry that he'll never get the chance to defeat him in a fight. Then, a teacher badmouths Yusuke, and gets chastised by the guidance counselor for his lack of respect for the dead. But that's not really enough to make me thirst for more.
One Piece
By Eiichiro Oda
Now this is a series I could read more of; I love Oda's goofy comic style and crazy character designs. I probably don't need to explain the concept of the series, since it's a pretty popular one, but suffice to say it's about the adventures of the stretchy-limbed Monkey D. Luffy, who longs to one day be "king of the pirates". This first chapter sees his early days as a young boy who hangs out with a local band of non-threatening, hilariously-designed buccaneers:
I especially like the fat guy, who seems to always be chomping on a giant turkey leg, even when he's shooting a bad guy in the face (really!). This chapter sees some drama of the "stand by your friends" sort, as well as some of the "true courage involves more than getting in meaningless fights". You've also got the scene where Luffy eats a magical fruit that turns his body all rubbery, in an indication of the goofy plots and characters to come. It's all good times, with lots of energetic action and some ridiculously over-the-top expressiveness; I don't know if anybody can draw hugely wide-open mouths like Oda:
So, yeah, I'll have to try to read more of this.
Naruto
By Masashi Kishimoto
And here's another one that I really don't need to describe to anybody, since I'm probably the last person around to actually read some of it. It's also a lot of fun, with some nice-looking art and a lot of potential for action and drama. I like the over-the-top nature of the story, with a ninja academy, garish outfits, and weird weaponry, not to mention the crazy ninja techniques that get used. The main one focused on here is the doppelganger, in which a "spirit double" is conjured to confuse the enemy. Young Naruto, being a troublemaker, has his own take on the exercise:
Gotta love the projectile nosebleed. We get some good drama here as well, as Naruto discovers his true nature as the host of a dangerous fox spirit, battles the treachery of a rogue instructor, and learns to focus his power and do awesome feats of ninja badassery. It's a good beginning, and surprisingly violent for a kids' series:
That's gotta be the biggest throwing star I've ever seen. I'll definitely have to check out more of this one of these days.
-----
And I think that's everything. At the very least, it's given me a desire to read more shonen manga, so look for more discussion of that sort of thing here. Or maybe just more girly stuff; we'll have to see what happens.
This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Shojo Beat: In a shocking display of girliness, figure skating wins over ninjas
Here's the one I meant to do yesterday:
Shojo Beat
July 2008
I'm late getting to this issue, since I didn't renew my subscription in time and thus had to buy it off the stand. Whoops! So I'm sorry if this turns out shorter than usual. The articles in this issue aren't really anything to write home about, being about summer and Japan-related tourism, but nothing too interesting. There's a blurb about video games, and it mentions Echocrome, which is cool, since that's a really neat, offbeat little game. Anyway, on to the manga:
Short-Tempered Melancholic
By Arina Tanemura
This is yet another Arina Tanemura manga (Viz has got to be running out of stuff to publish from her, don't they?) but we only get a ten-page preview here. The upcoming volume of the same name is actually a collection of short stories, this being one of them. It's about a ninja girl who will have to choose between her awesome martial-arts activities and a lifestyle of normalcy when she falls in love with a boy. At least, that's what I think it's about, since the excerpt here is too short to really tell. I've got the full volume sitting on my review pile, so I'll be able to give a full report once I've read it, but I will say that I think I've finally gotten used to Tanemura's cute, gigantic-eyed style, if only through Shojo Beat-related overexposure. We'll have to see how well I can endure it through a whole volume.
Sugar Princess
By Hisaya Nakajo
In the other preview chapter this month, the creator of Hana-Kimi spins what looks to be an enjoyable story about figure skating. Maya is a spunky girl who gets scouted by a skating instructor after she attempts a double axel at the local rink after being egged on by her little brother:
There's precious little here besides introduction to the characters, but Nakajo sets things up skillfully, peppering the chapter with elements that should provide plenty of opportunity for story in the future, including Maya's relationship with her friends and family (two older sisters and a younger brother), and the requisite love interest, a boy skater who the coach wants to pair her with, while he wants to skate solo. And Maya is a fun character too, showing a bit of naivete and a lot of desire to prove herself, especially when somebody makes fun of her for being short. It looks to be a nice formula, with all the elements in place for exciting sports-related drama and personal relationships. And nice art too! I could definitely see myself checking out the collected volumes.
