The theme is more random than ever this week, because – let’s be honest – it would be difficult to find four manga series that aren’t about teenagers. But these three books offer exceptionally varied takes on the eternal problems of adolescence, and that’s good enough for me! Wolverine: Prodigal Son, Vol. 1Story by Antony…
These three books don’t represent the comics community of the Philippines: I know almost nothing about that community and I’m sure of that. Extrapolating from these three stories – from the three comics stories I happen to have – is futile and silly and I’m going to try not to do it. Drawing any conclusions…
I Saw You…: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections Edited by Julia Wertz Random House/Three Rivers Press; February 2009; $12.95 Everyone’s looking for something: money, fame, recognition, wonder, love. For most of those things, you’re on your own. But, for the last one, there’s always the personal ads. Blatantly advertising for love can feel very…
Well, I’m back, he said. (A shiny dime to the first person to identify that line.) “Manga Friday” has been on hiatus for a while, but it roars back into the arena, all mixed-metaphorical engines racing, with four new books set in that most hallowed of all Japanese story settings: the all-girls high school. Oh,…
Arcade of Cruelty By Joseph Patrick Larkin Also-Ran, 2008, $18 Joseph Patrick Larkin is a self-obsessed, creepy, sexist shut-in with voyeuristic tendencies. And those are his good points. I only know this because I’ve just read his self-published book [[[The Arcade of Cruelty]]] – but, let me back up immediately, because “self-published” will give you…
Jeffrey Brown appeared in the comics world a few years back, with his painfully confessional (and almost as painfully crudely drawn) graphic novels [[[Clumsy]]] and [[[Unlikely]]]. He’s expanded beyond autobiography since then, mostly into odd but straight-faced takes on geeky topics, such as [[[Incredible Change-Bots]]]. He had three new books in 2008 – well, at…
Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, Volume One Adaptation by Chuck Dixon; Illustrated by Brett Booth Dell Rey, February 2009, $22.95 There comes a time in every best-selling writer’s life when he realizes that he’d like to make money even faster than he can write books. OK, maybe that realization comes to all of us –…
The Joker has always been Batman’s most iconic and popular villain. We can argue why this is so, but it’s been true since at least the ‘70s, and shows no sign of changing any time in the near future. And so, with a major movie coming out last year with a high-profile Joker (though no…
Graphic Classics, Vol. 16: Oscar Wilde Edited by Tom Pomplun Eureka Productions, February 2009, $11.95 Graphic Classics has been adapting the work of famous dead authors – from H.P. Lovecraft to Rafael Sabatini – for at least five years, mostly focusing on the more popular (rather than literarily classy) writers. And that’s a good thing,…
Comics come in all sizes. Some are big books, massive “ultimate” or “essential” or “indispensable” or “your friends will say you have a small penis if you don’t buy this” editions, with fancy foil and trim to make the stories of people punching each other seem that much more serious. But there are also little…
In the Flesh By Koren Shadmi Villard, February 2009, $14.95 You probably haven’t heard of Shadmi before this book – he’s an Israeli, now resident in New York, and this is his first collection. Some of these stories did appear before…in French, in various anthologies, which I doubt any of us are familiar with. But…
Chronicles of Some Made By Felix Tannenbaum Passenger Pigeon Publishing, October 2008, $10.25 Tannenbaum received a 2008 Xeric Award for the two stories collected here – in fact, the way of the Xeric, these two stories are collected because they won the award. The Xeric is specifically and entirely to help self-publishers get their work…
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