Review by Ed Sizemore

Imagine being immersed in a long, meandering conversation with someone that speaks their mind openly on any and everything. Further imagine that you look at your watch and discovered you’ve been captivated by this person for several hours, and it’s only been the two of you the whole time. That’s what it’s like to read Hayao Miyazaki’s Starting Point: 1979-1996. It’s one of most delightful, enlightening, and at times surprisingly confessional books I’ve read in a great while.

Starting Point: 1979-1996
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Starting Point is a collection of Miyazaki’s writings and interviews. There is a nice bonus in the center of the book, an eight-page, full-color manga on the history of in-flight dining done for Winds, Japan Airlines’ magazine. This is followed by nine black-and-white pages from Miyazaki’s notebooks. (The last three are untranslated so you can see the quality of Miyazaki’s penmanship.) The foreword is by John Lasseter, one of the founders of Pixar and friend of Miyazaki. The afterword is by Isao Takahata, long-time collaborator of Miyazaki and co-founder of Studio Ghibli.

Over the course of the book, the reader is able to develop a well-rounded picture of Miyazaki, both the man and the animator. In high school, Miyazaki originally wanted to be a gekiga manga artist (49). (Gekiga is a style of realistically drawn manga. The stories are often gritty, dark portrayals of modern life.) However, the Japanese animated movie Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent) literally changed his life.

It made me realize that, behind a facade of cynical pronouncements, in actuality I really was in love with the pure, earnest world of film, even if it were only another cheap melodrama. I was no longer able to deny the fact that there was another me — a me that yearned desperately to affirm the world rather than negate it. (70)

Miyazaki went off to college where, surprisingly, he majored in political economics. While in college he was also part of the Children Literature Study Group (311).

In 1963, he was hired by Toei Animation as an in-between animator (the entry-level job for animation companies). He found the daily grind of television animation becoming unbearable. He was ready to return to his former dream of becoming a manga artist, when a Russian animated film reignited his passion. “Had I not one day seen Snedronnigen (The Snow Queen) during a film screening hosted by the company labor union, I honestly doubt that I would have continued working as an animator.” (71)

In 1978, Miyazaki would make his directorial debut with the television series Future Boy Conan (yet to be released in the US). In 1979, Miyazaki directed his first feature film, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. In 1985, Studio Ghibli was founded. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Miyazaki has a great deal of faith in the unlimited potential of animation as a storytelling medium. In this sense he reminds me of Tezuka, who believed that manga had unlimited potential and was an art form on par with novels, short stories, and theater. I find Miyazaki’s passion for cartoons compelling and share his belief that the only limits to cartoons are the imaginations of animators.

In other words, I am talking about doing something with animation that can’t be done with manga magazines, children’s literature, or even live-action films. I’m talking about building a truly unique imaginary world, tossing in characters I like, and then creating a complete drama using them. Simply put, this is what animation is to me. (17)

He has equally high hopes for what his films will accomplish.

To my way of thinking, creating animation means creating a fictional world. That world soothes the spirit of those who are disheartened and exhausted from dealing with the sharp edges of reality, or suffering from a nearsighted distortion of their emotions. When the audience is watching animation, they are apt to feel light and cheerful or purified and refreshed. (25)

But if we can free ourselves from the various complexes we have and the tangled relationships we are in to live a freer, more open world, we might be able to become strong and heroic. I think everyone entertains thoughts of becoming more beautiful, or more gentle, or of having a more meaningful existence. (306)

His high ambitions for animation have made him a harsh critic of much of the animation he sees. “I frankly despise the truncated word ‘anime’ because it only symbolizes the current desolation of our industry.” (72)

But I’d like to see effort put into filmmaking sufficient to withstand the bare-knuckled criticism that I’m providing here. Cartoons have certain weaknesses that we normally don’t notice, and a type of laxity arises precisely because the films are treated as mere cartoons. (118)

His most vehement criticism is leveled at television animation.

“Producing an animation series merely to fill time slots in the broadcast schedule is like generating cultural pollution.” (186)

TV cartoon shows were all just a bunch of slapdash, amateurish, uninspired, derivative creations. We used to say among ourselves that making them was like working with still-open wounds. (279)

Is it any wonder that one he was given the freedom to make animated films, he never returned to television again?

