Monday, December 11, 2006
That's that
Barring unexpected circumstances, this will be the last new post here, but I've moved all of the archived content to http://precur.wordpress.com/ and will continue regular nattering there.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Under construction
So I'm finally getting around to migrating over to WordPress. The process was surprisingly easy, and I'm having fun playing around with the features.
Of course, I've already deleted comment spam.
Of course, I've already deleted comment spam.
In the kitchen: Giada De Laurentis
In addition to comics, one of my pop-culture obsessions is cooking programming, good and bad. The Food Network pulls out all the stops during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I thought I’d take a look at some of their celebrity cooks.
First up is Giada De Laurentis, a California-based personal chef and caterer and host of Everyday Italian. As the show title implies, De Laurentis specializes in casual Italian fare.
Pros:
Of all of the Food Network chefs I follow, De Laurentis offers the largest number of recipes that I actually use. I like her flavor profiles and find the recipes to be clear and usable; they’re also flexible enough to allow for modification and experimentation. Her cuisine isn’t earth-shatteringly innovative, but it isn’t banal either. Just sheathe those choppers.
First up is Giada De Laurentis, a California-based personal chef and caterer and host of Everyday Italian. As the show title implies, De Laurentis specializes in casual Italian fare.
Pros:
- The flavor combinations of her recipes generally sound very appealing, and they run a nice gamut from hearty and comforting to light and refreshing.
- While none of her recipes demand complicated techniques, they don’t fall into the trap of the intuitively obvious, either. She generally offers interesting twists on familiar favorites.
- She favors fresh ingredients but isn’t intractable about their superiority. It makes her arguments in favor of them more persuasive because she resists the urge to make you feel like a terrible person for not having an herb garden in your back yard.
- While her shows tend to focus on meal menus, her preparation sequence doesn’t always make sense. She’ll sometimes present meal components in the order in which they’re eaten as opposed to the order they’re most sensibly prepared.
- I will never understand the Italian fondness for the combination of chocolate and citrus, particularly orange. To my palate, it starts as an unpleasant aftertaste and goes downhill from there.
- She seems to be sliding into the Rachael Ray slot of “hopelessly overexposed Food Network ingénue.” In addition to Everyday Italian, she hosts Behind the Bash and has a new travel program on the horizon. Given that Ray’s career trajectory has led me to start hating Triscuits, I would rather Food Network put the brakes on the gathering Giada-thon.
- De Laurentis is an appealing, easygoing presence when she isn’t looking into the camera. When she does go eye-to-eye with it, she bares a terrifying, over-whitened pageant smile that is more menacing than endearing. It may well be genuine, but I find it disconcerting all the same.
Of all of the Food Network chefs I follow, De Laurentis offers the largest number of recipes that I actually use. I like her flavor profiles and find the recipes to be clear and usable; they’re also flexible enough to allow for modification and experimentation. Her cuisine isn’t earth-shatteringly innovative, but it isn’t banal either. Just sheathe those choppers.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Quick comic comments
Welcome to Tranquility #1 (DC – Wildstorm): The premise for this series sounds a bit like an arc from Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, which is never a bad starting point for a look at the margins of a super-hero culture. Writer Gail Simone has set a murder mystery in a retirement community for “maxis,” powerful heroes and villains living together in relative peace during their twilight years.
Being a person of intelligence and sensitivity, Simone largely resists the urge to ridicule the citizenry’s mental and physical decline. Being a writer who thoroughly explores the scenario at hand, she can hardly ignore it. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but I think she does a nice job. Not everyone ages into an AARP commercial, and when people start with the kind of faculties possessed by the citizens of Tranquility, the results can be kind of frightening when they start to lose them.
Simone tells the story through the eyes of someone in her prime, Tranquility Sheriff Lindo. The character has her own tricky balancing act to pull off. She’s protective of the citizenry in several ways – she’s responsible for safety and order, which can require taking a hard line, but she’s also sensitive to their dignity and respectful of their accomplishments. It’s the sandwich generation conundrum through the eyes of law enforcement, and her handling of the conflicting demands makes Lindo immediately sympathetic.
The down side of having such a well-developed protagonist is that there perhaps isn’t enough time to take full advantage of the setting. As Lindo grudgingly baby-sits some visiting reporters, readers get glimpses of Tranquility and some of the people who live there, but the supporting cast can pass by in a bit of a blur. Introducing marginal characters in strong, specific ways is generally one of Simone’s strengths as a writer, and she succeeds more often than she fails, but the crowd can get a bit daunting.
