November 25, 2012 Johanna Yen Press Manga Reviews 2 comments

Thermae Romae Volume 1

Only in Japan. This bizarre historical fantasy by Mari Yamazaki finds similarities between the bathhouses of the ancient Romans and the public bathing culture of modern Japan. Lucius is a Roman architect seeking new designs for a public bath. He’s just been fired for having “antiquated ideas” in his modern day of 128 AD. When he seeks to relax by bathing, he gets sucked under water and comes up in a Japanese bathhouse. After the expected culture clash, he returns […]

November 25, 2012 Johanna Other Manga Publishers 3 comments

The Heart of Thomas

Continuing their pattern of bringing out significant manga in substantial hardcovers, next month Fantagraphics will release The Heart of Thomas, an important work in the history of shojo. It’s by Moto Hagio, whose A Drunken Dream and Other Stories was published by them two years ago. The Heart of Thomas is one of the first “boys’ love” manga (shonen-ai, which doesn’t have the sexual content of yaoi), originally published in 1974. Thomas is a boy at a German boarding school […]

November 25, 2012 Johanna Other Publishers 2 comments

Owly & Wormy: Bright Lights and Starry Nights!

A new Owly book never disappoints, and the oversized hardcover children’s book format just provides more room to explore Andy Runton’s lovely visions of the animal friends. In this followup to last year’s Friends All Aflutter!, Runton is playing with art in shades of purple and black, as Owly and Wormy use their new telescope. You can’t see the stars well from most homes, especially if your house is a tree covered in leaves, so the two go camping, after […]

November 22, 2012 Johanna Other Prose 5 comments

I Found the Fake Geek Girl… 24 Years Ago

You’ve likely seen at least some mention of the idiotic idea of the fake geek girl, since responses have been going on around the internet since the summer. Although I thought this was merely fanboy paranoia, I just found a classic example of the type. Let me back up. I’m still unpacking the various boxes of books arising from our move in August. (When you have over a dozen bookcases and need more to hold all the volumes, it’s not […]

November 22, 2012 Johanna Art Leave a comment

Watch the Fleischer Superman Cartoons Online

Warner released the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the early 1940s on DVD three years ago. Now, they’ve put these restored versions online on YouTube — Cartoon Brew has the links, if you want the full list. Here’s the first one: They have some great, distinctive animation, and they’re lots of fun to watch.

November 18, 2012 Johanna Seven Seas Manga Reviews Leave a comment

Young Miss Holmes Casebook 3-4

Seven Seas’ decision to release this series by Kaoru Shintani in double-sized omnibus form seems even smarter now, since the first half of this book is taken up by one long story, that of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. It’s one of the classic Holmes stories, but frankly, all I remember of it is that it includes a giant dog. That’s on display here, so I’m satisfied. It’s a fun reread, and the manga design suits the character types well, […]

November 17, 2012 Johanna Kodansha Manga Reviews 3 comments

Missions of Love Volume 1

Given the wavering state of the manga market these days — the difficulty of selling long series (and thus the lack of publisher willingness to release them), the dropping sales for print overall, the fallback to safe sellers (which tend to be of less interest to me, with their fight manga, panty shots, or fantasy elements) — it’s a pleasure to find a new series that leaves me thinking “I’d like to read more of that, please”. Missions of Love […]

November 17, 2012 Johanna Art One comment

Easy Pieces Stretches the Definition of Comic

Even if I don’t immediately warm to the subject matter, I have a fondness for works that play with formalism and make me ponder how we define comics. Neil Dvorak’s Easy Pieces is the latest example. Eschewing the paneled page, he’s posted a set of short pieces that ask philosophical questions, executed as single line-art images symbolic of his text ponderings. It’s all rather mind-boggling, yet certainly, as a combination of art and words to convey a message, it’s all […]

« 1 … 400 401 402 403 404 … 619 »