Vampire Knight
By Matsuri Hino
I don't know if there's much to talk about in this chapter of the series I perpetually seem to find on the edge of whether I like or not (did that sentence make sense?). Hino chooses status quo over plot development in the Yuki/Zero relationship, since he backs off from kissing her and passes it off as waking up from a nightmare. Lame. There's a plot about Yuki being stuck at some sort of vampire society party (apparently, lots of actors, musicians, and celebrities are vampires. Good to know), and the plot about the vampire who bit the human girl gets resolved off-panel. A pretty "meh" chapter, overall. Maybe there will be some action and/or dramatic confrontations next month. For now, I'm kind of bored.
Crimson Hero
By Mitsuba Takanashi
So Nobara is finally back home, and everybody is glad to see her. And she and Yushin have decided they're all lovey-dovey, but they're waiting to officially start dating until they make it to the Spring Tournament (the national high school championships). So that seems to remove all the drama, but it looks like her absence has fostered a new spirit of competitiveness, so at least we'll get some drama next time. And maybe some athletics, which is always fun. But for now, it's all happy reunions, and this amusing bit:
Flying volleyball kick go!
Gaba Kawa
By Rie Takada
Last month, I wondered why this series was ending so soon, since it had seemed to set up a good formula for a continuing story, but in this penultimate chapter, Rie Takada does the opposite, setting everything up for a finale. Our heroin Rara, a demon girl who has fallen in love with a human, is straying further and further from her purpose of causing evil in the human world, even managing to accidentally do good. And each time she uses her demon powers to help humans, she loses them, leading to this poignant panel:
Aw, how sad. Well, it turns out she's in trouble, since her penchant for helping humans is causing her to fade away, and if she doesn't kill Retsu, the human she loves, she will cease to exist. Conundrum! I'm sure Takada will find an interesting way to end things, but it seems pretty intractable at this point. Whatever the case, I think I'll have to try to check out other manga by Takada, since she definitely has some skill at creating fun characters and interesting stories.
Honey and Clover
By Chica Umino
We've got another sort of low-key chapter of one of the series this month, with the main plot point being Morita's abrupt departure to the United States on a "job" (what he does to make money has yet to be explained, if ever), just as he had started to develop a semi-romantic relationship with Hagu (maybe). Takemoto runs to the airport to try to talk to him before he leaves, be he doesn't make it, leading to this emotional scene:
Poor guy. Unrequited love sucks. The rest of the two chapters this issue deal with Morita's absence (along with the discovery that his bedroom is a replica of the Galaxy Express 999 engine room) and how the others react (especially Hagu herself). Morita's brother (who was the one who sent him away to work) asks Takemoto, "Do you want him to come back? Or do you not want him to come back?" and Takemoto is kind of stuck for an answer. As a rival, he would probably rather have Hagu to himself, but as a friend to Hagu and Morita, he wants them to be happy, and if that means his own unhappiness, so be it. It's a nice character moment, and it's followed by another really good one, as he asks Hagu the same question, and she answers that he should finish doing all the things he wants to do. While she is intimated and often humiliated by Morita, the thing that really connects them is their love for art, and she wants him to be able to pursue his creative side as he wants, rather than hold him back. God, I love the relationships in this manga.
So it's (a little bit) less of a humorous story this month (Professor Hanamoto has a hilariously weird scene in which he realized what occurred between Hagu and Morita), but still a really good one. I often say that this is a great series, and I stand by that assertion. I guess I'm just good at ignoring creepiness. So, please, read this series, everybody. It's really, really good.
Sand Chronicles
By Hinako Ashihara
Strangely, I don't know if there are any standout moments to highlight in this chapter; it's just a nice bit of the series' usual excellence. In a continuation of previous storylines, Shika and Daigo bond back in the country, and Ann and Fuji spend a day together in Tokyo. Ann is worried that Fuji is depressed and might turn out like her suicidal mom, so she wants to help him out however she can, even though it's kind of awkward because he likes her and she is committed to Daigo. It's a nice series of scenes between the two of them, and a nice solidification of their friendship, as Fuji is finally able to be honest with Ann:
Meanwhile, Daigo and Shika hang out, and the big, dramatic event of the chapter is when the older boy who is "stalking" Shika attacks her boyfriend (a near-faceless character who wonders why she even bothers with him, prompting her to admit that she just needs somebody to hold her together after all the recent upheaval in her life) and drags her off for unsavory purposes (Japanese comics don't hold anything back, do they?). She gets rescued by Daigo, and confesses her love for him in a sort of mid-chapter cliffhanger. We'll see what happens, but I'm curious as to whether Ashihara will upend expectations and have Ann end up with Fuji instead of Daigo. She was about to marry a businessman of some sort in the first chapter's framing sequence...
