Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Buy this Book

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

Difficult as it may be to believe, I do try to avoid making sweeping pronouncements. Every time I indulge in them, circumstance rises up to contradict me, usually in the shape of someone better informed than I am or someone who simply disagrees for perfectly good, qualitative reasons.

But I do try to maintain a clear position of opinion, because it�s easier to argue that I like something rather than that it�s empirically, incontrovertibly good and that everyone should read it. Statements like that tread dangerous territory, and I suspect they backfire more often than they work.

That said�

Fumiyo Kouno�s Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Last Gasp) is empirically, incontrovertibly good and everyone should read it.

The book is good on multiple levels, the first being the aesthetic. Kouno makes imaginative, coherent use of words and pictures to convincingly tell her story. While visual elements and the elegant script support one another as in the best comics, there�s also welcome dissonance, applied for surprising and profound emotional effect.

There�s a veneer of sweetness and innocence to Kouno�s illustrations and designs, though it doesn�t keep her characters from seeming real and whole. The veneer isn�t impenetrable, either; darkness seeps through, which is only natural, given the subject matter. The book�s surface delicacy doesn�t hinder honesty or even emotional brutality.

Kouno�s script is of a piece with her illustrations. The characters in these interwoven short stories live under an unimaginable shadow, but their concerns are resolutely normal � work, family, friendship, romance. The shadow encroaches, and it threatens to overwhelm the everyday. Kouno doesn�t state outright whether it�s courage or survival instinct or simple reflex that helps her characters keep it at bay, leaving it to the reader to reflect on what fuels them as they through their lives.

Now to the second arena of goodness where Kouno�s work excels: goodness in the moral sense.

If protestations about a book�s unimpeachable quality are potentially off-putting, claims in favor of a book�s moral value can repel just as easily. Everyone knows what they should do; suggesting that indulging in an entertainment is a virtuous, even necessary act seems counter-intuitive.

But Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a profoundly moral work and, even better, a singularly humane one. The incalculable individual cost of the bombing of Hiroshima has been handled in drama and documentary, and one can�t argue that the act of examining that kind of horror is automatically a virtuous or courageous act. The critical element is any given work�s ability to move its audience.

To personalize a tragedy of this magnitude is to risk trivializing the event or populating it with characters more philosophically functional than emotionally specific. Kouno avoids these failings entirely. There�s richness and realness to her cast and generosity to her storytelling that lets readers inhabit the world instead of simply observing or commenting on it. It�s a perfect blend of the painfully real and the creatively effective.

So, you should buy this book, because it�s good in every way that matters. Reading it will give you genuine pleasure, and that pleasure will only be enhanced by the worthiness of the subject matter and Kouno�s intelligence and sensitivity in dramatizing it.

At times, when comics fans are concerned that book will be under-appreciated by the reading public, they�ll take some pains to try and promote the property�s success. Some will buy additional copies of a favored work and pass the spares along to friends. I�m not going to go so far as to recommend that course of action, but I do worry that Last Gasp, lacking the powerful distribution vehicles of some of its peers in the manga publishing business, might not have the resources to get copies of the book into retail outlets.

So here are some ways to buy the book:

1. You can buy it directly from the publisher.

2. You can special-order it at your local comic shop, provided your local comic shop practices even the rudiments of customer service.

3. You can order it from on-line retailers like Amazon.com, Powell�s Books, Shop.com, Alibris, Barnes & Noble, or any number of other outlets.

4. You can special-order it at a local bookstore, which is probably my favorite alternative. Why? Because when a customer special-orders a title, the store will often order one or more copies for the shelf as well. While you aren�t actually buying more than one copy yourself, you�re increasing the likelihood that another potential reader will be able to discover it.

So go. Buy this book.