It seems to overwhelm artist Neil Googe as well. Tranquility itself looks appealingly Rockwellian, but character design can be iffy. Googe is better at rendering action and motion than acting and emotion, so Simone’s script isn’t served as thoroughly as it could be.
But the book has definite potential. I like the underlying premise, and I’m a sucker for a murder mystery, so I’ll stick around and see where it leads.
*
Crossing Midnight #1 (DC – Vertigo): This is another series off to an intriguing if not completely satisfying start. Writer Mike Carey introduces readers to twins Toshi and Kai, born and raised in contemporary Nagasaki. Their thoroughly modern parents indulge their paternal grandmother, a survivor of the atomic bomb who insists they offer a prayer to the family shrine during the pregnancy. What harm could it do?
Mom and Dad would have been better off sticking to their principles, as the act of appeasement has unexpected, decidedly unpleasant consequences. Toshi, the younger of the twins, evaded the eye of the sonogram and surprised her parents with her arrival. The surprises continue as she finds she’s immune to physical injury. Carey takes an interesting direction with Toshi’s emotional reaction to her “gift” and does a nice job illustrating its impact on the family dynamic.
The story is nicely structured, but there’s an underlying detachment to Carey’s writing. The events of Crossing Midnight are never quite as urgent or intense as I think they should be. The book feels at times more like an artfully rendered case study than an organic story, more impersonally observational than visceral. (As an example, I generally hate the device Carey uses to establish the extremity of the menace Toshi and Kai face, but it just kind of rolls past here.)
I do like Jim Fern’s pencils, which are detailed and precise. It’s clean, clear rendering with some nice flourishes of imagination, and Fern’s work gets solid support from inker Rob Hunter and colorist José Villarrubia.
In the end, though, Crossing Midnight is kind of chilly, which keeps it from being very chilling.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
*
Hero Squared #4 (Boom! Studios): I’m starting to wonder if Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis aren’t intentionally embodying the indie-spandex divide in their appealing super-hero parody. Sure, Captain Valor is a morally monochromatic Superman archetype, but I’m finally picking up that Milo is just as much of a pastiche of the common stereotype of the artcomix protagonist, so neatly summarized by Shaenon Garrity.
It’s probably taken me much longer to realize this than it should have, but it tickles me to think that Hero Squared is offering equal-opportunity mockery.
Being a person of intelligence and sensitivity, Simone largely resists the urge to ridicule the citizenry’s mental and physical decline. Being a writer who thoroughly explores the scenario at hand, she can hardly ignore it. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but I think she does a nice job. Not everyone ages into an AARP commercial, and when people start with the kind of faculties possessed by the citizens of Tranquility, the results can be kind of frightening when they start to lose them.
Simone tells the story through the eyes of someone in her prime, Tranquility Sheriff Lindo. The character has her own tricky balancing act to pull off. She’s protective of the citizenry in several ways – she’s responsible for safety and order, which can require taking a hard line, but she’s also sensitive to their dignity and respectful of their accomplishments. It’s the sandwich generation conundrum through the eyes of law enforcement, and her handling of the conflicting demands makes Lindo immediately sympathetic.
The down side of having such a well-developed protagonist is that there perhaps isn’t enough time to take full advantage of the setting. As Lindo grudgingly baby-sits some visiting reporters, readers get glimpses of Tranquility and some of the people who live there, but the supporting cast can pass by in a bit of a blur. Introducing marginal characters in strong, specific ways is generally one of Simone’s strengths as a writer, and she succeeds more often than she fails, but the crowd can get a bit daunting.
It seems to overwhelm artist Neil Googe as well. Tranquility itself looks appealingly Rockwellian, but character design can be iffy. Googe is better at rendering action and motion than acting and emotion, so Simone’s script isn’t served as thoroughly as it could be.
But the book has definite potential. I like the underlying premise, and I’m a sucker for a murder mystery, so I’ll stick around and see where it leads.
*
Crossing Midnight #1 (DC – Vertigo): This is another series off to an intriguing if not completely satisfying start. Writer Mike Carey introduces readers to twins Toshi and Kai, born and raised in contemporary Nagasaki. Their thoroughly modern parents indulge their paternal grandmother, a survivor of the atomic bomb who insists they offer a prayer to the family shrine during the pregnancy. What harm could it do?
