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 …

Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, Vol. 1

Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu: Vol. 1
by Junko Mizuno
Last Gasp, $17.95.

Mizuno’s style can best be described as “Hello Kitty with fangs,” or, perhaps more accurately, “Hello Kitty disemboweling Keroppi.” Her attractive, super-cute art works at cross purposes with her more savage content, usually involving predatory, mentally disturbed women on the make for husbands, raw meat or babies, or perhaps all three.

Pelu is the start of what looks to be Mizuno’s longest work yet, at least in English. It’s the episodic story of a tiny puffball/ovum (that’s right, I said ovum) who leaves his planet paradise in search of true love and perhaps the chance to procreate. From then on it’s a series of sad/darkly funny adventures as Pelu encounters one dysfunctional woman after another, more interested in abusive boyfriends or unattainable dreams than poor Pelu. A lot of these tales generate a genuine pathos for their characters and there’s a not-so-subtle critique of gender roles going on here, though Mizuno is too good an artist to keep her work from becoming strident or didactic.

Certainly it helps that she’s got a decided appreciation for the grotesque and downright bizarre. How many other comics vomiting a veritable tsunami of stomach acid over a cliff, thereby destroying the much valued poodle ranch next door and bringing misery to all? I would hope the answer to that question is none. Though I haven’t read Gotham Divas lately.

The Color of Heaven

The Color of Water and The Color of Heaven
by Kim Dong Hwa
First Second, $16.95 each.

This is fast shaping up to be the the front-runner in the “most underrated series of 2009″ category in the “Things I Give A Damn About” awards. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. As I noted in my review of the first volume, Hwa’s tale of a young woman’s sexual and romantic awakening is too risque to appeal to the teen manga-reading audience but too coy and elusive to attract serious adult readers.

But for those willing to walk that line between the two extremes, Hwa’s story remains compelling right up to its happy but slightly bittersweet ending. There are moments of real, genuine eroticism here, such as when young Ehwa has a dream of chasing her loved one as his clothes slowly come off, or an even more daring sequence where she learns the joys of masturbation via a friend, But the books never feel smutty or pandering. And if its sexual metaphors seems (a man diving into a cool pond; a hammer striking a bell) seem more than a bit obvious at times, Hwa invests his characters with a good deal of heart and thought, so that the relationship between mother and daughter, as well as between the daughter and her suitor, feel true. For all of it’s flower metaphors and sidelong glances Hwa’s trilogy is as honest a depiction of sex, adolescence, parental relationships and downright longing as I’ve ever come across in comics.

Red Snow
by Susumu Katsumata
Drawn and Quarterly, 248 pages, $24.95

A woman falls in love with the spirit of a chestnut tree only to see it chopped down. A traveling monk becomes the unwanted play thing for a group of lonely house wives. Anothe rmonk dreams of sexual conquest. A battered wife puts up with her husband’s alcoholism and abuse because that’s the only time he can sexually gratify her.

As my poor attempts at encapsulation suggest,, this collection of short stories by the late gekiga artist Katsumata deal with the give and take between the sexes, set against the backdrop of a rural, feudal Japan. Katsumata makes no bones about the second-class status and hardships that women in this particular culture must endure, but has no interest in being one-sided. The women here can be just as abusive and manipulative as the men, they just aren’t always as successful in getting their way, and their fall can be a lot greater.

None of this is overt. Katsumara delivers all his stories in sleight-of-hand style so that the book’s themes only seep into your brain slowly, and with multiple readings. This is a book I’ll be pulling off my shelf and musing over for some time to come.

Map of My Heart

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Pull up a chair and sit down, won’t you? Our guest this week is Bill Kartalopoulos, who teaches classes about comics and illustration at Parsons, is a contributing editor for Print Magazine, and a comics reviewer for Publishers Weekly. But he’s probably best known as the Programming Coordinator for the SPX convention in Bethesda, MD.

Bill and everyone else has quite a number of books by their bedside table this week, so we’ll get right to it. Be a dear and click on the link below, won’t you?

Warlord #7

Tom Bondurant: Not really comics, but through the magic of Netflix I have been watching the “Middleman” TV show. After four episodes, it’s pretty charming, although it feels like a very Kevin Smith-y kind of show. Since creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach was involved with this adaptation, I imagine it’s fairly faithful to the comics, but I’m still tracking those down, so I can’t compare.

