It's a writing job if I say it is...

There's a new comic review site going up, and I've been invited to do some reviews for it. In that, you know it's not paid, right, so anything I want to post they'll take.

Actually, the site was set up by My Esteemed Colleague Mr. Holt (read: old college drinking buddy) and is currently in "beta", if I can use that term in this application. I think for 2007 we're going to make a go of it. We've talked about doing projects in the past, over email, so it's kind-of cool that we might actually do something as a collaborative project. (Besides building up impressive bar tabs.)

It's not a job, per se, but if I treat it like a real job (deadlines, constant output, etc.) then I think both I and the new site will be better for it. My Esteemed Colleague doesn't know it yet, but I'm also likely going to do a weekly column on top of the reviews.

I'll be cross-posting here, so look out for them.

It look's like this week's winning site hasn't been updated in a while, but here it is anyway:

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 10 December 2006

Grumpy Beer Geek

With categories like chili, beer, and "the voices inside my head" I have to wonder: am I posting to another blog in my sleep or something?

While I'm happy to make an exception this week (because I'm too lazy to track down another site at the moment) I may restrict future BWSNotWAs to sites that have updated within the past month or so.


(about the award -- past winners)

My roommate walks in while I'm typing reviews for the new site (links and of course crossposted reviews to follow; but it is for the new site, so I'll give My Esteemed Colleague an opportunity to check his email and post said reviews first) and happens to pick up the source material for said reviews, which at the moment are sitting at my elbow on the kitchen table. (It would seem, at least from the past few months, that I can only get serious work done at the kitchen table.)

So I describe the manga to him, in thumbnail sketch. And then I explain the new (unpaid) job, and some other odds and ends. And then there is a bottle of red wine, which is opened and discussed. And he makes the off-hand comment, "you should just set up a site where you review everything."

To which I reply, "Yeah, I'll call it Crass Consumption, with the byline, 'Hell, if we use it, we'll review it.' " My blog is sort of like that (actually, a lot like that) right now, but the idea of commericializing the impulse to criticize does have a certain appeal.

File this one away as 'prior work' and potential claim for copyright, and I'll get around to actually doing something with that later.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

My Esteemed Colleague gave me half an introduction in a previous post, but let's make it official: Hi, my name is Matt, and I'll be your Manga Guide this evening.

On top of the reviews that I hope to contribute, I'm also making an attempt at a weekly column, to be titled "5by8", which we'll be posting on Mondays. (Manga Mondays!)

I reserve the right to post on something other than Manga, of course, but there are a lot of nooks and crannies to explore in this particular field, so I likely won't have to lapse into major digressions for many months yet.

The main point of this introductory column is to preface some of the upcoming manga reviews with an few notes on how my reviews will differ from Bob's. Title, publisher, writers, artists; I'm sure you'll get all that. But some of the information I'm going to include in a manga review is a little different, mostly because there is an extra layer of production (translation and adaptation) for manga, as opposed to mainstream comics. Let me go over a few points and background now, hopefully so I won't have to repeat myself 50 times over the next year.

I'll include a page count, both the total number and the net after we subtract ads, translator's notes, bonus art and other extras. US Manga editions (which correspond to Japanese tankoban) are more like paperback books than magazines, and can run into the hundreds of pages.

I'll note the original language. Now, some might think, "Wait, isn't it all Japanese?" but the short answer to that is No. Korean manhwa (same word, really, just a different romanization) and original works in English are also being published, and for some folks the original language makes a difference.

Japanese books are printed 'backwards', right-to-left. Some American editions are flipped so they read left-to-right, but that means you get a mirror image instead of original artwork. Doesn't matter to me, but I'll be sure to note orientation on reviews as well.

Two other points I'll make a note of are the publication dates, both of the original (when I can find it) and of the US edition, and also the rating the publisher puts on the book. Not all of these are for kids.

Let me get way ahead of myself and say that after a couple of dozen of these, you'll be able to pick up on these particulars without really thinking about it.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

Read or Die, Vol. 1



Published by: Viz Media
Writer: Hideyuki Kurata
Artist: Shutaro Yamada

224 (212) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2000. US edition March 2006.
English Translation & Adaptation: Steve Ballati
Cover & Graphic Design: Janet Piercy
Touch-up Art & Lettering: Mark McMurray
Editor: Urian Brown
Publishers Rating: Older Teen

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: World's most bookish superhero-slash-secret-agent saves the world and the girl. and the book.

Synopsis:

Yomiko loves books. She really loves books. She is a Paper Master, one of those with the ability to manipulate paper into tools, shields, & weapons.

Yomiko Readman, aka "the Paper", is a sometimes substitute teacher who also works as an agent of the British Library-- which is not only a collection of rare and wonderful books, but also a top tier covert special ops organization. (who knew?)

