Upcoming 6/10/2009

This week’s ComicList is on the lean side, but there are a couple of items that are worth scrutinizing.

One is Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of Water (First Second), the second part of his trilogy that began with The Color of Earth. I’ve read both in the form or preview copies provided by the publisher, but I’ve been a bit stymied when I’ve tried to sit down and actually write about them. They’re great-looking books; I very much admire the visual style. But I find the content a little off-putting, though I’m not sure I have the right to voice these particular objections.

The Color books compose a period piece that traces the sexual comic of age of a young girl in rural Korea. It’s an experience and a transition that the creator clearly reveres, but for me, it was an uncomfortable kind of reverence. It’s reverence with a degree of distance that seems to flatten and simplify the experience being rendered; the path from girl to woman is dewy and magical, uncomplicated and pristine, or at least that’s the impression the books left. I feel like it crosses the line between celebratory and condescending.

The crew at Good Comics for Kids participated in an illuminating roundtable on the first book, and I was relieved to see my concerns articulated in the discussion. There are also persuasive arguments in the book’s favor, but I’m still unconvinced that its merits overcome its underlying tone.

I’m fairly sure my reaction to the week’s other big release, Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City (Viz), will be much less complicated. I will either be overcome with guilty love, or I’ll be grossed out. I’m reassured by Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey’s assessment, though:

“I’d be the first to admit that DMC walks a fine line between clever and stupid with its raunchy lyrics and outrageous concert scenes, but it never wears out its welcome thanks to a great cast of characters.”

We’ll see.

Twitterpated

One of the things I like about Twitter, aside from the genial conversation with lots of other comics nerds and, truly, nerds of every variety, is the ability to linkblog quickly without having to go to the effort of composing an entire blog post to point out something interesting when all I’d basically be saying is, “This is interesting.” And since recent tweets are right there in the sidebar, it’s just like linkblogging but much, much lazier! It’s like it was designed just for me!

This is only marginally related to the fact that I’m doing my weekly linkblog of something I’ve written, this week’s Flipped over at The Comics Reporter. And yes, I was almost too lazy to linkblog to myself.

Weekend reading

Aside from the strong third volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto (Viz), my weekend’s reading ran towards the inoffensively pleasant.

Ballad of a Shinigami (CMX), adapted by Asuka Izumi from stories by K-Ske Hasegawa, falls into the venerable category of stories about agents (human or supernatural) that help the spirits of the deceased cross over to what comes next. Momo, the titular shinigami, doesn’t quite fit in with her peers. She’s sparkly white, and she bends the rules when a human sparks her sympathy or curiosity. Neither of these qualities makes her especially interesting as an entity in her own right, but the stories are amiable, reasonably moving, and don’t wear out their welcome. Izumi’s art is very pretty, which is a bonus.

The most interesting thing about the first volume of Yuki Sato’s Yokai Doctor is the chance to read the same story twice. Half of the book is filled with Sato’s try-out pieces, followed by the launch of the series proper. The series is about Kotoko, the granddaughter of an exorcist who has turned her family legacy into a comedy act for her classmates. She can actually see yokai, troublesome imps of varying sizes and threat levels, but she can’t really do anything to banish them. Mysterious and nerdy classmate Yuko arrives and reveals himself to be a “yokai doctor,” whose ministrations tend to make the imps cease and desist their mischief. The try-outs are fast and frisky, viewing the weirdness from Kotoko’s perspective. The “real” chapters are more Kuro-centric, and the desire to round the characters out pushes things in an unexpectedly maudlin direction. Kotoko hates yokai; Kuro is linked to them in ways beyond his mystical, medical ministrations; can the two ever be true friends? I didn’t end up caring much, to be honest, and I found myself missing the fast-and-shallow approach of the try-out version. There’s probably a metric ton of comics about an average girl and a weird boy dealing with the supernatural, some of it very good indeed, and this one’s just okay. (Comments based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

I’m always happy to see shôjo titles show up on bestseller lists, but I’m often puzzled by which ones earn that distinction. Both volumes of Aya Kanno’s Otomen (Viz) have shown some impressive initial sales, but I continue to be disappointed with its watery execution of a great idea. It’s about Asuka, an outwardly manly high-school student who keeps his adoration for all things cute deeply in the closet. He’s got a crush on a tomboy named Ryo, and their ever-stalled romance is obsessively observed by Juta, their male classmate who cranks out shôjo manga on the side. I could be wrong, but it feels like there’s a heavy editorial-demographic curfew on the series; it can flirt with interesting, transgressive ideas about gender roles, but it isn’t allowed to actually date them. None of the thematic or plot elements go nearly far enough for my taste; the best bits of the series are when Asuka actually indulges in his secret hobbies – knitting, piping whipped cream, generally turning the world around him into a cuter place. If the series consisted nothing but those moments, I’d love it, but someone stubbornly insisted it have a story.