A little further from comics (Howard Chaykin, Roy Thomas, and Marvel are mentioned briefly), I finally found time to read J.W. Rinzler’s The Making Of Star Wars (2007). It’s an exhaustive coffee-table-sized tome (with dictionary-sized print) which dug deep into the Lucasfilm archives to describe, in nerdgasmic detail, the origins of George Lucas’s 1977 classic. The book is also thick with illustrations and other graphics, including periodic charts showing how each draft of the script crept closer to the final film. By the end I felt like I had been sleeping on a cot at ILM along with the other harried effects artists.

The book stops at December ’77, and seems to draw largely from period interviews, so it doesn’t get into the other movies or Lucas’ subsequent revisions to this one. However — and I don’t think was intended specifically, but I’m sure no one at Lucasfilm minds — it did give me a greater appreciation for Lucas wanting to revisit this movie. He put so much of himself into it, and was frustrated both by Fox and logistical limitations, that I can see where technological advances would make him want to “fix” things. Still doesn’t explain wanting Greedo to shoot first, though.

At last with the comics, I was pleasantly surprised by The Warlord #7, written and drawn by creator Mike Grell. After the initial six-issue arc which reintroduced the residents of Skartaris and brought in a new group of 21st-century explorers, this issue finds Travis Morgan with amnesia (as “The Middleman” noted, the kind which only happens in comic books) and the new best friend of an unfamiliar damsel-in-distress. There’s not much more to the story than that, but Grell tells it well, using double-page spreads both as spectacle and as an exposition substitute. Because there aren’t half-a-dozen characters to manage, the issue has more breathing room, and Grell paces the fights and the conversations effectively. This is also the
best I’ve seen of Grell’s artwork in a while — usually I think his figures are a little off, but not so much here. I don’t think he’ll be on story and art for an extended period, but like Dave Gibbons writing and drawing Green Lantern Corps a few years back, it’s nice to see him in familiar territory.

I’ve also started reading my TOTALLY FREE REVIEW COPY of Joe Daly’s Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, which arrived on my doorstep in a little wicker basket with a note saying “Please give this book a good rev– I mean, home,” but which for whatever reason I had been neglecting. So far I’ve gotten through the relatively-short first story, “The Leaky Cello Case,” and found it to be nice and laid-back, if a little talky. Our slacker hero Dave must deal not only with various personal crises — creativity stifled at work, a flooded
apartment, a sudden breakup — but with a mysterious and unfriendly new neighbor whose handlebar mustache reminded me of a SpongeBob villain. Naturally the guy’s up to no good, so Dave and his opposable big toes must solve the mystery before Mustache takes him out. It’s an amiable story, meandering through the details of Dave’s life so that the eventual plot feels like an afterthought. However, Daly’s
style is quite appealing, and his use of color really brings his panels to life. The establishing shots of Dave’s Cape Town environs are especially beautiful, and since the second story looks like a road trip I’m eager to see more of Daly’s vistas. Daly observes the nine-panel grid pretty strictly, but he gets a lot out of it — not like Watchmen, mind you, but still good.

I liked Strange Tales #2 well enough, but the story which still sticks with me (with Jacob Chabot’s Chia-Stache a close second) is Jhonen Vasquez’s bittersweet tale of little Donnie and his MODOK costume. Oh, Donnie — if only you knew how much MODOK loved you….

Finally, I thought Justice League: Cry For Justice #4 (written by James Robinson, drawn by Mauro Cascioli) was the least objectionable issue to date. This was mostly due to Green Arrow saying what many readers have been thinking for the past three months — namely, “Why The Face?” — and Shazam backing it up with, of all things, the Wisdom of Solomon. Oh, and having the Shade show up at the end didn’t hurt either. Generally speaking, this is where I thought the story was headed, so (for now, at least) I am happy. Or, you know, less upset.

Flash Gordon

Michael May: I’m not too far into Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon, but already I’m pleasantly surprised. Not only is it all of Williamson’s Flash stuff, but there are some nicely researched text chapters that deal with his life and how important Alex Raymond’s character became to it. And when they say that it’s all of Williamson’s Flash stuff, they’re not kidding. There are even pictures of some Flash-themed wood carvings he made in summer camp. Oh, and the dimensions of the book are huge so that you can make out all the details in the art. It’s a really beautiful book.