Mom and Dad would have been better off sticking to their principles, as the act of appeasement has unexpected, decidedly unpleasant consequences. Toshi, the younger of the twins, evaded the eye of the sonogram and surprised her parents with her arrival. The surprises continue as she finds she’s immune to physical injury. Carey takes an interesting direction with Toshi’s emotional reaction to her “gift” and does a nice job illustrating its impact on the family dynamic.
The story is nicely structured, but there’s an underlying detachment to Carey’s writing. The events of Crossing Midnight are never quite as urgent or intense as I think they should be. The book feels at times more like an artfully rendered case study than an organic story, more impersonally observational than visceral. (As an example, I generally hate the device Carey uses to establish the extremity of the menace Toshi and Kai face, but it just kind of rolls past here.)
I do like Jim Fern’s pencils, which are detailed and precise. It’s clean, clear rendering with some nice flourishes of imagination, and Fern’s work gets solid support from inker Rob Hunter and colorist José Villarrubia.
In the end, though, Crossing Midnight is kind of chilly, which keeps it from being very chilling.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
*
Hero Squared #4 (Boom! Studios): I’m starting to wonder if Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis aren’t intentionally embodying the indie-spandex divide in their appealing super-hero parody. Sure, Captain Valor is a morally monochromatic Superman archetype, but I’m finally picking up that Milo is just as much of a pastiche of the common stereotype of the artcomix protagonist, so neatly summarized by Shaenon Garrity.
It’s probably taken me much longer to realize this than it should have, but it tickles me to think that Hero Squared is offering equal-opportunity mockery.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Dear Vertical
Thank you for this announcement to brighten an otherwise grouchy day.
You could make my whole month if you announced some Moto Hagio.
C'mon... you know you want to.
You could make my whole month if you announced some Moto Hagio.
C'mon... you know you want to.
Art and commerce
At his (probably not work-safe) blog, Simon Jones pointed to this thread at The Comics Journal message board. As usual, Jones insists on making sense:
“Art comics, by their nature, holds art/self above all else, while the priority for most manga published here is the audience… it’s a very commercial product. Manga is going to be no more, and no less, relevant to the alt comix crowd as superhero comics.”The TCJ thread is covers familiar, stereotypical territory from those who adopt the “All manga is cookie-cutter girly crap” position. (Would they quail if they knew their critical assessment of manga is identical to some spandex aficionados on other, undoubtedly lesser message boards?) On the bright side, Shaenon Gaerrity is around to provide a slightly different perspective.
Cleansing breath
I have to admit that I’m a little wearier than usual of comics publishers’ tendency to overstate their accomplishments and innovations to a degree that any actual novelty or merit gets crushed under the self-serving hype.
So I’m quite delighted with ICv2’s recent interviews with Mark Siegel, editorial of First Second. In spite of a year of genuinely noteworthy commercial and artistic achievements, Siegel comes off as level-headed and creative, appreciative of the successes First Second has enjoyed so far, and focused on what’s still to be done.
Spooky.
So I’m quite delighted with ICv2’s recent interviews with Mark Siegel, editorial of First Second. In spite of a year of genuinely noteworthy commercial and artistic achievements, Siegel comes off as level-headed and creative, appreciative of the successes First Second has enjoyed so far, and focused on what’s still to be done.
Spooky.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
And it's really, really good
Sure, the actual origins of the 2 million figure are a bit vague, but it’s hard for me to muster much cynicism about Tokyopop’s announcement of the Fruits Basket milestone. ICv2 attributes the accomplishment to “the way in which it appeals to both male and female readers with a combination of humor and emotion in its saga of an orphaned high school girl who finds refuge with a very eccentric family.”
That’s fair enough. It has performed remarkably well in the direct market since its debut volume in 2004. (Also worth noting is the tendency for older volumes to crack the DM list more than once.) Before the ascendancy of Naruto, Fruits Basket was the “surprising no one” poster manga for its frequent appearances on the BookScan charts, and it still charges up those charts despite generally longer waits between new volumes than one finds with Viz’s usual suspects.
(This month should offer an entertaining variation on “Who’d win?” with new volumes of both Fruits Basket and Naruto dropping. My money’s on Naruto, not because I prefer it but because it’s got other factors that contribute to its momentum. And seriously, coming in second in sales to Naruto is hardly the worst thing that could happen to any graphic novel.)