I was also amazed some of the personal confessions that show up in this book. A touching reflection on his relationship with his father and his perceived failings as a parent, “I tried to be a good father, but in the end I wasn’t a very good parent.” (204) His flaws as a first-time director, “The schedule slipped and I caused a lot of trouble for the staff and the production company. This was entirely due to my failing, as I can only work following my intuition and feelings.” (66) Even his personal shortcomings, “I’m a careless sort of person, so I am often quick to say bad things about people.” (211)

My favorite sections of the book are where he discusses Future Boy Conan and each of his films in detail. We learn Miyazaki didn’t intend for the ending of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to have the religious overtones that it did. But once the film headed in that direction he couldn’t steer it otherwise. (393) Further, we find out Kiki’s Delivery Service was actually made for young women heading to Tokyo to find their first job and make a place for themselves in this world. (262, 378) Porco Rosso was made, “…for tired, middle-aged men whose brain cells have turned to tofu.” (267) There are so many more interesting facts about the production and themes in each of his major works.

So many great quotes can be pulled from this book. There are tons of fascinating ideas that could fuel extended discussions among its readers. Not to mention, lots of behind-the-scenes glimpses of the reality of making animated TV shows and feature films. There is such a wealth of information, no review can truly hope to touch on everything contained within the pages of this book.

I honestly believe that every anime fan needs to read Miyazaki’s Starting Point: 1979-1996. It’s a chance to see deeply inside the anime industry, as well as an opportunity to intimately know one of anime’s greatest directors. I highly recommend Takahata’s afterward as a loving, but brutally honest, portrayal that only a real friend could write. This is also a must-read for American animation fans. It offers a different perspective on cartoons, and how they should be made, than we generally hear in the US. Simply put, this is too significant a book to let simply pass you by. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Bonus Feature: I showed Johanna what my copy of Starting Point looked like when I was reading it and she thought it would be fun to take a picture of it share with you. So here are my photos. I annotated each photo in an attempt to justify/explain my process.

Review by KC Carlson

The Character’s Comic Origin

Plastic Man was one of the greatest conceptual characters ever created in comic books, especially during his Golden Age career where his adventures were chronicled by his creator, the amazing Jack Cole. Primarily a humorist, Cole’s Plastic Man adventures (beginning in the pages of Police Comics in 1941) were wildly funny and amazingly innovative, with Cole’s often surreal artwork and outrageous slapstick humor.

Plastic Man: The Complete Collection
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But Plastic Man wasn’t just a great humor strip — there were darker elements as well, especially in the character’s origins as former criminal Eel O’Brian, abandoned by his gang and left for dead when a heist goes bad. Saved by a monk and taken to recover at his monastery, O’Brian discovers that exposure to a mysterious acid during the failed crime has changed him physically — his body is pliable like rubber! With the revelation of this remarkable power, and with the monk’s belief that he had the capacity for greater good, O’Brian decides to change his life completely. Disguising himself by remolding his face and donning cool goggles and a patently ridiculous stretchable leotard (with a distinctive black and yellow striped belt), he becomes the crime fighter Plastic Man!

Eventually joining the police department and then the FBI, Plastic Man becomes an incredibly successfully hero, mostly because he still maintains his Eel O’Brian identity as a criminal in order to keep tabs on the criminal underworld. Thus, with one foot in each “world”, Plas’ adventures are filled with wild comedy as well as crime elements, as he’s pitted against any number of bizarre crooks and femme fatales. Cole capitalized on the character’s unique costume and abilities by either making Plas a master of disguise or by having him “blend into the background” by taking the shape of normal everyday objects, like mailboxes and lamp poles — all with tell-tale black and yellow stripes or stylized goggles. Thus, he became his generation’s “Where’s Waldo?” long before Waldo was born, and readers delighted in ferreting out where Plas was hiding in Cole’s often bizarre artwork!

Plas in Modern Comics

Plastic Man had a long and successful Golden Age career in both Police Comics and his own title until his publisher, Quality Comics, folded in 1956. DC Comics (then National Periodical Publications) acquired the publishing rights to three Quality properties — Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, and Plastic Man. They almost immediately began publishing the first two but completely forgot about Plastic Man until 1966, where he finally popped up in the Dial H For Hero feature in House of Mystery. That was probably just a way to promote his upcoming (but short-lived) ten-issue series, the first issue memorably illustrated by Gil Kane. But the character wasn’t the same.

