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Graphic Novel Review: Del Rey Manga Round-Up, Part One

shugo1-8375909Let me be honest: I don’t know all that much about manga. I’ve read a few series (going back to Area 88 and Kamui, twenty years ago during the first attempt to bring manga to the US), but I’ve never really gone really deeply into the field. Well, I’m hoping to remedy that now. I’ve got a big pile of first volumes of various manga series, and I’ll be doing weekly reviews of about four of them at a time. (I’m aiming for Fridays; let’s see if I can hold to that schedule.)

We’ll start off with some books from Del Rey (all originally published by Kodasha in Japan), mostly aimed at young teenagers. (At least, all but one of these is marked “Teen: 13+,” but, from the content, I suspect the real Japanese readership, and possibly the American readership as well, is tweens to young teens.) This week’s batch also are primarily aimed at girls — I think.

First up is Shugo Chara!, which translates roughly to “Guardian Characters.” It’s by two women who work under the name Peach-Pit, and it’s about a fourth grader who discovers three eggs in her bed one morning.

Okay, I have to back up already. Amu, our heroine, is explicitly in fourth grade — we’re told that several times — though the structure of the school, and the maturity of the characters, would seem to put them more naturally in middle school. (Trust me; I’m the father of a fourth grader.) And, from an American perspective, it’s really bizarre that a story about fourth graders would be marketed to teens – or even tweens, as I suspect is actually the case here. In the US, kids generally only want to read about other kids their own age (maybe) or, preferably, a few years older. Fourth and fifth graders read stories about middle schoolers, middle schoolers read Sweet Valley High and the like, and high school students either stop reading for pleasure entirely or read stories about people in their twenties. Maybe, like so much else, that’s different in Japan – there is the well-known love of the small and cute there

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The Casting Couch, by Michael Davis

  • News
  • October 19, 2007

I have not gotten into trouble in a while so because I know I will be in Japan when this article runs, I can be safely away from the crap when it hits the fan.

I love the entertainment business for the most part. That’s for the most part. There are some areas of the business I don’t like and what I don’t like most of all are some in the acting profession.

I just don’t like certain actors. That’s certain actors. Most actors I’m cool with, this rant is not for them.

No, this rant is for the two types of actors I can’t stand. The first type is those who think what they do isn’t a profession, it’s a divine right. These “thespians” think they are involved with an art form of the highest ilk. Those conceited, self centered, cocky, arrogant, little brain, stuck-up creeps don’t take acting seriously and really piss me off. (more…)

DC’s Bunch of Bananas

  • News
  • October 18, 2007

Today’s Big ComicMix Broadcast brings you the story of Mark McKenna from DC’s Countdown series who has branched out (no pun intended) on a new project that includes work from some of his top comic colleagues. Banana Tail isn’t just a children’s book or just a comic book… and we let Mark explain it himself!  Plus we’ve got news updates on:

• The wrap-up of Scud, but the return of Jack Staff from Image

• DC makes a major change right before the launch of Batman & The Outsiders

• Viper Comics’ Middleman gets ready to make the move to ABC Family

And much more including a trip look back a week where 25¢ got you a Batman 80 Page Giant and The Association were all over the radio.

How can you resist a cute monkey?  Press The Button!

Writing Under the Influence, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • October 18, 2007

Nothing is created in a vacuum. Though the artist may like to think that the work springs forth Zeus-like full blown from their brow, the truth is any number of different other works influence your own. The works that move and affect us as artists also teach and guide us in our own expression. 

We prize originality but it is said there’s only x amount of plots when you boil them all down (the number has varied according to who is defining it, but it’s usually low) and they were all created by the Greeks. The greatest writer in the English language – William Shakespeare – rarely came up with original plots, most usually re-working older plays or tales from history. What is original often is how you combine the elements.

Imitation is the starting point for what you eventually become. In writing, you become influenced by certain writers because of the types of stories they tell, or their command of language, or the depth of their themes and thought or even just their success or all of it together. It is through imitation, I think, that we truly learn such things as structure. With writing, you can take all the classes and read all the books but, ultimately, you really only learn how to write by writing.  Hopefully, as you grow older and wiser – better – you discard the overt forms that you imitate to find your own voice, your own style. What starts out as something that you borrow has to become something that you own.

GrimJack began that way. As a writer, I very much fall into the camp of wanting to write because of the pleasure I’ve had in reading, especially certain writers. I’ve noted elsewhere that GrimJack was created as a cross between hard-boiled detectives and sword-and-sorcery heroes (making him what I sometimes laughingly refer to as a “hard-boiled barbarian”) but I haven’t talked about which sword-and-sorcery heroes went into the mix. Some might assume Robert E. Howard’s Conan but I’ve always been more drawn to Solomon Kane, Howard’s Puritan wanderer/adventurer. Conan as a character isn’t very reflective; Kane was, even though he was driven by a wanderlust that he couldn’t explain. (more…)

Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here And Now #1: Review

  • News
  • October 17, 2007

Cory Doctorow is either very arrogant or very smart.