You see what this shojo stuff does to me? Ah well, it's probably good to embrace my feminine side; that way I'll be able to relate to my daughter really well in about twelve years. On an unrelated note, what's up with the bit of teaser text at the end of this chapter? It reads, "Will the mysterious gloved hand rising up out of the snow to grab Ann's ankle drag her down into the frozen depths?!" What does that even mean?
-----
And that's it for this month. Tomorrow (hopefully), I'll have something from the shonen side of the spectrum. And I've already got the next issue of SB, so I expect I'll get to that soon. And there's always other stuff to talk about, so stay tuned!
Shojo Beat
July 2008
I'm late getting to this issue, since I didn't renew my subscription in time and thus had to buy it off the stand. Whoops! So I'm sorry if this turns out shorter than usual. The articles in this issue aren't really anything to write home about, being about summer and Japan-related tourism, but nothing too interesting. There's a blurb about video games, and it mentions Echocrome, which is cool, since that's a really neat, offbeat little game. Anyway, on to the manga:
Short-Tempered Melancholic
By Arina Tanemura
This is yet another Arina Tanemura manga (Viz has got to be running out of stuff to publish from her, don't they?) but we only get a ten-page preview here. The upcoming volume of the same name is actually a collection of short stories, this being one of them. It's about a ninja girl who will have to choose between her awesome martial-arts activities and a lifestyle of normalcy when she falls in love with a boy. At least, that's what I think it's about, since the excerpt here is too short to really tell. I've got the full volume sitting on my review pile, so I'll be able to give a full report once I've read it, but I will say that I think I've finally gotten used to Tanemura's cute, gigantic-eyed style, if only through Shojo Beat-related overexposure. We'll have to see how well I can endure it through a whole volume.
Sugar Princess
By Hisaya Nakajo
In the other preview chapter this month, the creator of Hana-Kimi spins what looks to be an enjoyable story about figure skating. Maya is a spunky girl who gets scouted by a skating instructor after she attempts a double axel at the local rink after being egged on by her little brother:
There's precious little here besides introduction to the characters, but Nakajo sets things up skillfully, peppering the chapter with elements that should provide plenty of opportunity for story in the future, including Maya's relationship with her friends and family (two older sisters and a younger brother), and the requisite love interest, a boy skater who the coach wants to pair her with, while he wants to skate solo. And Maya is a fun character too, showing a bit of naivete and a lot of desire to prove herself, especially when somebody makes fun of her for being short. It looks to be a nice formula, with all the elements in place for exciting sports-related drama and personal relationships. And nice art too! I could definitely see myself checking out the collected volumes.
Vampire Knight
By Matsuri Hino
I don't know if there's much to talk about in this chapter of the series I perpetually seem to find on the edge of whether I like or not (did that sentence make sense?). Hino chooses status quo over plot development in the Yuki/Zero relationship, since he backs off from kissing her and passes it off as waking up from a nightmare. Lame. There's a plot about Yuki being stuck at some sort of vampire society party (apparently, lots of actors, musicians, and celebrities are vampires. Good to know), and the plot about the vampire who bit the human girl gets resolved off-panel. A pretty "meh" chapter, overall. Maybe there will be some action and/or dramatic confrontations next month. For now, I'm kind of bored.
Crimson Hero
By Mitsuba Takanashi
So Nobara is finally back home, and everybody is glad to see her. And she and Yushin have decided they're all lovey-dovey, but they're waiting to officially start dating until they make it to the Spring Tournament (the national high school championships). So that seems to remove all the drama, but it looks like her absence has fostered a new spirit of competitiveness, so at least we'll get some drama next time. And maybe some athletics, which is always fun. But for now, it's all happy reunions, and this amusing bit:
Flying volleyball kick go!
