Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
What do you do with your flagship character after you’ve married him off — twice! — even if it was an imaginary story? You hook him up with a rock’n’roller! Josie and the Pussycats — another Archie brand they’re working on gaining more attention for with TV show proposals — tours with the Archies, and Archie gets busy with Valerie. Archie #608 will be in stores in April. I’m glad they didn’t pick Josie, since that would be predictable, and […]
Read moreThe webcartoonist resource site Webcomics.com has, for the new year, locked the doors. To access articles or resources, including the forum, participants must pay a yearly subscription fee of $30. Brad Guigar, cartoonist of Evil Inc. and site editor-in-chief, is the main content provider for the site, and the decision seems to be based on his desire to be compensated for the many high-quality articles he’s written on running a webcomic as a business. And that’s understandable, although some have […]
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Haruna and Yoh are on their first overnight trip together in High School Debut volume 12. Although Haruna isn’t sure she’s ready for their relationship to go further physically, she’s psyched herself into thinking that she owes it to Yoh. But she doesn’t know what he’s thinking, so she’s jumping to conclusions based on what every boy must want. Plus, she’s freaking out simply seeing him half-naked in a swimsuit. It’s clear that she is not at all ready for […]
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I haven’t read a Sgt. Frog book since 2006, when I gave up after volume 12. At that point, I’d grown tired of the series by Mine Yoshizaki, finding its comedy repetitive. Yet I was glad to get a chance to check in with it again, because I remember liking it in the early days, and with so much time passed, I was sure it’d be fresh again. After a pointless flashback about super-rich Momoka comes the kinds of stories […]
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I’m very sorry to hear that this is the last volume in the series that Viz will be translating and publishing in the US. Oishinbo was one of my best manga of 2009, and each volume is better than the last. Which would make Izakaya: Pub Food the best yet, or at least the most diverse, and a great note to end on. Izakaya, according to this volume, are bars that serve, along with the alcohol, food that goes well […]
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Here’s what I thought were the best graphic novels of 2009, in order. For more information on any of the following titles, the links take you to my reviews. Johnny Hiro — Thoughtful adventure and an impressive love letter to New York City. Masterpiece Comics — Amazing comic/literature mashups that had me marveling at R. Sikoryak’s skill at art mimickry. Sinfest — The best webcomic out there, collected into book form this year by Dark Horse. Nothing Better: Into the […]
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It’s a shame that such an artistically accomplished work doesn’t have a story of the same high quality. Asterios Polyp is beautiful, with all kinds of formalist and craft tricks to push the medium of comics. But the characters are cliches and you’ve seen the content before, making it an ultimately disappointing book, emptier than I hoped it would be. Asterios Polyp is an architect. Well, a professor, really, because the point is made early on that the building he […]
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Only in comics could something this creative and unusual happen this brilliantly. Classical literature is mashed up with the lowest popular culture in Masterpiece Comics, and the result sheds a new light on both. R. Sikoryak has an amazing ability to mimic whatever art style is needed to make these stories work with familiar comic characters. Stories here include: Adam and Eve as Dagwood and Blondie. This kicks off a strip-oriented section which also includes Dante’s Inferno with Bazooka Joe, […]
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