License Request Day: N.Y.N.Y.

Hey, did you know? It’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month! The President of the United States said so! We can’t marry in most states or openly serve in the military, but other than that, June is all ours, bitches! (In fairness, I have no desire to do either, but I would like the chance to decline both and have it mean something.)

In the spirit of celebration, I’ll devote this week’s License Request Day to a title I first heard about in Paul Gravett’s essential Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics (Harper Design): Marimo Ragawa’s N.Y.N.Y. Here’s a bit of Gravett’s description of the book:

“It follows the lifelong relationship between Kain Walker, a New York cop who has hidden his homosexuality, and his younger blond boyfriend, Mel Frederics, an orphan with a troubled past. Ragawa portrays the strength of their devotion to each other as they face the challenges of coming out, of sexual jealousy, and of living as an openly gay couple.”

If you’ve read any of my thoughts on Saika Kunieda’s Future Lovers (Deux Press), you’ll already know that this paragraph amounts to catnip for me. I just can’t resist yaoi where the protagonists are grown-ups with lives and where sexual orientation actually matters.

Ragawa is probably best known among English-reading manga fans for Baby & Me (Viz), one of the earliest Shojo Beat releases. It follows the ins and outs of a young boy who must help his widower father care for his toddler brother, and it’s got some really moving bits in it. (It’s also got some silly, horrifying bits that will have your hand twitching towards the phone to call Child Protective Services, but it’s fiction, so you shouldn’t have a problem stopping yourself.)

N.Y.N.Y. was published in Japan by Hakusensha, which has given the world such gifts as Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop), Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club (Viz) and Kentarō Miura’s Berserk (Dark Horse). I note this only because I wanted to mention those three books in the same sentence. I’m having a little trouble pinning down precisely where N.Y.N.Y. was serialized, so if anyone has any pointers, I’d be happy to update with the information. Updated: That didn’t take long! Commenter Sean reports that N.Y.N.Y. was serialized in Hana to Yume, which has been the fertile soil for a number of impressive titles. Updated again: Commenter JennyN notes that the book has been published in France by Panini Comics, which led me to find that it has also been published in Germany by Planet Manga. Those might be the same company; I can’t really tell.

But back to my original point, it’s always nice to see some yaoi that’s got some real-world roots. (I think so, at least.) So come on, manga publishers! Don’t violate the spirit of LGBT Pride Month! Give us the four-volume N.Y.N.Y., or at least announce it!

P.S. Not that I’m anywhere close to running out of titles to feature, but if anyone would like to do a Special Guest License Request Day, I’m totally open to that. Contact me if you’re interested.

More vacation reading

A few more items from my recent travels that didn’t quite fit into the Flipped purview:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, Chronicle Books. As the blurb claims, “Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.” I’m not sure if Jane Austen really benefits from the addition of zombies to her prose (unless they’re mall zombies), but zombie stories sure benefit from the presence of Miss Bennett and Mister Darcy. The insertion of “the unmentionables” is definitely good for a few fresh chuckles, and the fusion is surprisingly fluid. It’s also great airplane reading; I’m the kind of person who likes to unnerve my seatmates with intermittent giggling. The joke doesn’t get stale by book’s end, but if Grahame-Smith envisions a franchise, he should probably pace himself.

Borderline, by Nevada Barr, Penguin Group. Perhaps it’s morbid of me or reflects some unflattering impulse towards vicarious violence, but I think any trip to a national park benefits from bringing along a murder mystery set in a national park. Barr’s intrepid heroine, law enforcement ranger Anna Pigeon, is actually visiting Big Bend National Park in Texas as a tourist. Her last adventure has left her on the verge of post-traumatic stress disorder (and on administrative leave), so her kindly husband decides a rafting trip would be an ideal distraction. The trip turns disastrous and deadly in short order, and Anna must face a hostile environment, untangle political complications, and confront her never-before-in-evidence maternal side (unless wolf pups count). As usual, the details of the story are much less important than Barr’s gift for communicating glorious settings. Equally important is her portrayal of Anna, almost as antisocial and sometimes as feral as the predators who roam the far corners of her beloved parks. She’s more than a match for the human predators who sully those parks with greed and violence. Aside from the settings, I think the thing I like best about this series is that Anna’s career as a ranger is the second act of her life, not a from-birth calling; there’s something deeply satisfying about a character finding that satisfaction later than you might expect, but still basking in it.