Since then, Plastic Man has had a very long, very intermittent, and mostly confusing history/continuity at DC. Every few years the character would be revived, either with a new series or as a member of the All-Star Squadron or eventually, the Justice League. But the exact combination of key elements of each appearance were never quite satisfactory. Almost no one could replicate Cole’s magic touch with the character. (Although Kyle Baker’s series came close. At least it looked great!) A lot of his later writers could just not capture his humor properly, especially in his JLA appearances, where it seemed like he was an obnoxious jerk who wouldn’t shut up. Or they made the character too serious, with family problems or really wrong feelings of insecurity. In the modern DC world, he’s still a good character, but he has lost many of the elements that originally made him great.

Destined for Animation

Unfortunately, such is the same with Plas’ animation career. It’s not that The Plastic Man Comedy/ Adventure Show (running 1979-1981, from which this four-DVD set is compiled) is actually a bad show — it’s not! It’s got a great pedigree, and some great folks working on it. Plus, Plas is a character who is destined to be animated — stretching and morphing into other shapes is only really cool when you can see it in action! It’s just that it is obviously a product of its time, subject to the whims of the great Saturday Morning Television Network gods, their P.C. desires and fears of complaints from parental groups. It probably didn’t help that the show was co-produced by Hanna Barbera (long past their prime, pre-Cartoon Network) and Ruby-Spears (did they have a prime?).

Here’s some of the good stuff: Plas himself, who does some cool stunts throughout the series and throws out some occasionally great one-liners while under pressure. He’s ably voiced by Michael Bell, although his voice tends to occasionally get a bit whiny when agitated (or is that just because he’s fighting to be heard against the relentlessly bad generic non-stop soundtrack music in each episode?). The villains are pretty cool. I especially like The Clam, an actual talking clam wearing a little sailor’s cap. Dr. Dome (not Doom) pops up from the 60s DC comic series, and Carrot Man (from the 70s comics) also makes an odd appearance. Plus, there are some great comic book writers on the writing staff including Mark Evanier, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, and Buzz Dixon. Unfortunately, there are no individual episode credits, so you’re on your own trying to identify who wrote what. (Sounds like a great drinking game to me!)

This Might Be Annoying

And here’s some of the bad stuff: Plas’s blonde bombshell partner Penny, who is voiced with the most annoying Southern accent since Veronica on the Archie cartoons from the 60s. (The voice actress, Melendy Britt, did a much better job voicing Princess Adora/She-Ra.) Penny obviously has a huge crush on Plastic Man, which is mostly unrequited as Plas only has eyes for the female Chief (also voiced by Britt). In the DVD documentary for the series, animation producer James Tucker speculates that Penny might only be there to help make it clear that Plas is actually interested in girls, being, you know, so unusually dressed in a leotard all the time. (Oh dear.) Penny finally succeeds in getting her man, as sometime between the first and second seasons, Plas and Penny not only marry — but actually spawn. There’s a little Baby Plas running around in Season Two, not only in his own cartoon series (called Baby Plas, natch), but in the Plastic Family series of cartoons staring Mom, Pop, and Baby Plas. Sadly (or fortunately — your choice), the Baby Plas and Plastic Family cartoons are not included in this set, making it not quite so Complete after all. (But trust me, I’m not complaining!)

By the way, we don’t actually see any of the wedding, except for being told about it in the opening sequence of the second season, in lieu of actually getting a real theme song. But then again, there’s no theme song for the first season either, just a discussion of how Plas’ powers work, set to more relentless generic soundtrack. Was there so much cost-cutting going on that the producers didn’t want to pay for a theme song, or were there just not that many good rhymes for “plastic”?

But I’m forgetting about one of the worst comic relief sidekicks in all of cartoons. Hula Hula was a Polynesian (you can tell by his Hawaiian shirt) man (or boy? who can tell?), who inexplicably talked like Lou Costello (from Abbott &…) and had horrible bad luck that affected everybody around him. And apparently made him stupid as well. Fortunately, the producers came to their senses and didn’t call him by the horribly racist name “Coconut” like they wanted to. The character was already offensive enough without that added burden. He was no Woozy Winks, I’ll tell you that!

Extras! Extras!

