January 27, 2020 Johanna TV News Leave a comment

Two More Marvel TV Shows Cancelled

Unsurprisingly, the Disney/Fox acquisition continues to have fallout (as is expected when such big deals are done — since the money has to come from somewhere and finances and plans are often reexamined post-merger). Jeph Loeb used to be in charge of the Marvel Television division, but now Marvel movie honcho Kevin Feige has taken over. There were plans for four Marvel animated series to come to Hulu (also owned by Disney), but two have been cancelled according to the […]

Resident Alien Volume 2: The Suicide Blonde cover

January 27, 2020 Johanna TV News One comment

Resident Alien Trailer Plays Up Comedy

The Resident Alien TV series announced almost a year ago now has a trailer. While the show was described in terms of a “moral dilemma”, and I speculated it might resemble a procedural, this short video, as you might expect from a show starring Alan Tudyk, plays up the comedy. But then, they’re plugging “from the humans behind Family Guy and Wedding Crashers“, so yeah. The show is “coming this summer” on Syfy. It’s based on the comic book series […]

January 5, 2020 Johanna Kodansha Manga Reviews One comment

Sweetness & Lightning Volume 12

I don’t have a lot to say about Sweetness & Lightning volume 12, but I did want to mark the series conclusion with a few notes, particularly since it stayed consistently enjoyable until the end. The last time I talked about the food manga series by Gido Amagakure was with volume 8, where we began seeing daughter Tsumugi growing up. The previous book to this one, volume 11, was where we got some drama around the child starting to make […]

January 4, 2020 Johanna Other Manga Publishers Leave a comment

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu Volume 4

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu volume 4 continues to be entertaining and delightful. I thought, with the previous book, that we’d be seeing longer stories at this point in the series, but I was glad to see I was wrong. Instead, we just see new stories with the characters we’re getting to know better, which makes it all more comfortable — particularly since you don’t need to remember their history to enjoy the chapters. In the first chapter, several previous customers come […]

January 3, 2020 Johanna IDW / Top Shelf 2 comments

An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady by Serena Blasco is the second graphic novel adaptation from the YA series by Nancy Springer, following The Case of the Missing Marquess. Unfortunately, the concept is not growing on me. The idea of a young, smart, adventuresome heroine is a great one, but using the Holmes name and characters without bothering to capture what made those stories so well-loved is frustrating. I’m reading this series because I’m a fan […]

January 2, 2020 Johanna Image Comics Leave a comment

Moonstruck: Some Enchanted Evening

Moonstruck: Some Enchanted Evening is the first direct-to-graphic-novel entry in the hipster fantasy series (although the first issue of this storyline, #6 in the series, was released on its own before plans changed), and the second volume in the series. I was looking forward to it. I liked the idea of the setup (since I read the single issue), in which a frat house used fairy magic to give their parties a better atmosphere, in spite of the magic trapping […]

January 1, 2020 Johanna Other Manga Publishers Leave a comment

Our Dining Table

Our Dining Table was a satisfying, if not particularly memorable, bit of comfort reading. It doesn’t do anything exceptional, but the notes it hits make up a nicely blended tune. The story is quietly reassuring, good relaxation without being demanding in any way, a warm manga bath. Author Mita Ori manages to combine a boys’ love story, food manga, and a cute kid into a single-volume story. Young office worker Yutaka lives on “ready-to-eat supermarket meals and salads.” The only […]