Anyone who knows Cory would dispute the first bit, but consider: he gives away all of his writing to readers for free. If you want to read his website at boingboing, by all means; if you want to download his novels, go to Cory’s website and do so, he encourages it and wants you to spread the word. And he expects that he will make money doing this, that his stuff is so good that people will send him money in one way or another. So he either is very arrogant about the quality of his work– or he knows something about the workings of the world that you don’t. Which makes him, if not very smart, then certainly a born science fiction writer. And since he does make money doing this, he’s certainly not dumb.

IDW has begun to adapt his shorter fiction pieces into comic book form, starting with 2004’s "Anda’s Game". You can read the story (for free, of course) here, so the question is: does it work in comics? It certainly does. Esteve Polls’s art reminds me of the work of various Filipino horror comics artists of the 70’s, and Dara Naraghi does a solid condensation and adaptation of Cory’s story. Give this book a shot– the stories are done in one issue, and it’s worth the time.

Disclaimer: I help package books for IDW, and in fact, I’m already late delivering the art for the Munden’s Bar trade paperback…

Happy birthday, Mike Judge!

  • News
  • October 17, 2007

Born in Ecuador forty-five years ago, a talent no one could have imagined would grow up (in New Mexico) to make his mark on the world with timeless phrases such as "I do believe you have my stapler" and "I need T.P. for my bunghole." It’s Mike Judge’s birthday today, the brain behind classics such as Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space, and the incredibly underrated Idiocracy. Thank you, Mr. Judge, for bravely blazing the path of tastelessness for the rest of us to follow in. Thank you for illuminating adolescence in a way that is relatable, for encouraging office anarchy and for being responsible for the only movie in which Jennifer Aniston was bearable. We salute you!

And while we’re on the subject, go visit Me And My Red Stapler, a favorite comics blog of ours.

American Idol’s Aiken in Spamalot?

  • News
  • October 17, 2007

Playbill tells us that Clay Aiken is going to make his Broadway debut in the Tony Award-winning musical Monty Python’s Spamalot in the role of Sir Robin. Aiken will be making his Broadway debut in the role originated on Broadway by David Hyde Pierce. His run begins Jan. 18, 2008, and is scheduled to continue through May 4.

Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow – review

  • News
  • October 17, 2007

If you haven’t heard of Naruto yet, you’ve either been living in a cave or obsessively avoid all contact with manga; it’s the single bestselling series of comics in the US today, regularly placing multiple volumes on bestseller lists. (The animated version is also a decent-sized TV hit, especially among teenage boys.) In case you have been managing to avoid Naruto so far, Viz is making it really difficult to continue: they’re releasing the new volumes of the series three at a time every month this fall, and also threw in a direct-to-video movie, Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, to boot.

It’s the movie we’ll be looking at today. I watched it twice over this past weekend, once alone and once in the company of my older son (my resident Naruto expert). The production values are clearly better than the animated show, which I’ve only seen intermittently – even the colors seem brighter and more vibrant. It may be direct-to-video in the US, but it’s a top-notch animated movie, with CGI effects blending very nicely with mostly hand-drawn 2D animation. It’s not quite up to the level of the very best theatrical animation, but the characters are fluid, the backgrounds are stunning, and the action is gripping and well choreographed. (more…)

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Stephen Colbert for President?

  • News
  • October 17, 2007

51yvj3-asyl-_aa240_-5835564Finally, Stephen Colbert is throwing his hat into the ring and officially announcing his candidacy for President of the United States.  Colbert appeared on The Daily Show last night and suggested he might consider considering a run for the highest office in the land, but then said he would make his official announcement on a "more prestigious show."  Then appearing on his own show, he made the big announcement amid a waterfall of red, white and blue balloons.  He went on to say he plans to file and run in South Carolina, his home state, and only in South Carolina, and will file for both the Republican and Democratic parties.

We suspected it ever since he took over Maureen Dowd’s column.

An Artistic Vocabulary, by Elayne Riggs

  • Uncategorized
  • October 17, 2007

elayne100-8642553For a few years in the ’90s, I wrote weekly comic book reviews which I published online in the Usenet rec.arts.comics groups and CompuServe’s Comics Forum. As I was one of only a handful of women reviewing comics at the time (I remember there was me, Johanna Draper and Denise Sudell online and of course Maggie Thompson in print), my "Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts" reviews were noticed and commented on fairly frequently, both by other readers and by the professionals who worked on the books I discussed. (My review of a Legion annual prompted the book’s inker to email me, and a couple years later we were married.) It was a cool self-publishing gig which led to all sorts of goodies, from being "recognized" by name at conventions (especially helpful when working the Friends of Lulu booth) to being sent freebies and previews to drum up interest and get the comment threads going (about the actual story rather than the anticipation thereof).

I cherished my interactions with pros, particularly artists. Writing I understood. I’d been a writer for decades, I intrinsically got the process. But art — here was a foreign realm, one to which I could never hope to aspire. These folks created magic that I’d never hope to duplicate. I felt a driving need to at least familiarize myself with the hows and whys of graphic sequential storytelling. After all, I reasoned, if you take into account time spent in the actual creation of a comic book story, the art is far more than half of what goes into it. Every line on the page has a reason to be there, and I wanted to find out what it all meant.

In order to do so, I needed to cultivate an artistic vocabulary.

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