But all is not lost. As if to prove that Plas could be a great animated star, the DVD set also includes an unaired Plastic Man pilot episode that was produced for Cartoon Network in 2006, and it is the best thing on this set. It was developed by Andy Suriano (producer on Batman: The Brave and the Bold) and Tom Kenny (voice of Spongebob Squarepants), who also plays Plastic Man. It’s a great cartoon, full of manic energy (maybe a bit too manic, actually), but there are lots of good gags, and Plas seems more like Plas than he has since the 1940s. Perhaps it’s a little bit too Ren & Stimpy/Kricfalusi influenced, for my taste anyway. There’s enough great stuff in the cartoon to not really need the crutch of the borrowed influence, and that may be why it was not picked up to go to series. I’d love to see Suriano and Kenny try it again — and Plas does occasionally pop up on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (voiced by Kenny), and in a much more appealing style, at least in my opinion.

Also included in the set is a 14-minute documentary, PLAS-tastic: A Brief History of Plastic Man. Featuring comic historians Jerry Beck, Mark Evanier (who also wrote for the show), and Alan Kistler, plus animation veterans Dan Riba, Andy Suriano, James Tucker, Tom Kenny, Andrea Romano, and Jeff Hall, the group discuss the series in-depth, as well as the unaired pilot, Kyle Baker’s take on Plastic Man at DC comics, and Plas’ appearances on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Notably, no DC staffers appear in the documentary.

One last thing, the Bonus Features aren’t on Disc 4 where the packaging says they are. The Documentary is actually on Disc 1 and the unaired pilot “Puddle Trouble” is on Disc 2.

All in all, a very nice DVD set, for a series that may or may not really deserve it — but that’s pretty much left up for you to decide. If you grew up watching this series as a kid, and have fond memories of watching it, you will love it. For the rest of us, there’s a lot to love about Plastic Man, and for something you love, a lot can be forgiven.

Classic comic book adventures of Plastic Man by Jack Cole can be found in Volumes 1-8 of the Plastic Man Archives, published by DC Comics, and highly recommended. (The studio provided a DVD review copy.)

by Ed Sizemore

On Tuesday night, I was giving the rare pleasure of seeing two underground comix luminaries sit down and talk for an hour. The University of Richmond’s Modlin Center for the Arts hosted Genesis: A Conversation with R. Crumb and Franciose Mouly at the Richmond CenterStage Carpenter Theater.

The evening opened with a brief introduction to the two guests. Mouly founded Raw Books & Graphics in 1977. She is currently the art director for The New Yorker magazine and the editorial director of Toon Books. Crumb’s first job as an illustrator was for American Greeting cards in 1962. In 1967, Crumb moved to San Francisco and founded the underground comix movement. In 1991, he moved to France, where he still lives today. The Virginia Commonwealth University library has an excellent resource page on Crumb.

The setup and format for the evening was very basic. Two chairs were placed at the center of the stage. Behind them was a large projection screen. The two guests talked for an hour with Mouly acting as interviewer/moderator. At the end of their conversation, they opened it up to audience questions for a half-hour. There was no photography allowed of Mouly or Crumb. Crumb didn’t hold an autograph session, although Velocity Comics and Chop Suey Books had presigned copies of Crumb’s Genesis book for sale in the lobby.

After a brief introduction, both Mouly & Crumb walked on stage. Crumb began the evening with a pratfall. It was clear from the start that Mouly was hoping for an hour of serious discussion exploring some of the themes in Crumb’s work. Crumb, however, was in a more playful mood and wanted to crack jokes and keep it lighthearted. The most animated moments of the evening were when Crumb wasn’t talking about himself but instead talking about his wife, reactions to his work, or criticizing corporate America. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s part two of Ben Towle’s writeup. Part 1 covered Crumb’s thoughts on France and women.

Robert Crumb is a well-known aficionado of old-time American blues, jazz, and ragtime music, and this love of music has often found its way into his artwork. Among the many examples of this is the image Françoise showed next: one of Crumb’s portraits of a musician, the blues singer/guitarist Robert Johnson.

