Little Mouse Gets Ready

The latest Toon book maintains the high quality of their line of hardcover comics for kids. The situation in Little Mouse Gets Ready is simple: a mouse needs to get dressed so he can go to the barn with his family. He puts on his clothes, one piece at a time, sharing the struggles many kids do — getting the arm in the sleeve right, making the buttons match. The sneakers are Velcro, so no need to tie bows any […]

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Marvel Fails at Bookstore Market

Dave Carter at Yet Another Comics Blog posted Amazon’s top 50 graphic novels as of Friday. I thought I’d kibitz. The first thing I noticed was that the #1 seller isn’t really a comic, by my definition, but at this point, I doubt I can redirect the Wimpy Kid bandwagon. More significantly, it takes until #39 before you see a Marvel comic, and that’s a Stephen King tie-in, so it barely counts. There is no Marvel superhero title on this […]

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With the Light Volume 4

As the series about raising an autistic child continues, With the Light volume 4 tackles the question of work. Hikaru’s parents worry about what he will be able to do to be self-sufficient as he ages, plus Dad is facing business problems of his own. There aren’t enough translated manga that give a relatively realistic portrayal of the Japanese businessman’s situation and expectations, so I really enjoyed that part of this book. Hikaru’s parents have a routine of what works […]

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Kimi ni Todoke Volume 1

Sawako’s classmates are scared of her because she looks like a character from a horror movie, with her long black hair, heavy bangs, and pale skin. (Me, I thought she looked like a typical Japanese manga schoolgirl.) She copes by doing every good deed she can and volunteering for tasks at school, so that people will like her for being helpful. She’s making the best of her loneliness. If she can’t be liked, at least she can make herself useful. […]

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Green Lantern: First Flight

Review by KC Carlson This has really been Green Lantern’s year. His ongoing comic book is one of DC Comics’ top titles; he’s starring in this year’s DC Big Event, Blackest Night; actor Ryan Reynolds has just been announced to play GL in 2011’s big-screen theatrical release; and he’s debuting in the full-length animated feature Green Lantern: First Flight. GL: First Flight is great fun and extremely well-done — one of the best films in this series of DC Universe […]

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Swallowing the Earth

I find it difficult to read Osamu Tezuka. I admire his craft, but so much of his work is so time-bound — he worked many decades ago, and the attitudes of those periods permeate his stories. (I’m especially uncomfortable with the gender stereotyping.) I also have a hard time reading manga that’s supposedly for adults that looks so cute and cuddly and Disney-fied. About the only series of his I’ve liked, in terms of choosing to read it for enjoyment, […]

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The Middleman: The Complete Series

I’ve loved this show since I watched the pilot. It’s fun, clever, adventurous, and imaginative. The dialogue is wonderful and knowing, and I love the suit-up Avengers homage montage when Wendy finally joins the team. If you don’t want to read all the detail, here’s the short version: buy the DVD set and enjoy it. The concept (there’s more information at my earlier link) is that artist Wendy (Natalie Morales) is temping at a lab to pay bills when she’s […]

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Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka Volume 4

From the first color page of this volume, I’ve never seen pink look so menacing. The big-nosed Professor Ochanomizu is trying to spend his day off from the Ministry of Science at a park, but his mandatory security detail robot interrupts the respite. The professor finds a discarded dog-bot and tries to repair it, but the parts are too old and can’t be found anymore. This first chapter is astounding in its achievement. The reader thinks they know what’s going […]

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