Just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of Asian comics – you can read right-to-left without blinking, speak of shojo and shonen with ease and have even been known to bring up seinen in casual conversation – you get caught up short with the realization that Japan is not the entirety of Asia. There are other countries with their own comics traditions, and you (well, me) suddenly realize that you (no, it’s still me) don’t know all that much about them. But there will always be more books you haven’t read than those you have, so the only thing to do is dive right in….

Mijeong
By Byun Byung-Jun
NBM ComicsLit, July 2009, $19.99

If Bret Easton Ellis was a Korean cartoonist – and about twenty years younger – he might have produced a short-story collection like Mijeong; Byung-Jun’s characters are mostly urban young people, disaffected more often than not. There are seven stories here, in a wide variety of art styles – some painted, some drawn, and all absolutely stunning in their virtuosity – but they’re all quite bleak.

Byung-Jun’s stories traffic in rape and abduction, murder and suicide, but his viewpoint is distanced and quiet, as if to say that this is just life, and none of it can be helped. Some of the stories end on a relatively upbeat note and some the other way, but it doesn’t really matter – they all have that quiet, detached tone.

Byung-Jun’s art is amazing in its textures and environment, though his people, deliberately, have mask-like faces that show little emotion most of the time. It’s harder to judge his writing – there are passages like “For weary lovers, love seems distant. But they’ll endure it all. Overwhelmed, they endure. But, in the end, they’ll manage.” that clunk around like a tire with a bald spot, but it’s impossible to say if that was clunky in the original Korean, or if the translation (by Joe Johnson) is responsible. In either case, the writing aims towards sublimity but doesn’t always make it.

Mijeong is an Asian comic for people who usually like European comics – it’s nuanced and subtle, quiet and vaguely depressive, with gorgeous art and a deeply jaundiced view of the world. Perhaps the fact that it reads left-to-right – since it’s Korean, and that’s the way their books run – will help it find that audience. (more…)

Maybe those guys in the 501st Legion know something we don’t.

Or maybe domain name registration is getting so cheap that it’s not a big deal to register hotchickswithstormtroopers.com. Either way, the site promises to deliever just what the name says.

And isn’t it nice that people can find what they’re looking for– and in this case, do it without violating Godwin’s Law?

Matt Raub at the Flickcast confirmed it for us:

Comedy Central has picked up the rights to renew 20th Century Fox Television’s Futurama for 26 new episodes, six years after getting initially canceled by the Fox network. In a recent EW interview with a 20th Century Fox spokesman, they say the DVD sales and reruns have had a “blockbuster” performance: “When we brought back Family Guy
several years ago, everyone said that it was a once in a lifetime thing
— that canceled series stay canceled and cannot be revived,” 20th
Century Fox TV Chairmen Gary Newman and Dana Walden said in a joint
statement. “But Futurama was another series that fans simply
demanded we bring back, and we couldn’t have been happier when Matt and
David agreed that there were many more stories yet to tell.” Both creators David X Cohen and Matt Groening were of course ecstatic about the news, Groening adds “We’re thrilled Futurama is coming back. We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000.”

But as far as Matt’s hope that if Family Guy and Futurama can return from the grave, then Greg The Bunny could come back too– probably not. Dan Milano, the man behind (and under and inside, for that matter) Greg The Bunny was just signed to write the remake of Short Circuit, so he’s going to be busy for a bit.