Still, suggesting that boys come for the funny and girls like the tears may be a little simplistic. I think the book has amazing cumulative power and creative narrative approaches that make it compelling reading and extremely rewarding re-reading. Nobody drops hints and builds payoff like Natsuki Takaya. It may be a comedy-romance-drama, but Takaya structures it in a fashion similar to the cleverest and most conscientious of mystery writers. She never cheats, or at least she hasn’t yet.
The combination of elements also lends the book a level of narrative urgency – a need to know what happens next – that’s unusually high in comparison to much of the shôjo I read. In most cases, the driver to pick up the next volume is primarily a desire to spend more time with the appealing cast of characters. That’s certainly in place with Fruits Basket, but Takaya has also invested emotional nuance with genuine suspense. I find the mix to be addictive.
Miki Aihara’s Hot Gimmick (Viz) had something of the same crack-like quality, though its appeal was a lot more lurid. Aihara kept readers guessing as to what form her characters’ torment would take next, and I rarely found myself caring much about happy outcomes for Hatsumi and her ilk, because the choices all seemed to be among varying degrees of unhappy outcomes.
I think it’s the difference between pity and empathy. The struggling youth of Aihara’s book inspired the former, and Takaya’s move me towards the latter. Don’t get me wrong. I found Hot Gimmick gripping and marveled at Aihara’s ability to manipulate an audience with such skill, but five years from now, I can more easily picture myself sitting down with a stack of Fruits Basket for a good, nostalgic wallow.
That’s fair enough. It has performed remarkably well in the direct market since its debut volume in 2004. (Also worth noting is the tendency for older volumes to crack the DM list more than once.) Before the ascendancy of Naruto, Fruits Basket was the “surprising no one” poster manga for its frequent appearances on the BookScan charts, and it still charges up those charts despite generally longer waits between new volumes than one finds with Viz’s usual suspects.
(This month should offer an entertaining variation on “Who’d win?” with new volumes of both Fruits Basket and Naruto dropping. My money’s on Naruto, not because I prefer it but because it’s got other factors that contribute to its momentum. And seriously, coming in second in sales to Naruto is hardly the worst thing that could happen to any graphic novel.)
Still, suggesting that boys come for the funny and girls like the tears may be a little simplistic. I think the book has amazing cumulative power and creative narrative approaches that make it compelling reading and extremely rewarding re-reading. Nobody drops hints and builds payoff like Natsuki Takaya. It may be a comedy-romance-drama, but Takaya structures it in a fashion similar to the cleverest and most conscientious of mystery writers. She never cheats, or at least she hasn’t yet.
The combination of elements also lends the book a level of narrative urgency – a need to know what happens next – that’s unusually high in comparison to much of the shôjo I read. In most cases, the driver to pick up the next volume is primarily a desire to spend more time with the appealing cast of characters. That’s certainly in place with Fruits Basket, but Takaya has also invested emotional nuance with genuine suspense. I find the mix to be addictive.
Miki Aihara’s Hot Gimmick (Viz) had something of the same crack-like quality, though its appeal was a lot more lurid. Aihara kept readers guessing as to what form her characters’ torment would take next, and I rarely found myself caring much about happy outcomes for Hatsumi and her ilk, because the choices all seemed to be among varying degrees of unhappy outcomes.
I think it’s the difference between pity and empathy. The struggling youth of Aihara’s book inspired the former, and Takaya’s move me towards the latter. Don’t get me wrong. I found Hot Gimmick gripping and marveled at Aihara’s ability to manipulate an audience with such skill, but five years from now, I can more easily picture myself sitting down with a stack of Fruits Basket for a good, nostalgic wallow.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Peeves
As people talk about downloadable comics, one thing that puzzles me is how rarely anyone mentions Netcomics, which has been offering pay-per-view versions of chapters of its manhwa titles since its inception. They aren’t downloadable comics per se, as you don’t get a file to keep on your hard drive, but the publisher has been offering inexpensive digital delivery of their manhwa for almost a year now.
I like Ed Chavez’s take on the Netcomics model, viewing it as the equivalent of a digital anthology. It allows readers to sample different titles cheaply (for around a quarter a chapter), possibly being driven to pick up the print versions if something really clicks, or motivating browsers to follow a title on-line with more frequent doses of a favorite story than paperbacks provide.