Gaba Kawa
By Rie Takada
Last month, I wondered why this series was ending so soon, since it had seemed to set up a good formula for a continuing story, but in this penultimate chapter, Rie Takada does the opposite, setting everything up for a finale. Our heroin Rara, a demon girl who has fallen in love with a human, is straying further and further from her purpose of causing evil in the human world, even managing to accidentally do good. And each time she uses her demon powers to help humans, she loses them, leading to this poignant panel:
Aw, how sad. Well, it turns out she's in trouble, since her penchant for helping humans is causing her to fade away, and if she doesn't kill Retsu, the human she loves, she will cease to exist. Conundrum! I'm sure Takada will find an interesting way to end things, but it seems pretty intractable at this point. Whatever the case, I think I'll have to try to check out other manga by Takada, since she definitely has some skill at creating fun characters and interesting stories.
Honey and Clover
By Chica Umino
We've got another sort of low-key chapter of one of the series this month, with the main plot point being Morita's abrupt departure to the United States on a "job" (what he does to make money has yet to be explained, if ever), just as he had started to develop a semi-romantic relationship with Hagu (maybe). Takemoto runs to the airport to try to talk to him before he leaves, be he doesn't make it, leading to this emotional scene:
Poor guy. Unrequited love sucks. The rest of the two chapters this issue deal with Morita's absence (along with the discovery that his bedroom is a replica of the Galaxy Express 999 engine room) and how the others react (especially Hagu herself). Morita's brother (who was the one who sent him away to work) asks Takemoto, "Do you want him to come back? Or do you not want him to come back?" and Takemoto is kind of stuck for an answer. As a rival, he would probably rather have Hagu to himself, but as a friend to Hagu and Morita, he wants them to be happy, and if that means his own unhappiness, so be it. It's a nice character moment, and it's followed by another really good one, as he asks Hagu the same question, and she answers that he should finish doing all the things he wants to do. While she is intimated and often humiliated by Morita, the thing that really connects them is their love for art, and she wants him to be able to pursue his creative side as he wants, rather than hold him back. God, I love the relationships in this manga.
So it's (a little bit) less of a humorous story this month (Professor Hanamoto has a hilariously weird scene in which he realized what occurred between Hagu and Morita), but still a really good one. I often say that this is a great series, and I stand by that assertion. I guess I'm just good at ignoring creepiness. So, please, read this series, everybody. It's really, really good.
Sand Chronicles
By Hinako Ashihara
Strangely, I don't know if there are any standout moments to highlight in this chapter; it's just a nice bit of the series' usual excellence. In a continuation of previous storylines, Shika and Daigo bond back in the country, and Ann and Fuji spend a day together in Tokyo. Ann is worried that Fuji is depressed and might turn out like her suicidal mom, so she wants to help him out however she can, even though it's kind of awkward because he likes her and she is committed to Daigo. It's a nice series of scenes between the two of them, and a nice solidification of their friendship, as Fuji is finally able to be honest with Ann:
Meanwhile, Daigo and Shika hang out, and the big, dramatic event of the chapter is when the older boy who is "stalking" Shika attacks her boyfriend (a near-faceless character who wonders why she even bothers with him, prompting her to admit that she just needs somebody to hold her together after all the recent upheaval in her life) and drags her off for unsavory purposes (Japanese comics don't hold anything back, do they?). She gets rescued by Daigo, and confesses her love for him in a sort of mid-chapter cliffhanger. We'll see what happens, but I'm curious as to whether Ashihara will upend expectations and have Ann end up with Fuji instead of Daigo. She was about to marry a businessman of some sort in the first chapter's framing sequence...
You see what this shojo stuff does to me? Ah well, it's probably good to embrace my feminine side; that way I'll be able to relate to my daughter really well in about twelve years. On an unrelated note, what's up with the bit of teaser text at the end of this chapter? It reads, "Will the mysterious gloved hand rising up out of the snow to grab Ann's ankle drag her down into the frozen depths?!" What does that even mean?
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And that's it for this month. Tomorrow (hopefully), I'll have something from the shonen side of the spectrum. And I've already got the next issue of SB, so I expect I'll get to that soon. And there's always other stuff to talk about, so stay tuned!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Station: Not the radio kind
I had a different review planned for tonight, but circumstances transpired against it getting done. Tomorrow, I guess. In the meantime, here's another (probably shorter) thing:
Station #1 (of 4)
Written by Johanna Stokes
Art by Leno Carvalho
Astronauts are cool, am I right? Who didn't want to grow up to be an astronaut? I don't know if it was a product of the era of my childhood, with the space shuttle program and everything, but the idea of getting to go into space seemed like one of those cool possibilities that actually seemed achievable, if still pretty unlikely. So I've got a soft spot for realism-grounded stories about people in space (see also: Planetes and 2001 Nights).