I’m also re-reading the original Agents of Atlas mini-series. It’s the first time I’ve read it in its collected form with the original Golden Age stories in the back. I read the Golden Age stuff before digging back into the modern story and I’m glad I did. I understand why Marvel ordered the material like they did, but I wish that they’d put it all in chronological order. The old stuff informs Parker and Kirk’s story a lot more than I thought it would. So much so, that even though Parker and Kirk fixed it so you don’t have to have read them, I’m now curious about the Marvel Boy stories in Fantastic Four and Marvel: The Lost Generation. And I was pretty sure that nothing could make me interested in Marvel: The Lost Generation.

The Doonesbury Chronicles

Tim O’Shea: Tom Spurgeon’s post, On The Subject Of Return Reading, made me track down the collected 1970s editions of Doonesbury. At present I’m enjoying The Doonesbury Chronicles and totally agree with Tom’s statement “I’m struck by how fantastic a character Joanie Caucus is.” Looking at the abundance of characters that Trudeau created back then, I would love to see Trudeau revisit certain character dynamics. (For instance, you rarely see scenes between Joanie and her daughter JJ any more…)

In terms of comics, for juxtaposition I bought Planetary 27 and Astonishing X-Men 31 both written by Warren Ellis. The end of this series (or getting there) was clearly a struggle for Ellis, and no wonder. By his own admission, his own illness as well as the illness and death of his father (among many other factors) are wrapped up in his writing of the series’ end. I wish I could compare Ellis’ writing of two+ years ago with this new issue of X-Men, but it would be an oranges to apples comparison. Just by its nature, I loved getting the closure of Planetary 27. In terms of Astonishing X-Men, I’ll be honest and admit I would not have bought it were it not for Phil Jimenez being the artist on the issue. That being said, Ellis’ ability to juggle the banter of an old familar team in the midtst of chaos and adventure is what makes the issue (in combination with Jimenez’s absolutely intoxicating pencils) a pleasure to read.

My Pal Carla(tm) has already thoroughly examined Doctor Voodoo‘s first issue. In comparison, my reaction is more simplistic. Even though I never read any of Bendis’ Avengers, I’m curious to see someone other than Stephen Strange (admittedly drawn badly in this issue) try his hand at being the Sorcerer Supreme. Jefte Palo’s art is a nice fit for the series — and Rick Remender’s hit-the-ground-running approach with the first issue ensures that I’ll be back for issue 2.

Sweet Tooth 2 has some great fight scenes. I never thought I would write a sentence like that involving a Vertigo book or Jeff Lemire. Keep surprising me, Lemire. I like it.

Dark Reign — The List: Secret Warriors one shot sports two fun things, Ed McGuinness’ splash page homage to Steranko (the book also reprints Steranko’s Today Earth Died! story) and the reveal of Nick Fury’s personal list of “Save the world; Punch Norman (Osborn) in the face; and Have a beer”. Jonathan Hickman is fast becoming one of my favorite Marvel writers. I see no reason why this was a standalone issue (other than the reprint) as this could have been included in the ongoing series (and when released in TPB, I’m sure that’s how it will be handled). I understand that Marvel is in the business of making money,
but the frequency of one-shot offshoots from ongoing series is both annoying and nonsensical.

Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin is an interesting read for the sheer reason of seeing the character development he’s pulling off with Robin. The more that Damian spends time away from his mother and grandfather, the more he’s acting like a human being. It’s nice to see the character evolve from the one-note “you annoy me and I want to kill you because I’m a psycho” demeanor he frequently sported.

I’m a huge fan of Jeff Parker’s Agents of ATLAS (AoA), so I’m of two minds about this team-up with the X-Men. Hopefully it will get the legion of X-fans into wanting more AoA; but the other part of me gets overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters involved in the ever-growing X-family (Namor is an X-Men now?!? It just seems ridiculous that both Cloak and Namor apparently have to sport X’s on their costumes, apparently so the other X-Men won’t accidentally shoot them.) Also, I was slightly befuddled by the drastic shift in Jason Paz’s inking style (it was like going from Byrne to Colan) with the two-page Venus kidnapped scene. That being said, Parker gives Ken more funny lines, so I’m happy. No really, it’s the talking gorilla that’s always sold me on this series. The back-up tale, Atomic Age Heroes (with the Silver Age incarnation of the teams), is the real delight for me, however. Chris Samnee’s art style is the closest to a modern day Ditko (compliment)–yet more fluid in style than him–that I’ve ever seen.

