August 21, 2014 Johanna Comic News 2 comments

Dark Horse Releases Free Digital Earthquake Comic

In conjunction with the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, Dark Horse Comics has put out a free short digital comic to teach earthquake preparedness to teenagers. Without Warning! is written by Althea Rizzo and Jeremy Barlow and illustrated by David Hahn. The idea is that the comic format will be more interesting to kids than other types of educational material. Now, it’s still a public interest comic. You won’t find great character insights or a compelling plot here. Instead, it […]

August 18, 2014 Johanna Other Manga Publishers Leave a comment

Rock and Roll Love

The artist who calls herself Misako Rocks has reissued her quasi-autobiographical Rock and Roll Love (previously released by Hyperion in 2007). It’s about her trip to the US as an exchange student, where she meets a guy in a band. Because she’s basing the story on her own life, the telling is unstructured and wandering. She decided to learn English and go to America because she had a crush on a pretty-boy rock star she saw on TV. It’s hard […]

August 17, 2014 Johanna Yen Press Manga Reviews Leave a comment

Wolf Children Ame & Yuki

Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki is a gorgeous manga adaptation of an award-winning animated film. Yen Press has really done the material well, releasing a single-volume hardcover containing over 500 pages of story (three volumes’ worth), color opening pages, and notes and character sketches by the authors. The story is by Mamoru Hosoda with art by Yu. It’s not a new story, but it’s presented in an affecting way. Hana falls in love with a mysterious bad boy who crashes […]

August 17, 2014 Johanna Other Prose Leave a comment

Of All the Gin Joints

Of All the Gin Joints is a wonderful read for anyone interested in Hollywood history and/or alcohol — and really, can the two be separated? Mark Bailey has assembled in one volume short profiles of movie stars and writers, particularly those notable for how much they imbibed; their often notorious incidents involving drinking; descriptions of famous clubs and watering holes from the past; scenes from classic movies affected by alcohol; and classic cocktail recipes. I wanted to try them all, […]

August 16, 2014 Johanna Mysteries Leave a comment

Deadly Little Sins

The Prep School Confidential trilogy, a set of young adult novels about murder mysteries at an exclusive boarding school (think Gossip Girl as written by Agatha Christie), concludes with Deadly Little Sins. I reviewed the first book at the first link; the second was Wicked Little Secrets, in which protagonist Anne Dowling solves a 30-year-old student disappearance. You can read this newest one, Deadly Little Sins, without either of the others, although the characters will be deeper and more recognizable […]

August 16, 2014 Johanna Movie News Leave a comment

New Movie Strategy: Avoid a Bad Rep by Retitling

I find this vaguely clever, since I still want to see the Tom Cruise/ Emily Blunt science fiction movie Edge of Tomorrow when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on October 7. And I agree that the title is terrible, since it sounds like an old soap opera. Vox.com is reporting that Warner Brothers is doing its best to rename the movie for home markets, using the previous tagline “Live. Die. Repeat.” as if it was the movie’s title. […]

August 16, 2014 Johanna Books About Comics Leave a comment

Railway Ribaldry

If you have an older relative who loves either trains or old-fashioned cartoon art, then I have the perfect gift for you to give them. Railway Ribaldry was originally published in 1935 to mark the centenary of the (English) Great Western Railway. Now its 96 pages have been reprinted, which should delight those who enjoy pen-and-ink portraits of another way of life. Most of us will have no idea what the subjects refer to, since few of us take trains […]

August 14, 2014 Johanna Comic Book Films One comment

Warner Re-Releases Burton’s Batman for 25th Anniversary

This November, to mark the 25th Anniversary of Batman (the one directed by Tim Burton in 1989), Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release a new Blu-ray, the Batman 25th Anniversary Two-Disc Edition. List price is $24.98. They’re putting it in the “studio’s distinctive new sleek Diamond Luxe collector-style packaging” and adding a new documentary, “Batman: The Birth of the Modern Blockbuster”. That addition is promised to be “a look at the phenomenal marketing, extensive merchandising, and franchise foresight that set […]

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