So good for Devil’s Due and Slave Labor, but once again, good ideas don’t necessarily equal new ideas.
*
I was happy to see Graeme McMillan put out a call for resources on comics for younger readers at Blog@, thinking it would result in some attention for great sites like No Flying, No Tights, and possibly introduce me to some other resources. And there’s some of that in the comments section, particularly from Kat Kan, but there’s also plenty of “Why can’t they just read Justice Society?” on display.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Marvel-and-DC-centric response to the question, even though it wasn’t central to the question in the first place. No one’s really saying that some Big Two titles aren’t great choices for younger readers (though it’s probably easier to point to ones that aren’t), and the suggestion that all-ages comics are automatically condescending and moralizing is just weird to me. Neither of those failings are exclusive to comics for kids, are they?
And really, are “all-ages comics” the same thing as “comics for kids”? My definition of a great, all-ages book is one that someone from any age group can enjoy, and the ones that I place into that category don’t talk down to any of their potential audience members, no matter how old they are. Some of my favorite comics and graphic novels are aimed at readers much, much younger than myself, and I like them because they’re great stories, executed with skill and imagination, and populated with interesting, appealing characters.
I like Ed Chavez’s take on the Netcomics model, viewing it as the equivalent of a digital anthology. It allows readers to sample different titles cheaply (for around a quarter a chapter), possibly being driven to pick up the print versions if something really clicks, or motivating browsers to follow a title on-line with more frequent doses of a favorite story than paperbacks provide.
So good for Devil’s Due and Slave Labor, but once again, good ideas don’t necessarily equal new ideas.
*
I was happy to see Graeme McMillan put out a call for resources on comics for younger readers at Blog@, thinking it would result in some attention for great sites like No Flying, No Tights, and possibly introduce me to some other resources. And there’s some of that in the comments section, particularly from Kat Kan, but there’s also plenty of “Why can’t they just read Justice Society?” on display.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Marvel-and-DC-centric response to the question, even though it wasn’t central to the question in the first place. No one’s really saying that some Big Two titles aren’t great choices for younger readers (though it’s probably easier to point to ones that aren’t), and the suggestion that all-ages comics are automatically condescending and moralizing is just weird to me. Neither of those failings are exclusive to comics for kids, are they?
And really, are “all-ages comics” the same thing as “comics for kids”? My definition of a great, all-ages book is one that someone from any age group can enjoy, and the ones that I place into that category don’t talk down to any of their potential audience members, no matter how old they are. Some of my favorite comics and graphic novels are aimed at readers much, much younger than myself, and I like them because they’re great stories, executed with skill and imagination, and populated with interesting, appealing characters.
From the stack: PROJECT: ROMANTIC
Project: Romantic (AdHouse) is one of the most exuberant books I’ve read this year. Beneath its sleek, Good-&-Plenty-colored cover lies an appealing riot of colors, styles, and narrative tones.
I admit that I anticipated the book with some stereotypes in mind. The prospect of a group of alternative cartoonists telling romantic stories suggested the potential for glumness to me. That’s certainly part of the emotional palette here, but it doesn’t come close to pervading. If anything, the book could just as easily have been called Project: Comedic, given the general light-heartedness and good nature of the stories.
Creators who are familiar to me (Debbie Huey, Hope Larson, Junko Mizuno, Aaron Renier) deliver appealing work, as expected. (Mizuno’s “Lovers on a Flying Bed” is especially stunning, an intense, dreamlike fable in her adorably disgusting style.) But the overall quality of the work is very high. There are a lot of delightful discoveries here.
I’m particularly crazy about the “Sweetie ‘n’ Me” shorts by Joel Priddy. The four pieces take a sunny, funny look at the domestic life of two mad scientists. I could have happily read an entire collection of these stories; my favorite would have to be the meditation on the pros and cons of their “starter island.”
Kelly Alder effectively heads for the darker end of the romantic spectrum with his gruesomely metaphorical “In & Out,” one of the few black-and-white pieces. Evan Larson’s “Cupid’s Day Off” seems to owe a lot visually to James Kochalka, but I like the story’s combination of wit and coarseness.
The book is primarily short narratives, four to eight pages in length, but there are also one-page strips and evocative pin-ups. The visual styles of the creators range wildly from cartoon-cute to stylish and elegant, with just about everything in between.
