Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
R. Kikuo Johnson (Night Fisher) returns to comics with this Hawaiian folktale for kids from Toon Books. Although the art takes full advantage of the island setting, the story is one familiar to any fan of legends. The Shark King, who can take human form, encounters a beautiful woman. They fall in love, marry, and have a child. The father leaves to return to the sea, but the child has his unusual abilities. So long as they live apart, the […]
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There’s something to be said for consistency. In structure, style, and presentation, The Drops of God Book 3 is much the same as the first two books, so if you enjoyed those, you should find the same appeal here. However, story-wise… On the plus side, we get the first “Apostle” revealed, one of the 13 wines Shizuku must identify based on clues from his father’s will. On the negative side, in a storyline set up at the very end of […]
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After reading Volume 2 recently for the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Moveable Feast, I’m thrilled that I had a chance to dive right into the third volume. It’s because we hosted the MMF that the publisher provided an advance digital review copy; the book is due out in May. It’s by Jiro Taniguchi based on a story by Baku Yumemakura. For those who haven’t so recently read the gripping mountaineering mystery — involving determined climbers, a photographer in Nepal trying to […]
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When I read the first volume of The Summit of the Gods, I wrote it off as men’s adventure. Sure, it was beautifully drawn, but who cares about demonically motivated mountain climbers? Now, sitting in my cozy kitchen listening to the rain fall outside, I realize that I underestimated the story. (Or I’m just at a different place — the reader matters as much as the work in determining a good match.) I now understand how the story isn’t just […]
Read moreThis article at the Los Angeles Review of Books sets out to make the point that there are far too many self-published books and explore the stigma of that label, but I found it more enlightening in its comments on review policies. Apparently major media, newspapers and magazines, don’t cover self-published works as a rule, believing them to be “amateurish”. The Washington Post does not review self-published books. The Post’s fiction editor Ron Charles admits, “We simply don’t have the […]
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Known properties sure have an advantage when it comes to finding customers. Papercutz sent out a press release promoting how “Mask of the Sensei, the second volume in the top-selling LEGO® NINJAGO graphic novel series from Papercutz, shot to the top of the New York Times Paperback Graphic Book Best Seller list immediately upon release last week”. It beat several Batman and Walking Dead books to do so. The first volume in this series sold out 190,00 copies in its […]
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The newest DC original animated movie, Superman vs. the Elite, comes to home video on June 12 as a Blu-ray Combo Pack (list price $24.98) and DVD ($19.98), both with UltraViolet digital copy included. It’s based on “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?,” published in Action Comics #775, by Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke with Lee Bermejo. Kelly wrote the screenplay, and the comic is available in trade paperback. The Elite are a new band of […]
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Baby’s in Black tells, as the subtitle says, the story of Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the Beatles. Stu was known as the “fifth Beatle”, playing bass for the band until he took up with Astrid, a German photographer, during the Beatles’ time in Hamburg. He passed away just a few years later. Arne Bellstorf‘s version of this classic rock-and-roll story was published last year in Europe by SelfMadeHero. It’s told from Astrid’s perspective, and Bellstorf interviewed her as background. […]
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