I’d seen a pen and ink version of this image before, but not this full-color version, which is apparently from an edition of prints. When the image appeared on-screen, Crumb remarked jokingly to Mouly, “The guy who owns (this photograph) is very litigious. I hope you don’t get sued!” I later found the print for sale on the official R. Crumb website and noted that it was listed with copyright indicia crediting the image to the “Delta Haze Corporation,” which made me wonder if Crumb’s comments stem from first-hand experience. Prompted for why he does so much music-related drawing, he said, “Music has such a profound effect on me, I just want to express my affection.” Crumb did mention, though, that he never listens to music while he works because he finds it too absorbing and that it demands his entire attention.

The Book of Genesis

The final — and most lengthy — topic of the Mouly/Crumb interview portion of the evening was a discussion of Genesis. In one of the more memorable moments of the interview, Françoise had brought along with her a stack of complaints The New Yorker had received after publishing an excerpt of the book, and she began reading them to Crumb. People’s grousing ranged from letters tersely complaining that the work was “salacious and adolescent” to a lengthy multi-page diatribe from a Hebrew scholar who was apparently quite upset about a single word in the text, which he felt had been inaccurately translated. On the general topic of translation minutiae, Crumb said, “The people who are into this stuff don’t even agree on what it all means. And people kill each other over this thing!”

Another letter complained that the Crumb Genesis excerpt “didn’t add anything” to the original text. Responded Crumb: “I didn’t want to add anything. I just wanted to illustrate it.” Responding both to this letter and to an older lewd parody-ish Crumb version of the story of Adam and Eve that’d been shown on-screen earlier, he said further, “I restrained myself from making little jokes — and there was plenty of opportunity to do so.”

Françoise mentioned that Crumb’s Genesis was the first time she’d ever actually read the Bible and recounted how she’d asked around the offices of The New Yorker how many of her co-workers had actually read anything from the Bible. No one had, apparently. In an amusing bit of “Manhattan myopia” reminiscent of Saul Steinberg’s “View of the World From 9th Avenue” which she’d showed only minutes before, Mouly then extrapolated this experience broadly, saying, “Very few people have read the Bible.”

Her general point, though, is astute: for many — if not most — of the people likely to run out and buy an R. Crumb-illustrated book of Genesis, this will probably be their first direct exposure to the text. It’s also an equally astute point that anyone who would complain about the published Genesis excerpts being “salacious” most certainly has not read the original text, which is plenty salacious in its own right.

Pointing out that this was hardly the first time Crumb had taken on illustrating weighty texts, Mouly showed a quick gallery of some of the cartoonist’s other adaptations, including his collaborations with Harvey Pekar, his illustrations of the journals of James Boswell, Sartre’s Nausea, and “The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick” story. As pages from these works were shown, there was some oddly inappropriate laughter (I thought). I’m not sure why anyone coming to hear a cartoonist speak about his illustrated version of Genesis would find it particularly odd or funny that that same artist might have also illustrated, say, Satre’s Nausea. As the Philip Dick story appeared on-screen, Robert noted that he’d done that story with a brush rather than pens. He joked, “I probably should have done Genesis with a brush. All that cross-hatching is a pain in the ass.”

Returning to Genesis, Crumb discussed his working methods a bit. He mentioned that he’d visited a museum or two, looking for visual reference material, but that he mainly used screen captures from films to pin down period clothing and architecture. The two movies in particular he drew on most heavily were Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments and D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Mouly showed a number of the still images from both of these films that Crumb had used for reference. The cartoonist noted with some hilarity that all of the actors in Intolerance wore fake “hook noses” throughout. He said he hadn’t found any of the other comics versions of the Bible to be of much use visually, but praised some of Basil Wolverton’s design elements from his version of the Old Testament, begun in 1953 and completed in 1974.

Even the relative solace of the Crumb’s home in the undisclosed French village where they live was apparently not sufficiently distraction-free for the artist to concentrate on Genesis. Robert mentioned that Aline had found a place for him “up in the hills”, and he spent weeks there by himself just working on the book. Aline would periodically visit, bringing groceries. She was the only person who actually knew where he was and, said Crumb, he would not have finished the book without her. He noted that the book was, in fact, dedicated to her.

Mouly’s final question for Crumb was what his reaction was to being labeled a “genius”. After a bit of circuitous discussion, Crumb declared flatly, “Genius is a myth.” On that note, Françoise concluded the interview portion of the evening, and Robert took a few questions from the crowd.