Maybe Johanna Stokes felt the same way, because she has the makings of a really interesting story here about astronauts on the current-day International Space Station. It's full of little details about life in orbit, but it still seems to focus on plot and character. And that plot is shaping up to be pretty interesting, as tragedy strikes on a spacewalk, leading to the death of a crew member. But an odd discovery indicates that it might not have been an accident. If that's true, then there's a murderer loose among the crew, and our hero will have to find him or her out before anything else happens.
In an odd plot point, that hero, Dyson, is a "space tourist", which, unless I'm mistaken, isn't an existing program. But it makes for a useful storytelling device, since the rest of the crew has to explain everything to him, and thus to the readers. There are some other complications, including tension among the crew (some of it based on nationality; the Japanese and Italian crew members feel sidelined by the "more important" Americans and Russians), and the murder plot should prove interesting, but I think what I enjoy most is the little details, seeing the characters use the equipment and controls that cover every surface. It's a good look at what it must be like to spend all your time floating around such a small space.
Leno Carvalho does a really nice job of making everything seem real. The technology has a modern look about it that really grounds the story; rather than slick sci-fi features, everything has a real-world, lived-in feel:
The characters are all nicely-depicted as well, with some jagged shadows that are reminiscent of Christopher Mitten's artwork, although I occasionally wondered if the best choices were made in showing them; sometimes they would be gathered in a group talking, and it looked as if they were standing on solid ground, rather than floating in zero-gravity. But it's nothing too distracting, and Carvalho puts in some other really nice details, like a toy floating outside of the panels themselves, or a moving depiction of the doomed astronaut drifting away from the station.
So, yeah, it's a pretty arresting story, and I'm quite curious as to where it's going next. If you're as interesting in space as I was, or at least remember when space travel seemed like an exotic possibility that might someday be commonplace, I would recommend checking this out. It's pretty neat.
This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
Station #1 (of 4)
Written by Johanna Stokes
Art by Leno Carvalho
Astronauts are cool, am I right? Who didn't want to grow up to be an astronaut? I don't know if it was a product of the era of my childhood, with the space shuttle program and everything, but the idea of getting to go into space seemed like one of those cool possibilities that actually seemed achievable, if still pretty unlikely. So I've got a soft spot for realism-grounded stories about people in space (see also: Planetes and 2001 Nights).
Maybe Johanna Stokes felt the same way, because she has the makings of a really interesting story here about astronauts on the current-day International Space Station. It's full of little details about life in orbit, but it still seems to focus on plot and character. And that plot is shaping up to be pretty interesting, as tragedy strikes on a spacewalk, leading to the death of a crew member. But an odd discovery indicates that it might not have been an accident. If that's true, then there's a murderer loose among the crew, and our hero will have to find him or her out before anything else happens.
In an odd plot point, that hero, Dyson, is a "space tourist", which, unless I'm mistaken, isn't an existing program. But it makes for a useful storytelling device, since the rest of the crew has to explain everything to him, and thus to the readers. There are some other complications, including tension among the crew (some of it based on nationality; the Japanese and Italian crew members feel sidelined by the "more important" Americans and Russians), and the murder plot should prove interesting, but I think what I enjoy most is the little details, seeing the characters use the equipment and controls that cover every surface. It's a good look at what it must be like to spend all your time floating around such a small space.
Leno Carvalho does a really nice job of making everything seem real. The technology has a modern look about it that really grounds the story; rather than slick sci-fi features, everything has a real-world, lived-in feel:
The characters are all nicely-depicted as well, with some jagged shadows that are reminiscent of Christopher Mitten's artwork, although I occasionally wondered if the best choices were made in showing them; sometimes they would be gathered in a group talking, and it looked as if they were standing on solid ground, rather than floating in zero-gravity. But it's nothing too distracting, and Carvalho puts in some other really nice details, like a toy floating outside of the panels themselves, or a moving depiction of the doomed astronaut drifting away from the station.
So, yeah, it's a pretty arresting story, and I'm quite curious as to where it's going next. If you're as interesting in space as I was, or at least remember when space travel seemed like an exotic possibility that might someday be commonplace, I would recommend checking this out. It's pretty neat.
This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.
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