The Eternal Smile, by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, First Second. For me, this perfectly pleasant collection of thematically linked short stories suffered in the shadow of high expectations. Yang’s American Born Chinese and Kim’s Same Difference and Other Stories are terrific, terrific graphic novels, so the prospect of a collaboration between their creators left me anticipating a result that could heal minor ailments and spin gold from straw. The actual result offers three tales exploring fantasy’s shortcomings as an alternative to the real world. There’s nothing bad about any of them, though they feel a bit pat and maybe even a bit preachy at times. It’s a distinct pleasure seeing Kim demonstrate his versatility as an illustrator, though.

From the Stack: The War at Ellsmere

I thought Faith Erin Hicks’ Zombies Calling (SLG) was “one of those books that make you really eager to see what the creator does next.” Hicks rewards that eagerness (and proves me right) with The War at Ellsmere (also from SLG), which is superior in just about every way. And Zombies Calling was pretty good to begin with.

Zombies Calling owed a fair bit to Scream for its humor and structure, and Ellsmere seems to be similarly sourced. Like good-hearted grind Rory from the early years of The Gilmore Girls, Ellsmere’s Juniper wins enrollment into a prestigious private school (via scholarship instead of grandparental largesse, in Jun’s case) and immediately draws the threatened attention of the institution’s self-appointed queen bee. On Gilmore, that queen bee was the highly strung overachiever Paris Gellar; in Ellsmere, it’s the smirking, vicious Emily,

From those core similarities, Hicks diverges in some promising ways. Jun is nowhere near as dewy and perfect as Rory; she’s much more likely to make a preemptive verbal strike than keep her head down and her nose in a book. And while Paris was neurotically fixated on what Rory’s abilities and accomplishments said about her own, Emily is more absorbed by class differences. She has a rigid set of expectations of scholarship students and their place in Ellsmere’s elite ecosystem.

And while Paris was one of the defining “frienemies” of her era, no one should expect Jun and Emily to be sharing secrets in a stairwell any time soon. Instead, Hicks splits the frienemy egg and gives Jun an ally on the inside. Jun’s roommate, Cassie, is just as pedigreed as Emily, and she’s been at Ellsmere just as long, but Cassie’s quirks have isolated her just as effectively as Jun’s relative poverty will. Jun and Cassie bond quickly and believably. Jun inspires Cassie to raise her academic expectations, or at least to apply herself in ways that interest her. Flakiness aside, Cassie knows how Ellsmere works, and she can advise Jun on the ins and outs; she’s a good listener and she makes Jun laugh. Cassie made me laugh, too. The Jun-Emily rivalry takes up most of the narrative, but I kept turning my attention to Cassie’s evolution. It’s measured, credible and rewarding.

For all of the book’s easy charm, it’s very tightly written. Hicks finds a solid, compelling plot in Jun’s first year at Ellsmere. She fleshes it out nicely with well-developed characters and, more importantly, chemistry among those characters. That’s a really important next step, and I think some creators may neglect it. There also seems to be more confidence in terms of voicing characters here than in Zombies Calling; there’s a similarly metatextual quality to the dialogue, but it’s dedicated more to the characters’ feelings than the shifting rules of zombie combat.

I was sure that Hicks’ follow-up to Zombies Calling would be an improvement, and I feel the same about whatever comes after Ellsmere. And while I wouldn’t want to paint Hicks into a corner when she’s clearly got a very portable skill set as a creator, I’d love to see what happens next to Jun, Cassie and Emily.

Upcoming 6/3/2009

A quick look at this week’s ComicList:

The pick of the week is the fourth volume of Drawn & Quarterly’s collection of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip. Click here and scroll down a bit to see a preview, and if you’re able to resist the gentle satire and high adventure of these strips, then I don’t know what to tell you. Personally, I think Drawn & Quarterly deserves some kind of international peace prize for publishing these.

