Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Hana was raised in the city, and she’s pretty, popular, and outgoing. Her twin sister Ageha lived with their grandmother in the country, and she’s shy and plain … although, obviously, that’s more in her head, since they’re twins. She blames her upbringing and outside circumstances for her situation, dreaming of becoming a beautiful butterfly (thus the title) but either not knowing what to do or not sure she’s willing to take the steps to get there. Ageha has a […]
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I asked Tania del Rio (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Mangaka America) some questions recently about what she’s been doing. Q: In some of the coverage of the Tokyopop OEL situation, Lindsay Cibos said that she was the new artist on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Is that the case? A: I’ve been writing and drawing Sabrina pretty much nonstop without a break for the last 4 years. When I moved from New York to Los Angeles, I realized the transition was […]
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I wasn’t crazy about the OEL manga/GN series Off*Beat, but I thought it had promise, and I really liked the characters. When I looked at what was going on with Tokyopop’s OEL manga titles at the end of June, no one knew what its future was. Now, the author has spoken: all i can say still at this moment is that i have expressed deep concern to my former editor that i wanted a means to finish the story and […]
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Out of the various original animation DVDs Warner Bros. has done, this is going to be my favorite, I can tell. The voice talent is amazing: not only are Keri Russell (Waitress, Felicity) and Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Waitress) the leads, but Oliver Platt is the voice of Hades; Rosario Dawson is another Amazon; and Alfred Molina is Ares (making for some odd crossover potential, since he was also the bad guy in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2). Wonder Woman is due out […]
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I love popular history and culture, so I’m always thrilled when they put a really old story in one of the Archie digests. (I would be even more thrilled if they bothered to cite when and where it first appeared and said who wrote and drew it.) This month, it was “Leg Work” in Betty & Veronica Double Digest #162. It seems that Mr. Lodge (who for once drives himself, without a chauffeur) is scandalized and aghast that his daughter […]
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IDW will be publishing four graphic novels by Darwyn Cooke based on the early books in the series of Parker novels by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake). The first GN is due out in mid-2009. The announcement was made at a con press conference, a lovely idea that more companies should arrange. Only not necessarily at San Diego, since everyone is aiming to break news there (and since I don’t go). My husband KC and I are huge Darwyn Cooke […]
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The fourth entry in the charming series about an owl and his woodland friends is another comforting tale about how being nice will save the day. A Time to Be Brave is told wordlessly, with the characters communicating in symbols, but they do read a fairy tale about a knight and a dragon whose text appears in the panels. Wormy, who serves the role of a small child (nice for reader identification purposes), is frightened by the story, so after […]
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Yotsuba&! has an odd title that’s easily explained: each chapter features strange little girl Yotsuba getting excited about something that’s new to her. So we see Yotsuba & shopping! Yotsuba & rain! And so on. Her appearance and behavior are so unusual, at times, that I’m tempted to speculate that she’s an alien, especially when I remember her green hair. (Translation notes explain that, in Japanese, “yotsuba” means “four-leaf”, and her hair color and style, four pigtails, make her resemble […]
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