Questions From the Crowd

By his own admission, Crumb was deliberately calling mainly on the women in the audience, but Mouly would intervene occasionally to give a few of the men opportunities to ask questions of the artist. After the obligatory LSD question, one audience member asked about Crumb’s experience with writer Charles Bukowski, several of whose stories Crumb had illustrated. Crumb sad he’d only met Bukowski once, early on at a party, and when he was introduced to him, Bukowski said only, “Your stuff’s good, kid. Just stay away from the cocktail parties.” Said Crumb: “He was right!”

Asked about the differences he found between life in the U.S. and life in France, the artist said the most striking difference between the two is the near-total integration of corporate interests into everyday life in the U.S., which he said is not nearly as prevalent in France. “You’re really in the belly of the beast here with this corporate stuff.”

Finally, a (male) audience member asked about his controversial attitudes about women. The cartoonist’s reply was vintage Crumb: “Any man, if he’s honest (and you can’t be honest around women), fears and hates women to some degree. I just happen to blurt it out in my work like diarrhea.”

And on that note, I’ll conclude.

If you have the opportunity to attend any of the remaining Crumb/Mouly appearances, I highly recommend doing so. I’ll never quite figure out why, along with New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Richmond of all places was a part of this tour, but to whomever pulled this off, I say thanks — and recommend that the next time Chicago’s in the running for the Olympics that this person be put in charge of the international lobbying efforts.

Ben Towle is an Eisner-nominated cartoonist known primarily for his work with SLG Publishing, including the recent historical fiction graphic novel Midnight Sun as well as his earlier volume of comics folk tales, Farewell, Georgia. He’s recently illustrated Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, a graphic novel for young adults forthcoming from Hyperion Books, and he’s currently hard at work on a creator-owned fantasy story about turn of the century Chesapeake Bay oystermen. Visit him online at www.benzilla.com. And many thanks to him for this extensive appearance review.

Out this week is a new, two-disc 50th Anniversary Edition of North by Northwest, the second best Alfred Hitchcock film. (In my ranking, the first is Notorious, which teams Cary Grant with Ingrid Bergman, because I think she’s the strongest Hitchcock female lead.)

North by Northwest
50th Anniversary Edition
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Here, Grant is an ad executive who is mistaken for a spy and accidentally dragged into conspiracy and murder. James Mason, smoothly menacing, is the bad guy, and Eva Marie Saint the cool Hitchcock blonde with uncertain loyalties. (Although she acts a little too reserved for my taste.) Martin Landau is Mason’s henchman; watch his performance considering that he played it with an air of homosexual jealousy over Mason’s attention to Grant.

It’s a gripping romantic thriller with excellent performances. Even knowing how the movie plays out, I still enjoyed watching the twists and turns unfold. (It’s one of the best ads for the adventure and glamor of train travel ever.) I’m assuming you’re already familiar with how excellent the film is, so let’s talk about this upgraded DVD edition.

The first disc has the movie, with a choice of commentary by screenwriter Ernest Lehman. His recollections, while interesting and complimentary, didn’t add very much to my appreciation of the film. You can also watch with a music-only audio track, highlighting Bernard Herrmann’s score. I believe the visuals have also been upgraded — at least, they looked crisp to me, as though this were a much more recent film.

The second disc is where all the goodies come in. There are four documentaries, two new to this set:

• Cary Grant: A Class Apart — This wonderful 90-minute overview of his life, touching on his varied career and analyzing his most famous movies, first ran in 2003. Owning this, if you’re a Grant fan, is alone worth the cost of the set.
• The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style — A new hour-long examination of Alfred Hitchcock’s directing techniques to build suspense and menace gave me a fresh appreciation for his work. Includes commentary from directors including William Friedkin, Guillermo del Toro, and Martin Scorsese, plus clips of Hitchcock’s own comments.
• Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest — Narrated by Eva Marie Saint in 2000, this 40-minute making-of also features daughter Pat Hitchcock, screenwriter Lehman, production designer Robert Boyle, and co-star Martin Landau telling how the movie came to be.
• North by Northwest: One for the Ages — The second new piece, this one is a 25-minute appreciation by many of the same people who participated in “The Master’s Touch”. After all the other features, I’m not sure how much this one really adds.

Given how much I enjoy finding out more about the context of enjoyable movies, this package was just what I wanted. Also included are a photo gallery, a TV ad for the movie, the theatrical trailer, and a Hitchcock-hosted promo. Just to remind you how good this film is, here’s a clip from the suspenseful ending, as the couple run from the bad guys chasing them (with her in a smart traveling suit) and wind up on the faces of Mount Rushmore.