The variety, to me, is the greatest strength of the book. It’s like going to a tapas restaurant, with a whole lot of small plates of intense flavors on offer. Not all of them are precisely to my taste, but there's always something to cleanse the palate coming up next. Even the ones I don’t especially like feel like they belong in the book.
Project: Romantic is just plain fun. It’s packed with appealing, diverse work, and it’s well worth a look.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
I admit that I anticipated the book with some stereotypes in mind. The prospect of a group of alternative cartoonists telling romantic stories suggested the potential for glumness to me. That’s certainly part of the emotional palette here, but it doesn’t come close to pervading. If anything, the book could just as easily have been called Project: Comedic, given the general light-heartedness and good nature of the stories.
Creators who are familiar to me (Debbie Huey, Hope Larson, Junko Mizuno, Aaron Renier) deliver appealing work, as expected. (Mizuno’s “Lovers on a Flying Bed” is especially stunning, an intense, dreamlike fable in her adorably disgusting style.) But the overall quality of the work is very high. There are a lot of delightful discoveries here.
I’m particularly crazy about the “Sweetie ‘n’ Me” shorts by Joel Priddy. The four pieces take a sunny, funny look at the domestic life of two mad scientists. I could have happily read an entire collection of these stories; my favorite would have to be the meditation on the pros and cons of their “starter island.”
Kelly Alder effectively heads for the darker end of the romantic spectrum with his gruesomely metaphorical “In & Out,” one of the few black-and-white pieces. Evan Larson’s “Cupid’s Day Off” seems to owe a lot visually to James Kochalka, but I like the story’s combination of wit and coarseness.
The book is primarily short narratives, four to eight pages in length, but there are also one-page strips and evocative pin-ups. The visual styles of the creators range wildly from cartoon-cute to stylish and elegant, with just about everything in between.
The variety, to me, is the greatest strength of the book. It’s like going to a tapas restaurant, with a whole lot of small plates of intense flavors on offer. Not all of them are precisely to my taste, but there's always something to cleanse the palate coming up next. Even the ones I don’t especially like feel like they belong in the book.
Project: Romantic is just plain fun. It’s packed with appealing, diverse work, and it’s well worth a look.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Batten down the hatches
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of interest in this week’s ComicList, but it does have its pleasures.
I think my initial lack of enthusiasm comes from the fact that I hardly ever buy floppies any more, but there are two this week that I’m eager to read. I’ve been enjoying Hero Squared (Boom! Studios), and the fourth issue arrives tomorrow.
I’m also looking forward to a comic by Gail Simone that isn’t in the thick of DC’s mainstream super-hero titles. Welcome to Tranquility sounds like fun, and I like both revisionist super-hero stories and murder mysteries.
For whatever reason, the paperback version of The Case of Madeline Smith from the Rick Geary’s A Treasury of Victorian Murder series showed up at my shop last week, but soft and hardcover versions seem to be arriving everywhere tomorrow.
Viz’s releases function more as a reminder that I’ve fallen behind in my reading list. How did Aishiteruze Baby get to its fifth volume when I wasn’t looking? And Crimson Hero is at volume four? The reason this sort of thing happens is that I keep getting distracted by charming new series like Beauty Pop, which is at volume two.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s going to dominate Bookscan graphic novel sales for the next couple of weeks, I’ll give you one guess.
I think my initial lack of enthusiasm comes from the fact that I hardly ever buy floppies any more, but there are two this week that I’m eager to read. I’ve been enjoying Hero Squared (Boom! Studios), and the fourth issue arrives tomorrow.
I’m also looking forward to a comic by Gail Simone that isn’t in the thick of DC’s mainstream super-hero titles. Welcome to Tranquility sounds like fun, and I like both revisionist super-hero stories and murder mysteries.
For whatever reason, the paperback version of The Case of Madeline Smith from the Rick Geary’s A Treasury of Victorian Murder series showed up at my shop last week, but soft and hardcover versions seem to be arriving everywhere tomorrow.
Viz’s releases function more as a reminder that I’ve fallen behind in my reading list. How did Aishiteruze Baby get to its fifth volume when I wasn’t looking? And Crimson Hero is at volume four? The reason this sort of thing happens is that I keep getting distracted by charming new series like Beauty Pop, which is at volume two.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s going to dominate Bookscan graphic novel sales for the next couple of weeks, I’ll give you one guess.
