Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Thank goodness Bunny Drop concludes with this volume. I keep reading the series by Yumi Unita, dreading what was coming, hoping that I’d be wrong. I just couldn’t make myself look away. Here’s what you need to know about the title to understand my dislike of the premise. Daikichi is now 40. He’s been taking care of the informally adopted Rin for ten years, raising her as if she was his daughter, since she was six years old. Although the […]
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I don’t like horror, and I don’t much like caper comics (since in comics, the capers are often strung out, never actually completing in anything like the fast pace they should), but this combination of the genres (written by Joshua Williamson; art by Goran Sudzuka) is off to a strong start due to the cast. We meet Jackson Winters in prison, where he’s busted out by a tough blonde wearing black and ammo. (You see her on the cover of […]
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If you missed the first miniseries (now collected as Resident Alien: Welcome to Earth!), this zero issue is a terrific starting point and an easy way to sample the series, one of my new favorites. (I previously called it “a nice little mystery with some sharp small-town observations.”) Resident Alien: The Suicide Blonde #0 collects three short chapters that ran in Dark Horse Presents #18-20, but it’s so smoothly sectioned that I wouldn’t have known that just reading the story. […]
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Anne is the new girl at an exclusive Boston boarding school because she accidentally set her New York school on fire, and her parents have shipped her out of town to avoid bad influences. After only a week, her new roommate Isabella is found in the woods, murdered. Anne was quickly fitting in with the popular crowd, but she also had a real fondness for the geekier Isabella. In spite of the school authorities trying to close ranks against the […]
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I recommend reading this second and concluding volume close to finishing the first. If you don’t, you might have forgotten who’s who and who’s dead. (A “story so far” or character list page would have helped me a lot in recalling where we left off.) I can’t imagine what it would have been like to read this in monthly serialization. It doesn’t really matter, though, since there are a number of reversals. This isn’t a mystery you can figure out, […]
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About three years ago, I wrote an essay on whether Spider Jerusalem, lead character of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson, was a superhero. Now, it’s in print in Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan, the newest Sequart anthology. I haven’t seen a copy yet — my contributor copies are on their way to me — so if you get one before I do, let me know what you think. In addition to […]
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When I sampled the first of Viz’s new mature shojo titles, Happy Marriage?!, I didn’t care much for it. I’m pleased to say that Midnight Secretary by Tomu Ohmi is much more enjoyable (and with a lead that didn’t annoy me nearly as much). The Midnight Secretary is Kaya, a professional executive assistant adjusting to her new boss. She wears glasses and a severe hairstyle because her normal look is too young and cute for her responsibilities. This reminded me […]
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What I liked most about the comic book version of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi was the sheer number of imaginative concepts carried in its pages. I’m thrilled that the movie has the same approach. This is an overstuffed jewel box of a movie, with new characters and discoveries and visions every scene. The visuals are amazing, beginning with a full theater and can-can girls (to establish this is Paris in 1912) and moving on to […]
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