(The studio provided a review copy.)

In case you’re looking for something appropriate, these three manga are rated as suitable for all ages and recommended as good reads.

Choco Mimi Book 2

Choco Mimi Book 2
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by Konami Sonoda
Viz, $7.99 US

The fun of the first volume continues with more four-panel comic strips about fashion, friendship, and young love. There are also album and scrapbook pages featuring “pictures” of the characters and their pets that are very realistic in feel, as though a 14-year-old really put them together, plus longer stories with the same characters. An early one is surprisingly thought-provoking, with a flower symbolizing love and the characters discussing their different approaches to the subject.

Others are silly takes on topics like going to the beach or working in a cafe or putting on costumes to scare each other. School activities and holiday celebrations also feature. It’s a light read, but the cute kids and darling art style are appealing, and I enjoy being part of their world for a while, where there aren’t many things to worry about beyond looking good and the attention of the boy you like. It’s also got a surprising amount of content — I spent longer reading this than I do many other shojo volumes, both due to the page structure and wanting to notice the details of the characters’ outfits. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

The Lapis Lazuli Crown Book 2

The Lapis Lazuli Crown Book 2
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by Natsuna Kawase
CMX Manga, $9.99 US

Miel Violette found her impulse to study magic and improve her skills in the first book: befriending an undercover prince. Here, in the second (and final) book of the series, we first see her back at school, working toward that goal. She aims to improve enough to work at the palace and thus get closer to Prince Radian.

Unfortunately, the prince is missing from the opening chapter, which has turned into a school story, following Miel and two of her friends as they study magic. I’m glad to see him back in the following chapter, where she’s met her goal, since his interaction with Miel is the best part of the book for me. I’m just not as interested in her classmates and their struggles with (for example) succeeding on merit instead of due to their family name.

The changes in direction and approach may be related to the short length of the series. It looks like the author was casting around for a successful path to follow and never quite got there. She alludes frequently in the many author’s notes about wanting to do more with various characters but running out of space to do so before the series end. There are also what look like the beginning of subplots that don’t have room to go anywhere. Perhaps the best way to describe this is “valiant but failed experiment”.

If this book sounds interesting to you, the core premise is explained early on, and the new setting is different enough that a reader who couldn’t find book one could start here with little trouble, although I found the first volume much more interesting. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Yotsuba&! Book 6

Yotsuba&! Book 6
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by Kiyohiko Azuma
Yen Press, $10.99 US

The beloved series returns from a new publisher (who thankfully has also brought the previous volumes back into print) with all its charm intact.

The stories here fall into the category of “what it’s like to live with a young child” — they see the world differently. Everything’s new to them, yet they also start forming their own conclusions about the way things work. The result is creative comedy that rings adorably true. In this volume, Yotsuba discovers recycling, bicycling, office work (which consists of her labeling everything in the house), and playing milkman.

Sound effects (of which there are many) aren’t translated here; instead, the English sound and meaning are both written into the panel next to the Japanese symbol. I found this cluttered the page and distracted my eye from following the characters. Add in the translation notes put in the gutters between panels, and sometimes, there was just too much to look at. Especially when they kept reprinting the same note every time a labeled object appears, which I found unnecessary. I was also distracted by how often Yotsuba’s speech is bolded — I know she’s supposed to be frequently excited, but I soon lost that awareness in annoyance at the technique.

But those are minor points. The artist’s sense of motion and movement is wonderful. Yotsuba feels right, in all her actions and expressions. I appreciate her dad’s patience with her, even though you can tell it can be a struggle (as when, for example, she’s doing gymnastics on top of him). It’s her lack of self-censorship that makes her such a joy to read. The neighbor girl egging her on helps with the comedy, too.

I don’t know that I would have handed her a power tool, as Dad does when they build a bookcase, but that I was concerned for her welfare indicates how much I was lost in her world.

Here’s another review by Brigid at MangaBlog. If you’re interested in differences between the two publisher versions, here’s a visual comparison, criticism of the translation decisions, and an interview with Yen about their choices.

