Behind the Scenes!! Volumes 1-2

Bisco Hatori (best known for Ouran High School Host Club) brings out a rollicking story of a shy young man finding room for his talents when he meets the right group of college friends in Behind the Scenes!!. The twist in this series is the media connection — the Art Squad handles props, costumes, and special effects for all the campus groups who want to make movies. Ranmaru is your typical manga protagonist. He’s an unassuming but high-strung country boy, […]

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The Time Museum

The Time Museum is an enjoyable, rollicking adventure story that I couldn’t put down. Matthew Loux captures the same sense of summertime exploration and amazing discoveries that he portrayed in the Salt Water Taffy series, but now, his group of characters is more inclusive and wide-ranging. Delia Bean is too smart for her classes. She’s expecting to be bored over the summer, until she finds out that her favorite uncle Lyndon is secretly a time-traveling curator of the Earth Time […]

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Decelerate Blue

Decelerate Blue brings the popular dystopian YA genre of a young rebel finding her people to comics. Adam Rapp writes and Mike Cavallaro draws the story of Angela, a fifteen-year-old living in a world that emphasizes speed and hyper-consumption. All sentences end with the word “go”. Using too many adverbs will draw the wrong kind of attention. Everyone has a tracking chip implanted in their arm. Movies last under fifteen minutes. But Angela has found a copy of the banned […]

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Science Comics: Bats: Learning to Fly

The next Science Comics release (after volumes educating us about Coral Reefs, Dinosaurs, and Volcanoes) tackles those misunderstood mammals, Bats, as written and illustrated by Falynn Koch. There’s not much story in this volume, to make more space for a thorough visual overview of all kinds of bats and their methods of nutrition. The loose framing structure features a Little Brown Bat who’s injured by humans during a night wildlife hike. He’s taken to an animal hospital with a vet […]

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Everyone’s Getting Married Volume 3

Everyone’s Getting Married is such an engrossing soap opera! The concept is basic — two people like each other, they enjoy being together, but they think they want different things in life and have different ideas of commitment — which makes it instantly involving and sympathetic. What older reader hasn’t been in a similar situation at some point? In volume 3, in a gender twist, Asuka’s career takes off while Ryu has a romantic conflict from his past pop up. […]

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Benny and Penny in How to Say Goodbye

Geoffrey Hayes’ adorable field mouse siblings return in a story about dealing with loss. While playing in dead leaves, Penny finds the body of Little Red, a salamander the two had memories of seeing earlier in the year. In only 20-some pages, Hayes manages to move his characters realistically through denial, disgust, resistance, friendship, problem-solving, and navigating the ceremonies of mourning. It’s all beautifully illustrated, and I was particularly happy to see new friend Melina. She’s a mole, and her […]

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The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series

Out this week is a wonderful brick of classic television. The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series is again available on Blu-ray, all 156 episodes in five seasons on 24 discs. There was a previous 2012 set released by another company, but rights have transferred, this package is more compact, and the price has dropped. The show looks beautiful, crisp and yet timeless in black and white, and I was surprised at just how many of the episodes were both new […]

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My Love Story!! Volume 10

The most recent volume of My Love Story!! wraps up a storyline that began back in volume 8. Too often, Yamato seems like the perfect, quiet girlfriend. All we really know about her, beyond her deep devotion to Takeo, is that she likes baking desserts, and she’s pretty good at it. So it was a great thing when she got a summer job at a local pastry shop. Unfortunately, the star chef there decided that she was his muse and […]

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