BOOM’s Irredeemable continues to pleasantly surprise me through the reveals that writer Mark Waid has built into the overall tale. And speaking of Waid, he convinced me to buy Power Girl 5 with his recent post about one page in particular.

For my day job, I do rudimentary graphic design. In an effort to boost my skill set, I picked up from the libary a copy of Debbie Millman’s 2007 collection of interviews, How to Think Like A Great Graphic
Designer. It includes the following exchange with Chip Kidd:

“Do you regret anything?

“I regret not making the effort to meet Charles Schulz in his lifetime. I tried to make up for it by putting together a book that pays proper homage to his work (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz). I think I was only partially successful.”

Hero Tales

Brigid Alverson: The Yen Press review copies arrived this week, and one that caught my eye right away was Hero Tales, a new series by Hiromu Arakawa, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. Actually, it’s by a bunch of people but Arakawa apparently did the art, and it’s very smooth. The story is your basic shonen martial arts tale of a young man with extraordinary powers who must prove himself; nothing new here, really. If you like lots and lots of fighting, with a few supernatural elements thrown in, then this is a good choice. (Actually, it’s wuxia, Chinese martial arts.) Arakawa has a clean, easy to read style, which makes this a pleasant book even for someone like me who is not a huge shonen fan.

I’m too friendly with the creators of Nightschool to do an objective review of it — I chat with Svet occasionally and the toner, Dee DuPuy, is a good friend of mine—but I’ll mention it here anyway. The story is still complicated, with several strands that haven’t quite come together yet, but it’s more fleshed-out than the first volume. Alex, the main character, seems to have a stronger voice in this volume. I love Svet’s art—like Arakawa’s, it’s clean and deceptively simple. She uses a few simple lines to sketch each character, but she chooses those lines well so that each character has a distinct personality.

One thing Yen Press does a lot of, and seems to do very well, is manhwa (Korean comics). They picked up Ice Kunion’s catalogue and have been publishing the books on beautiful paper with gorgeous covers. I wasn’t impressed with the first chapter of Sarasah when it ran in Yen Press — it’s about a girl who has a stalkerish obsession with a classmate, and at the end of the first chapter, she falls down a staircase and dies. When I picked it up again, though, I was charmed by the fact that she wound up in a heaven where the gods wear traditional robes but talk on cell phones. The story veers off into a past-life romance, which I think I can handle. Yen’s manhwa all has a similar look — it’s very stylized in the big-eyes-small-chin kind of way — and the drawings all seem rather hard-edged and flat. I’m not crazy about it, but if the story is good enough I can get past it. We’ll see.

Finder: Dream Sequence

Matt Maxwell: FINDER: DREAM SEQUENCE by Carla Speed McNeil
FINDER is a treasure in comics, and a rare one at that. In a medium that generally doesn’t serve up science fiction (much less *good* science fiction), FINDER wholeheartedly embraces the best of what makes good science fiction good. There’s both extrapolation and commentary on the current, but at the heart of it is how the technology affects (and even effects) the characters. But FINDER isn’t fetishist in either hardcore cyberpunk tropes or galaxy-spanning storylines that are simply high fantasy in drag. It presents honest and tangibly real stories that could only (as the saying goes) be told within comics. I won’t say that every page is exemplary of formalist wonder, but there are many pages that make you pause and consider what the medium can actually do, and how it can actually tell stories.

The story in DREAM SEQUENCE centers around Magri White, singularly gifted savant whose brain literally contains the most popular fiction/shared world in the world of FINDER. And that world is falling apart because Magri is falling apart. Weaving together a personal story as well as threads of the nature of creativity and the danger of self-loathing (particularly with regards to creative types, which is more destructive more often than you’d think), DREAM SEQUENCE is an outstanding example of why FINDER is among my very favorite comics. Sometimes it’s a daunting read, because McNeil walks her characters and her own voice right out to the edge, but that’s where the good stuff goes.