In my ongoing effort to expose myself to as many “tour guides of the recently deceased” manga as I possibly can, I believe I pre-ordered Ballad of a Shinigami (CMX), illustrated by Asuka Izumi and based on an original story by K-Ske Hasegawa. I believe the shinigami in question also has a talking bat; stories with talking bats constitute another “manga I must at least try” subset, though I have no idea exactly why.

Oh, Mijeong (NBM), why do you make me stalk you? I know I pre-ordered you, and the ComicList says you arrive Wednesday, but I can’t seem to access Diamond’s site to confirm. And you aren’t listed in the e-mail from my local comic shop, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I’m sure you’ll be worth the wait.

I’ve quite liked what I’ve read of Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl (Seven Seas), written by Satoru Akahori and illustrated by Yukimaru Katsura. It’s about a boy who’s transformed into a girl and ends up in a love triangle with two other girls, and I remember its sensitive moments outnumbering any cheesy fan-service by a fairly wide margin. So I’m glad that Seven Seas is releasing an omnibus version of the series.

The fifth volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack arrives courtesy of Vertical. That pretty much all that needs to be said, right?

Viz has an overwhelming volume of product on the way, much of it desirable, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on just two: Chica Umino’s art-college romantic comedy Honey and Clover reaches its sixth volume, and Chika Shiomi’s Raretsu debuts. It’s a follow-up to Shiomi’s Yurara, which Kate Dacey re-reviews as part of her Chika Shiomi Appreciation Week.

Just curious

I was reading this item over at Robot 6, and my experience (limited as it is) tracks with James Sime’s… most comic shops I’ve frequented aren’t typically open on Mondays. I threw the question out on Twitter, and most people said their local shops did have Monday hours, but I still thought I’d up a quick poll.

Shop of dreams

This week’s Flipped started with a visit to one of those excellent comic shops that demonstrates a healthy appreciation for manga. It got me thinking about what qualities add up to making a comic shop great for manga fans. It’s fairly easy to find all of the shônen and shôjo one could want at a chain bookstore, so it always behooves a specialty store to go beyond that and offer something different.

Instead of looking at the underlying qualities and philosophies that make a comic shop a great manga shop, I decided to go the lazy route and come up with a frankly arbitrary checklist of specific comics and categories that add up to represent a generous and discerning view of this corner of the comics world. Feel free to add your own and mention shops you really like. (Mine include Alternate Reality Comics in Las Vegas, Midtown Comics in Manhattan, Laughing Ogre Comics in Columbus, OH, and Big Planet Comics in Georgetown, DC.)

Here’s my checklist:

Shelf copies of at least three volumes of Eden: It’s an Endless World and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Bonus points for shelf copies of either volume of Tanpenshu or Ohikkoshi.

Shelf copies of at least two books from Fanfare/Ponent Mon. Bonus points for shelf copies of each additional title.

Shelf copies of at least three volumes of Genshiken, Mushishi and Nodame Cantabile. Bonus points for shelf copies of any volume of Love Roma and/or Me and the Devil Blues.

Shelf copies of at least one Japanese comic published by Last Gasp. Bonus points for each additional shelved title.

Shelf copies of volumes of at least three series by Fumi Yoshinaga.

Shelf copies of volumes of at least four series by Osamu Tezuka. Bonus points for copies of the Black Jack hardcover.

Shelf copies of at least two volumes of Dragon Head, Planetes and Tramps Like Us.

Shelf copies of at least three volumes of Nana. Bonus points for shelf copies of any volume of Paradise Kiss.

Shelf copies of volumes of at least five series from Viz’s Signature line. Minimum requirements: two comics by Naoki Urasawa and Uzumaki. Bonus points for any volume of Oishinbo. Double bonus points for three or more volumes of The Drifting Classroom.

Shelf copies of at least two volumes each of Emma, Gon and Crayon Shinchan.

Shelf copies of at least one out-of-print title.

Rack copies of Yen Plus with the other monthlies.

A prominently displayed sign that says something like, “Don’t see what you’re looking for? Ask us, and we’ll try and order it for you!” Smiley-face optional.

And for extra credit:

Bonus points shelf copies of Sexy Voice and Robo.

Bonus points for a clearly identified section for yaoi and boys’ love titles.

Bonus points for Rica ‘tte Kanji.

Bonus points for shelf copies of two or more out-of-print titles.

Bonus points for a selection of ero-manga from Icarus Publishing.