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

Magazine Rack

Shojo Beat and Otaku USA

In spite of my abiding love for sh�jo manga, I�ve been able to resist regular readership of Viz�s Shojo Beat magazine. I like a lot of the imprint�s titles, but I generally prefer to read them in larger, digest-sized chunks.

I check in now and then, obviously. I mean, I wasn�t going to pass up the recent sampling from Osamu Tezuka�s Princess Knight, because who knows when we�re likely to see more?

Advanced buzz about Chica Umino�s Honey and Clover led me to pick up the September issue, and I�m afraid my resistance may be a thing of the past. Not only is it addictively charming, it reads extremely well in chapter form. Part of what got me into comics was the thrill of wondering what happens next and the knowledge that I�d only have to wait a month to find out. I�ve shifted mostly into graphic novel consumption, but Umino is definitely able to turn 30 pages into a satisfying chunk.

It focuses on a fairly motley group of students at a Tokyo art college. Takemoto is a good-natured innocent who lives in shabby student housing with older students like affably together Mayama and scheming, mysterious Morita, who�s on the extended-stay plan. Their familiar, hand-to-mouth existence gets a spoke in the wheels when Hanamoto joins the student body. She�s gifted, adorable and odd, and she unintentionally sets hearts fluttering.

Umino has a real flair for turning mundane bits of student life into funny, charming sequences. The art school setting lets her play with extremes of personality without lapsing too far into absurdity. In spite of their individual eccentricities, there�s something heartwarmingly real about the characters.

That�s got to be due at least in part to Umino�s character designs. Pristinely handsome boys are as thick as flies in Shojo Beat, but the Honey and Clover cast is appealingly average-looking. In a sea of artfully tousled hair and perfectly-pressed school uniforms, the dodgy coifs and shabby ensembles of Honey and Clover are extremely easy on the eye.

The series replaces Ai Yazawa�s lovely Nana in Beat rotation, and while it may be sacrilege to subscribers, I�m delighted with the change. I love Nana, but I love it in collected form, so the prospect of an accelerated release schedule is very welcome.

So what about the rest of the magazine�s offerings? As you might expect, they�re a bit of a mixed bag. I�m very intrigued by Hinako Ashihara�s Sand Chronicles, about a girl who moves to the sticks with her clinically depressed mother. It�s got real bite to it, and, again, it left me hungry for more. I suspect Mitsuba Takanashi�s Crimson Hero will actually read better in monthly installments than semi-regular digests. One hundred plus pages of athletic ambition and teen angst is a bit much for me, but the chapter-sized bite here goes down quite nicely.

Fond as I�ve been of a lot of series by Yuu Watase, the less said about Absolute Boyfriend and its crushingly boring title character the better. It�s almost over, so I won�t carp. The preview of Chitose Yagami�s Fall in Love Like a Comic is an entirely generic exercise. Its protagonist is a teen who creates manga on the side and thinks her stories will improve if she falls in love and finds a jerk to help her out. Based on the preview, it seems like a G-rated hybrid of Sensual Phrase and Hot Gimmick, and I�m not sure the world really needed that. Matsuri Hino�s Vampire Knight is pretty to look at, but it trades in too many clich�s (both pertaining to bloodsuckers and private schools) to really engage me.

The text pieces don�t make an impact either way. They�re competently written bits of fluff about stuff that means little or nothing to me. (Bibliophiles will likely be horrified by the how-to on turning a hardcover book into a cute handbag. I�m not entirely sold, but if you want something sleek and stylish, try Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.) And I could live without the colored ink used in the manga section. I don�t think the pink does the pages any favors.

But the promise of a monthly dose of Honey and Clover could make me overlook a lot of shortcomings. It�s just that good.

*

With two issues under its belt, Otaku USA is off to a solid start. The name is kind of precious, and Editor in Chief Patrick Macias has a tendency to lapse into hipster hyperbole, but the magazine itself is well-crafted and interesting.

My interest in Japanese popular culture is pretty much confined to manga, but the articles on anime and films are well-written enough to hold my interest. The interviews are generally insightful, and the reviews are good overall. (Some of the shorter reviews overdo plot summary at the expense of analysis.)

It might just track with my personal level of interest in the subject matter, but I think the manga content reads best. I�ve enjoyed both installments of Ed (MangaCast) Chavez�s column, and contributions from Jason Thompson and Shaenon Garrity are always engaging and informative. There�s also a happy eclecticism to the series that get the spotlight, from a blockbuster like Death Note to an understated masterpiece like Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. The magazine seems to be making a conscientious effort to include a broad spectrum of titles.

And in spite of the implications of the magazine�s name, it isn�t exclusionary. I don�t think a reader with no interest in manga or anime would get anything out of it, but it�s perfectly friendly to a casual consumer. You don�t need a decoder ring to read most of it.

So, while Macias�s prose excesses sometimes make me cringe (i.e., ��our gang of drifters, dreamers, and roustabouts,� ��the COOL PEOPLE who can keep up with all of our many weird and digressive interests�, ��a wild and careening Japanese pop culture PARTY�), the magazine he�s assembled is readable, accessible and, best of all, useful.