Sadly, I’ll be all caught up on FINDER books soon. But that doesn’t preclude re-reading (which is a rare thing amongst my comics reading these days.)

There’s other stuff I read this week, but not much of it compares.

Complete Jack Survives

Bill Kartalopoulos: Here are some short takes on some (but by no means all) of the books I picked up at SPX, with a few others thrown in for good measure.

Map of My Heart by John Porcellino
I’m only just now dipping into this. I’ve read bits and pieces of John Porcellino’s King-Cat over the years, and am thrilled to have this nearly complete chunk of ten consecutive issues – covers, text pages, letter columns, and all – to read together as a partial record of this remarkable and hugely influential cartoonist’s life and art. John was an eloquent and inspiring guest at SPX, and I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time with this book.

The Complete Jack Survives by Jerry Moriarty
Another book I’ve only sampled so far, but the two-or-three-pages-at-a-time approach is appropriate here. Moriarty blots out the line between painting and cartooning – he calls himself a “paintoonist” – and Buenaventura Press’s definitive collection appropriately functions both as a lavish art book and as a readable collection of these profound and masterful painted comics and comics paintings.

Inkweed by Chris Wright
This has been out for a little while, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Chris Wright at SPX this year, and grateful when he gave me a copy of his book. This nicely designed short story collection makes a sustained case for Wright as a comics storyteller with a consistent point of view and a distinctive (and still mutating) visual style. His work has its own texture, and his stories resonate.

The Golden Age of Marvel Comics vols. 1 and 2
Among other recent influences, Paul Karasik’s Fletcher Hanks books and Greg Sadowski’s Supermen! have got me looking at – if not necessarily always reading – some early “Golden Age” comics, including early superhero comics. Lots of these are available online, but I prefer reading historical comics on paper when I can, and preferably in color. This kind of material has most often been reprinted in expensive hardcover editions for collectors (though DC has published several titles in its affordable, full-color, paperback Chronicles series). Marvel has just collected several issues of the publisher’s first title, Marvel Mystery Comics, as a $125 hardcover which I will never buy. Fortunately, I stumbled across these two portable, full color paperback anthologies from the late-90s. The first volume, edited by Roy Thomas, offers a court historian’s take on the company’s pre-Code period. The second volume is more specifically focused on the initial heyday of the superhero genre, and features many unknown characters alongside Carl Burgos’s pulpy, primary Human Torch, Bill Everett’s peculiarly misanthropic Sub-Mariner, and Simon and Kirby’s blockbuster Captain America. These books are out of print, but still findable at prices much lower than any currently in-print, deluxe collections of work from this period. FYI.

1-800-Mice #3 by Matthew Thurber
Matthew Thurber’s funny and inventive eco-social picaresque continues in this third, self-published issue (available for order via his website). With each issue, Thurber pursues his preposterous premises toward their illogical conclusions while drawing his expansive and expanding narrative ever more tightly together.

Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga
Huizenga uses cartoon language to diagram the fuzzy chaos of mental insomnia with absolute clarity and precision. He’s also really made the Ignatz format his own, with stunning use of limited color.

Pines #2 by Jason T. Miles
I was very excited to get a copy of Jason T. Miles’ latest, hot-off-the-press mini-comic at SPX. My quick browse raises expectations that the new one will be as innovative, mysterious and meaningful as the series’ first issue.

Windy Corner Magazine #3 by Austin English, ed.
This has been out for a few months, but I must put a plug in for my friend (and roommate) Austin English’s strong (yet somehow under the radar) magazine/anthology series. In addition to serving as a vehicle for Austin’s own current stories, Windy Corner features a variety of comics and drawings by other artists alongside thoughtful essays and interviews (this issue features Carol Tyler in conversation with Vanessa Davis; issue #2 boasts the definitive-for-now John Hankiewicz interview). As in the best anthology projects, the range of work suggests a distinct – but not constrained – aesthetic approach to visual narrative and picture making. These digest-sized, full-color, staple-bound issues convey a tactile intimacy consistent with the lush and graceful work on display.

X-men: Misfits

X-Men Misfits Vol. 1
Story by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman. Art by Anzu
Del Rey, 192 pages, $12.99.

