Comic Book Resources

Robot reviews: Another manga round-up

Ooku Vol. 1

Ooku: The Inner Chambers
by Fumi Yoshinaga
Viz, $12.99.

As story hooks go, Ooku's got a great one: A strange plague during the Edo period of Japan kills off more than three-quarters of the country's male population. As a result, the culture and gender relations end up going all topsy-turvy, and succeeding generations find the women ruling the roost and men being protected and prized for their ability to produce offspring. This is especially in the Shogun's harem, or Inner Chambers, where the story takes place.

It helps that the story is by Fumi Yoshinaga, who, in books like Antique Bakery and Gerald and Jacques, has proven herself to be more interested in gender relations and identity issues than mere yaoi squickiness (although she certainly likes that too. Certainly the fact that Ooku won the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in its home country has led to a certain amount of anticipation among some manga fans.

Unfortunately, while Yoshinaga remains an excellent and expressive artist, the series stumbles out of the gate. One of the main problems is the translator's decision (no doubt motivated by an attempt to approximate a certain Japanese dialect) to have everyone speak in a formal, Renaissance Faire-like manner, with lots of "thees" and "thous" and "didsts." It has the unintended effect of coming off as forced, and distancing the reader from the characters and the story.

Beyond that though, Yoshinaga doesn't really seem to do much with her idea, at least so far. She seems more interested in conveying the various back room politics and romances that take place in the inner chambers than giving thought as to what such a huge change in the population would do to a culture. Would the fashion still be identical to what it was in the real world, with men shaving their heads and women wearing long gowns? Wouldn't that change somewhat drastically? Would a female shogun really keep a male harem and if so, would it be so identical in structure to what the real Edo shoguns had? This may sound like nit-picking, but makes the story seem more than a bit facile, as though she just swapped everyone's sex and that alone would be interesting enough. It may well be that I'm not giving Yoshinaga enough credit and that she's actually considered these issues and will explore them in more depth in future volumes. But so far, I'm not encouraged.

Reviews of Red Snow, Pelu and more after the jump ...

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What are you reading?

Kurosagi Delivery Service Vol. 9

Is it Sunday again already? Time for another What Are You Reading then. Our guest this week is blogger and Bleach fanatic John Jakala. Has John been reading Bleach this week? Click on the link to find out. Oh, and don't forget to tell us what you are reading in the comments section below.

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Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

Pelu vol. 1

* Warren Ellis hinted at two upcoming comics projects over on his blog: Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindary Island, which will be published by Avatar Press with art by Raulo Caseres; and Supergod, about which little is revealed beyond the title.

* The Same Hat guys reveal that Last Gasp will be publishing a new manga by Junko Mizuno this fall, entitled Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU Vol. 1. Adults only kids.

* Johanna Draper Carlson drops the news that the 600th issue of Archie will have him marrying Veronica in one of those "what will the future hold" type dealies. Apparently it's part one of a six-part story.

* Speaking of big milestones, Evan Dorkin says the 500th issue of Mad Magazine is out on newsstands now, which is kind of amazing -- to me at any rate.

* Percy Gloom author Cathy Malkasian will publish her follow-up book, Temperance, through Fantagraphics this fall.

* AdHouse pulls back the curtain on Process Recess 3, the third book of art by James Jean.

* Want to know what the cover to that upcoming collection of John Stanley's Nancy stories looks like? Click here.

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: Last Gasp's spring catalog

American Surreal

Continuing our publishing preview for the new year, today we're taking a look at Last Gasp, one of the oldest underground comix publishers around and still distributing and publishing quality material today, a lot of it having to do with Tintin oddly enough.

Anyway, even though there's only a few comics-related titles in the new catalog, I thought I'd list all of the company's releases for the first half of the new year anyway, as there are quite a few books that have some potential crossover appeal.

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