Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
As we learned in the first volume, Ranma Saotome, while undergoing martial arts training with his father, fell into a magical hot spring. Now, whenever he gets wet, he turns into a girl (because the spring was cursed when a young girl drowned in it). To change back, he has to be dowsed with hot water. Conveniently, there were hundreds of these cursed springs. Ranma’s father, for example, turns into a panda when he gets wet. It’s a flexible gimmick […]
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In the future shown in Chobits, persocoms are girl-shaped computer companions. A geek’s fantasy, they look just like real girls, except for their metallic ear casings, and they’ll follow their owner’s every command. Hideki is a typical sad-sack student struggling to pay his bills, so a persocom is far beyond his means. When he finds one in the trash, it seems like his wish has come true. As the premise suggests, there’s a lot of teasing to this series. Hideki […]
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One morning, Sey is woken by moving men. Her mother has decided to go to Italy to work on her novel, and she’s rented out their house. Sey will be living with her mom’s friend Meja, a happy homemaker who’s always wanted a daughter. And here comes the element that sets I.N.V.U. apart from other teen manga romances: Meja does have a daughter, Hali, but Hali has to pretend to be her dead brother Terry to keep Meja from having […]
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Rich, spoiled Keiko wants to be recognized as the prettiest girl in school, but she can’t compare with Meg’s magically granted beauty. While the boys are praising Meg as an angel and a goddess, Keiko fades into the background, a fate she refuses to accept. Her resulting plots are comical in their fussiness. For example, to get revenge on boys who ignore her, she has a crew that pours mud and then drives by in a car to splash them […]
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You’ve probably already heard that Tokyopop laid off six? eight? people at the end of last week. (Reports conflict on the total.) Heidi pointed to a Publishers Weekly piece, which focused on the departure of the vice-president in charge of sales and marketing due to different forecasts on the future of the manga business. Mike Kiley, the editor-in-chief, was quoted as wanting to make changes to stay profitable in a maturing, more competitive market. An editor was also let go. […]
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There’s been a murder in Antarctica, and U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko has to find out what happened, who did it, and why before 90% of the base personnel ship out for the winter. In Whiteout, acclaimed writer Greg Rucka has set up a unique mystery situation with gripping characters while artist Steve Lieber does an amazing job of capturing the personalities, the setting, and especially the weather (a character in itself). The sense of movement in the drifting snow is […]
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Panel Two is a followup to Panel One, a book edited by Nat Gertler collecting sample comic scripts by notable writers, that improves on the first in two ways: it covers even more diverse ways to write comics, and it includes commentary by many of the artists involved. As well as learning basic information (pros and cons of full script vs. just panel descriptions, for example, or a list of art reference books), you’ll be entertained by the occasional horror […]
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When he was nine years old, Megumi rescued someone he thought was a wizard, and in return, he was granted one wish. Unfortunately, Meg’s wish to be the world’s manliest man was misunderstood (perhaps on purpose), and he instead became the world’s womanliest woman. Now 16 years old, he’s gorgeous, only he’s also as aggressive as ever. This series is perhaps the world’s worst example of “be careful what you wish for”. His best friend Miki keeps telling him to […]
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