Grafting the X-Men onto a shojo manga template isn’t a half-bad idea, considering the soap opera antics of the series back in its heyday (and indeed, even today). The problem lies in that Telgemeier and Roman have grafted too much of the template onto this comic, so that none of the characters have any room to move beyond their narrowly defined roles. It’s way too slavish to shojo cliches — Anzu apparently never met a chibi she didn’t like. There’s some amusement in seeing Angel gussied-up Bishonen style or Beast looking like Totoro’s second cousin, once removed, to be sure. But its adherence to shallow formula is just as bad as the dull exposition and fight scenes that make up most modern X-Men comics. Too bad. I was really hoping for something that blended the best aspects of both Western and Eastern comics, not something that swapped out one set of cliches for another.

Kimi Ni Todoke

Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me to You Vol. 1
by Karuho Shiina
Viz, 216 pages, $8.99.

After I left high school, one of my friends in the lower grades told me that because he wore a black trench coat (this was pre-Columbine) and kept mostly to himself, people started a rumor that he was a vampire. Not in some sort of joking way either. They seriously thought he was into some kind of blood-sucking, black-magic shit, even though the only evidence they had to base that on was the fact that he glowered a lot.

That being the case, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me that the heroine of this shojo manga, Sawako Kuronuma, would be ostracized by her peers merely because she looks a lot like that creepy girl from The Ring. The fact that she’s socially awkward doesn’t help much either.

You can probably figure out where things go from here. There’s a cute boy who’s popular and takes an interest in Sawako, which leads to her coming out of her shell, but plot contrivances and mean people strive to keep them apart. Overall it was enjoyable enough as these sorts of things go, though I wonder how long author Shiina can maintain the characters’ varying levels of credulity without straining the readers incredulity. After all, even the students at my school eventually figured out my friend was harmless and moved onto slandering someone else.

Four-Eyed Prince

Four-Eyed Prince Vol. 1
by Watarau Mizukami
Del Rey, 192 pages, $10.99.

Where are all the parents in these shojo manga? What are they doing while their kids are off gallivanting around and making puppy eyes at each other? Why do they allow their teen-agers to live by themselves? Why do so many of them die in mysterious car accidents? Why are they never around?

OK, I know the reason. It’s because if they were, they’d say things like “Sachiko, I forbid you to want to date your stepbrother even though you aren’t related since a) you’re both living together under the same roof; and b) he’s kind of got a multiple-personality disorder, what with the whole glasses on he’s cold and distant and glasses off he’s warm and vulnerable thing.”

Actually, now that I think of it, having the mom be the impediment to love would have made for a much more interesting manga than whatever’s going on here.

Ninja Girls

Ninja Girls Vol. 1
by Hosana Tanaka
Del Rey, 208 pages, $10.99.

Saaaaaayyyyyy, all these action scenes featuring cute and extremely buxom girls in short-shorts protecting the personality-deprived male protagonist from equally buxom villains wouldn’t be some sort of pandering, sexist and embarrassingly shallow excuse for fan service, would it?

Why, yes. Yes, it would.

Mijeong
by Byun Byung-Jun
NBM, 240 pages, $19.99

Mijeong

Byung-Jun’s dappled, detailed art work is lovely to look at, but his stories, mostly involving sullen youths for whom heartbreak or something worse has left them emotionless and hollow, come off as hopelessly contrived and stilted. The first story, involving an abused young girl and an older, despondent man, works well enough, but most of the others come to their conclusions in awkward, ham-fisted fashion. There’s no real reason, for instance, for the classmates in the story “Utility” to be so utterly blasé about the death they witness, other than it suits the author’s purposes. Without a grounding in some sort of emotional reality, it’s hard for me to connect or care about these characters. It’s all very heart-on-sleeve, overly earnest, emo sort of manhwa, and honestly,  my patience for that sort of thing is very minimal these days. In some ways, this is just as contrived as Ninja Girls, but at least the latter is more honest about its intentions.

The Color of Water

* Let’s start things off with Kristy Valenti, who examines the Seven Stages of the Comics Critic:

Everyone is familiar with this phase in its various forms: passionate defense of one’s favorite superheroes, even (and especially) from those currently cartooning them, leading to message-board brawling; the realization that it’s easy to snark crappy comics, of which there are legion in all genres and from all countries; long, slightly combative conversations with relatives about how even the New York Times literary establishment has embraced the medium; railing against the current comics (and comics criticism) establishment. This is also the phase in which the danger of style over substance looms, if a critic becomes more concerned with flashy, rather than solid, writing.