When I’m feeling out of sorts, nothing calms like a new volume of Aria. It’s the manga equivalent of a hot cup of tea and a sit-down, a lovely mediation on appreciating the quieter aspects of life.

Aria Book 5
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The series had some unexpected delays, but that means it’s timely — Akari, the apprentice gondolier (undine), is beginning her second autumn on the water planet, just as fall has firmly fallen here in the U.S.

The opening story (the book has five) is a wonderful stand-alone that sums up much of the series’ appeal. A mailman’s gondola is gone for repairs, so Akari volunteers to take him on his route through the Venice-like setting. By the end, she (and we) have learned more about her town, the way communication ties together community, and the pleasure of writing letters on paper. A more subtle message involves the skills and contributions of older workers being valuable and how they can teach the younger through example.

The art focuses on Akari’s happy, open face, and those of her friends (who can be a little more negative or concerned, providing spice and contrast). Plenty of beautiful, Italian-influenced architecture is drawn with care. It’s a wonderful world to sink into and relax with.

There’s also humor. At one point, Alice gets a bee in her bonnet about needing to train herself to be more ambidextrous since she thinks her right hand is doing all the work. But while that is somewhat silly, there’s another component of the same story that has a touching undertone, a lesson Alice learns from her singing roommate and a parable about seemingly unnoticed contributions.

A story about watching a meteor shower is one of many in the series that promote natural awareness and wonder. It also brings back Al the Gnome, a thoughtful boy who resembles Harry Potter. Another has Akira, a tough instructor who helps the younger girls improve their craft. The last is a quiet story about waiting, as Akari spends the day at a cafe learning a lesson about relaxing that I will also benefit from.

My quibbles, there are three: I was sad that two different sections introducing characters, obviously created in color, were reproduced in black and white. Also, while there’s a lengthy introduction of the premise, the character page omits the youngest undine, Alice, who features prominently in one story and significantly in two more. I found that an unfortunate omission, given how close her name is to Alicia, Akari’s mentor, and thus confusing. Last, the usage of goofy exclamations like “Holy Guacamole” or “Holy Baloney” really doesn’t suit the timeless feel of the series. The adaptation credit has changed from the previous book, so maybe the new writer needs a little more time to fully grasp the style of the stories. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

This gorgeous hardcover coffee table book has been updated (after its original release two years ago) to cover the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. With the holiday season approaching, it would make a great gift for the spy/adventure movie fan in your life.

James Bond Encyclopedia
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Great care was obviously taken with the design and presentation, resulting in a lush feel that goes well with Bond’s world of brands and beauty. It’s a licensed production, so no information here on the 1967 Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again. (Shame, Kim Basinger is one of my favorite Bond girls.) It also plays more within the world of the films, preferring story/world-building continuity over behind-the-scenes information. Plenty of glossy pictures illustrate, with emphasis on Sean Connery (the first) and Daniel Craig (the latest).

After introductory sections on writer Ian Fleming and “The Bond Style” — work history, skills, wardrobe, and food and drink — each of the six actors to play the role get a two-page spread. You won’t find out exactly how the decisions were made to change among them here. I found myself wondering, for example, how Connery was wooed back for one more (Diamonds Are Forever) after George Lazenby took over in 1969, or why they went looking for a Connery replacement in the first place. This isn’t that kind of book; instead, there’s an air of “aren’t they all great?” (Some of my questions were later answered in the last section of the book; see description below.)

The meat of the volume comes next: alphabetically organized sections on Bond villains (covering the characters, not the actors), supporting characters, vehicles, weapons, and of course, the women. The writeups are primarily plot descriptions, briefly summarizing the item’s appearance and what happens. Since I didn’t remember much of the specifics of the movies, I didn’t find these dry recitations very helpful. Especially when it came to the female co-stars, I would have rather known about the actresses, their careers before and after.

In the last section, about “The Movies”, each film gets two pages, some of which goes to sidebars covering various crew and production staff members. Missing from the book is a plot summary of each movie — I would have thought that would have fit right in as a kind of mission dossier. Instead, we get information on how the producers decided which one to make next and who wrote the screenplays.

Although this book is lovely, I’m not the audience for it. It would be better suited to someone who’s seen the films multiple times. They would enjoy the memories evoked by the pictures and the working together of various story strands, while I’d like more a behind-the-scenes take on the making of the movies, not the world they inhabit. (The publisher provided a review copy.)