Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
I wrote my first post for ICv2.com, the comic business news site, last week, covering manga announcements made at the recent Anime Expo. Find out more about what Dark Horse, Kodansha, Yen Press, and Seven Seas will be putting out over the next year. I’m most looking forward to Ichi-F: A Worker’s Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, coming from Kodansha in March 2017.
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Digital Manga seems to be having trouble, relying on Kickstarters to fund the publication of many of their books recently. Libre Publishing is the biggest Japanese publisher of boys’ love titles and a partner with Viz in the SuBLime yaoi English-language manga line. Previously, Digital Manga was bringing a number of Libre titles to English, but they are no longer working together as of the end of June. In letting fans know about this, Digital Manga’s press release about this […]
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Alamo All-Stars is the sixth in the series of Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, a wonderful true-history graphic novel series by Nathan Hale (really also the name of the author). As in the other books, the spy Nathan Hale, about to be executed, is telling tales of history to his captors, the rough hangman and the stuffy redcoat. New here is a guest star, Vicente Guerrero, a President of Mexico who fought against Spain for independence, and the three-man firing squad […]
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It’s taken me almost two years to talk about Jellaby: Monster in the City, the followup to Jellaby: The Lost Monster, because I found it such a weird change of pace. When we left Portia, Jason, and the purple monster named Jellaby, they were heading to the big city to find out more about Jellaby’s origins. Those questions aren’t answered here, making for disappointment for readers who waited in the hopes of finding out more. Of course, there’s an argument […]
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Greg Farrell, author of On the Books: A Graphic Tale of Working Woes at NYC’s Strand Bookstore, is back with Hipster! Comic-Strip Dispatches From Brooklyn, NY. It’s a collection of autobio comics covering life as described by the title. I found it horrid. Not because of the style or author, but because of the subject matter. If you want to be convinced of why you should never live in New York City, or if you’ve left and want confirmation you […]
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Arsenic With Austen features an older woman, Emily, a widow and a college professor who’s feeling burnt out. Then she gets the kind of news most of us can only dream of. The aunt with whom she spent summers as a teenager has passed away, leaving Emily an amazing house in a beach village, a well-stocked library, a grumpy housekeeper who’s an accomplished cook, and millions of dollars. Emily moves back and quickly finds herself set upon by a pushy […]
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I’ve always loved young teams most of all in superhero comics, so the Champions relaunch is right up my alley — particularly given the blend of young Marvel characters as written by modern master Mark Waid, and that this book is being promoted as a “brighter tomorrow”. The new ongoing launches in October, illustrated by Humberto Ramos. The members are Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales, Nova, Viv Vision, and the Totally Awesome Hulk. (And, judging from the cover, time-displaced young Cyclops.) […]
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You probably don’t read Rex Morgan, M.D.. It’s an old-fashioned soap opera comic strip, created in 1948 by psychiatrist Nicholas P. Dallis. (He also created Judge Parker (1952-present) and Apartment 3-G (1961-2015).) Currently, it’s written by Woody Wilson (since 1990) and drawn by Terry Beatty (since 2014). Update: Beatty has commented below that he’s been writing the strip as well since May. I have found the current storyline pretty interesting, though, as an odd topic for a doctor comic to […]
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