* The AV Club’s Noel Murray has some interesting thoughts on Tom Spurgeon’s list of top 10 important comic book series. Spurgeon offers some follow-up thoughts in response here.

* Lissa Pattillo posts what I think is the first review of The Color of Water, the second volume in Kim Dong Hwa’s manwha trilogy.

* Both Nina Stone and the Oregonian’s Steve Duin think Kick-Ass is awesome.

* Sean T. Collins includes Phoebe Glockner’s Diary of a Teenage Girl in his ongoing Favorites series: “Heartbreak and rage: that’s what I feel when I read this book.”

* Curt Purcell peruses Doug Wolk’s Reading Comics and declares it good: “Basically, I’m enough of an outsider to find a lot of the current comics scene puzzling, but enough of an insider to have a fairly precise sense of what I don’t understand. And that’s what makes Wolk’s book so worthwhile for me.”

* Andrew Wheeler reviews a whole mess o’ manga.

The Color of Earth

The Color of Earth
By Kim Dong Hwa
First Second, 320 pages, $16.95.

This is one of the most sexually frank and at the same time coyest comics I have ever read. On the one hand it deals honestly and openly with the growing adolescent curiosity about sex and puberty in a manner that would get few Western cartoonists would dare to try, perhaps out of fear that they would then have to make a call to the CBLDF.

On the other hand, it’s all delivered in endless double-entendre, with the characters talking about flowers and persimmon seeds and whatnot, but you know what they’re really talking about — nudge-nudge, wink-wink.

The story is about a young girl named Ehwa, who lives in a rural Korean village with her mother, her father having passed away several years ago. It’s not clear what time period the story takes place in, but I assume it’s early 20th century, since Hwa acknowledges the story is based loosely on the life of his mother in the foreword.

Anyway, Ehwa’s mom runs an tavern to make ends meet and is frequently forced to politely rebuff the unwanted advances of her male customers, who talk trash about her when they don’t think anyone is listening.

One day, however, a handsome stranger comes to town. He’s a traveling artist and he almost instantly captivates the mom. Hwa has a nice sequence here where she shows her interest in him by putting his shoes at the entrance way — one facing into the house, the other facing outward.

As they begin a budding romance (the traveling artist apparently is the Korean equivalent of the Fuller Brush Man), Ehwa begins to learn about her growing and changing body and the strange emotions she has for a young monk in training and also the well-to-do youth down the road. Hwa draws some nice parallels between mother and daughter here, especially in a sequence where Ehwa coquettishly mixes her shoes with the young monk’s without fully realizing the suggestiveness of her actions.

The book spans several years, with Ehwa first discovering the rather significant difference between boys and girls, then getting her period, learning about the clitoris (I told you it was frank) and so on. Her friends and the neighborhood boys seem eager to grown up and at times taunt her with their half-knowledge of how babies are made. But Ehwa remains unsure of her development throughout the book, eager at times to become a grown-up and shy and unsure of herself at others.

It’s usually during those moments that Ehwa turns to her mom for the straight dope, and their conversations are the heart of the book. Her mom is that rarest of creatures in that she lays down the facts of life gently and without any creating any rancor, guilt feelings or anxiety. The two are more like sisters really, especially in the way the mom confides in Ehwa about her relationship with the artisan. Perhaps that’s because there’s no real male presence in their house, perhaps Hwa is idealizing the relationship for the sake of the reader. Regardless, their relationship is one of the most interesting and touching aspects of the book.

I should say something about Hwa’s art, which is deceptively simple. He’s able to get a great deal of expression from his characters with just a few lines, and then he’ll let loose with an elegant, gorgeous two-page rendering of the landscape that makes Ehwa’s village and surroundings come to life.

I enjoyed The Color of Earth a great deal, but I wonder if it will have trouble finding an audience. It’s a bit too adult in its subject matter to be acceptable for younger readers but it’s way of going around Jake’s barn to discuss indelicate matters may annoy older readers. Worse, it may induce snickers in a more cynical and, conversely, immature audience. That would be a shame, since the book has a great deal to offer readers, not the least of which being its ability to deal with a thorny subject matter rarely discussed in comics before, if at all. If Hwa can sustain the notes he’s played for the second and third volumes of Ehwa’s story, it will be quite the accomplishment.

Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye

• No doubt there will be a plethora of Seaguy-related reviews when the new series is completed, but for now you’ll just have to content yourself with Jeff Lester, who offers an excellent analysis of the original series and claims the sequel is “worthy of your time and attention.”

• Nina Stone, however, had an entirely different reaction: “I’m guessing this is all somehow a commentary on superheroes and our culture. But, honestly, I can’t really figure out what that commentary is supposed to be saying.”

• Every week it seems like more and more mainstream media outlets are reviewing comics. Here’s one by the Chicago Tribune’s Julia Keller, and here’s another from Bryan at St. Louis Magazine.

• David Welsh examines CMX’s Astral Project manga series: “It’s more inclined to drift than to progress, but it drifts in some very intriguing ways.”

• Also at Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon emerges from a reviewing hiatus to talk about Tarzan The Jesse Marsh Years Vol. 1.

• Jog continues his and Tucker Stone’s dissection of Humanoids books with an interesting look at how changes in coloring can affect the impact of a work.

• Sandy Bilus reads X-Men and Spider-Man 1-4 and declares “the art is the draw, here.”

• Noah Berlatsky compares Frank Quitely’s work on All-Star Superman with that of Dokebi Bride manwha creator Marley and finds the former lacking:

The point here is that super-hero comics very rarely have a strong sense of wonder. With all the spectacular feats, you’d think they would — but somehow they all end up as tricks; they’re fun and goofy, or I guess more recently bloody, but they don’t actually inspire awe. And I think it’s because of something Tom said, “Superman keeps the universe our size.” Super-heroes are there to make things more manageable. Awe — a sense of vastness, of human insignificance or vulnerability — is antagonistic to everything they stand for.

Miss Don't Touch Me

Before we begin today’s run-down, a quick word on the dates listed below. I’m going by the catalog I received in the mail here, and not by the dates listed on the company’s Web site. In other words, even though NBM says the next Trondheim book is coming out this month, I’m saying March, because that’s what it says in their catalog. I apologize in advance if this screws anyone up.

Now with that out of the way, let’s move on …

Miss Don’t Touch Me by Hubert and Kerascoet. This actually comes out today. It’s a French book, full of murder, sex and intrigue, about a young woman who ends up becoming a call-girl to try and solve a murder. I don’t think Nancy Drew ever did that. Previews here. $14.95 paperback.

Dungeon Zenith Vol. 3

Little Nothings Vol. 2: The Prisoner Syndrome by Lewis Trondheim. More autobiographical one-page musings from the French master. The first volume won a lot of accolades and made it onto more than one best-of year-end list. Will the sequel do the same or will it seem all too familiar? Samples can be found here. $14.95 paperback. March.

Dungeon Zenith Vol. 3: Back in Style by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim and Boulet. Moving back from the Twilight and Monstres series, these tales return to the Dungeon’s heyday, and find Herbert and his friends up to their necks in trouble again. I can’t get enough of this series. $12.95 paperback. April.

Arlene’s Heart by Victoria Frances. A fantasy artist known for the Favola series of books contributes what seems to be a Goth-inspired fantasy fable. Not my cup of tea, but perhaps you’ll like it. Previews here. $24.95 hardcover. May.

Mijeong by Byun Byung-Jun. A new book from the author of Run, Bong-Gu,Run!, about young people from different walks of life whose paths cross in unexpected and sometimes tragic ways. $19.95 paperback. June.

George McManus’ Bringing Up Father. Part of NBM’s ongoing Forever Nuts series, which celebrates early 20th century strips, this book looks at the early years of McManus’ seminal, rolling-pin throwing strip, collecting the daillies fromt he first two years. It should be noted that IDW is planning on publishing Sunday pages of the strip down the road as well. $24.95 hardcover. July.

A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: Famous Players: The Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor by Rick Geary. Geary continues his wonderful (if macabre) true crime series with this examination of the unsolved murder of a early Hollywood director and actor who turned up dead in his bungalow one day. As Sean Collins likes to say, sure, I’ll eat it. $15.95 hardcover. August.