We join Yomiko as she is called up by her handler, "Mr. Joker", for a sting operation to catch the thief of a rare stolen book of fairy tales, a neat opening which introduces her powers and her personality, while also giving the reader some of the background in which this series is set.

The rest of volume one follows Yomiko as she meets her favourite author, a couple of new adversaries, and a guy who also loves books, but in a creepy, disturbing way.

As you might have guessed, it all ends in a flashy action-packed showdown. The confetti runs like blood...

##

Review:

From concept to execution, this is a pretty good comic. It's black and white, but the artist makes good use of shading and screen tone to bring real depth to the frame and 'colour' to most of the characters. There is a real sense of motion to the action sequences, and the explosions have oomph. The art does such a good job at conveying the action, in fact, that it's a real shame the lame written sound effects cover so much of the pages' real estate.

I don't know if this was a decision made for the English adaptation, or if the flaw is something inherited from the Japanese original, but most of the sound effects are just in the way.

Aside from the superfluous written bangs and kracks, the adaptation seems to be well done. The story and dialogue proceed clearly, there is only one side note (to explain a Stephen King reference, actually) and honorifics are retained where appropriate and in a way I'm sure most American readers will be able to follow. ("Sensei" is a term most of us are familiar with by this point...)

This is a solid opening to what promises to be an exciting series, while also serving as a good stand-alone story.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

Captain Nemo, Vol. 1

Published by: Seven Seas Entertainment
Art: Aldin Viray
Story: Jason DeAngelis

192 (166) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: February 2006.
Tones: Roland Amago
Letters & Graphic Design: Jon Zamar
Editor: Jason DeAngelis
Publisher's Rating: Teen

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: Napoleon beat Wellington at Waterloo in this alternate history, and now the Son of Nemo seems to be the only one who can fight a French Empire on which the sun never sets.

Synopsis:

At our opening, we join French Vice Minister Pierpont (and his hot daughter, a stowaway) as he sets out on a mission to find and nullify whatever the cause that is sinking so many French ships.

The cause, of course, turns out to be the dread pirate Nemo. After a brief action interlude, our Young Nemo rescues Camille Pierpont from a shark (or course) and varied and sundry dramatic tensions and relationships are set up between the newly arrived outsider and the members of the Nautilus crew.

Character and background exposition follow, though this is done with a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea backdrop and a bit of life-and-death-jeopardy, along with the set-up and introduction of a new villain and the conflict foreshadowed for volume 2.

##

Review:

While after the first third you could perhaps accuse this volume for forgoing story in favour of set-up for the whole series, that's hardly something to complain about when we're only in the first book.

While a bit sketchy, there is enough of a plot to keep the action moving forward through what are basically character introductions, and the story setting is nice bonus. We may just be walking through sets on our way to act two, but the scenery is nice. Sea monsters, sunken continents, the whole half-remembered backdrop drawn from both the book and numerous movie adaptations; all these help flavour a story that might otherwise seem a bit slow and clunky.

There is a lot of promise here. The character designs are a bit generic, but nicely executed and different enough one from another that each will stand alone in the context of these books. The original source material is given enough of a twist that the reader has no idea what to expect next-- while at the same time it is all comfortingly familiar. And any story where we get to hate the French? Classic villainy is always a nice extra.

I look forward to future releases (...see next) and hope the writer and artist can live up to the promise of their first volume.

##

So let's back up a step: Take a look at the credits cited above. Here we have an American take on Japanese manga. These guys are obviously students and big fans of the genre. They even went so far as to draw it backwards, right-to-left, though there is no particular reason to do so. I've heard various terms for this sort of creative endeavour, though the one that makes most sense to me is the boringly-descriptive Original English Language (or OEL) manga.

Not that manga really means anything but "comic book". But I won't get into that argument here; there are in fact enough differences in style and execution that manga is a meaningful term when applied to comics. Here we just so happen to have some Americans doing the manga-styled-thing.

I won't fault them for that. In fact, the only complaint I might bring to the table is that some of the grand underwater scenes could, in fact, be grander. There are a couple of panels that are just too dark-- but maybe I'm nitpicking. It is set underwater, after all. But a beam from a helmet light picking out a patch of detail on some ancient sunken ruins in a double-page spread, now that would have been a nice touch and also some good artistic contrast.

(on the flip side: panel layout over two pages with decently rendered sunken ruins. what am I complaining about?)

Seven Seas Entertainment is a smaller company who has made the laudable decision to not only license some good-but-overlooked Japanese titles, but to also find American artists and writers and publish the best of those good-but-overlooked efforts as well. That can only be a good thing, in my opinion, and I think Captain Nemo is as convincing an argument as any to that point.

The only complaint I have about OEL manga releases is that they are sloooow. About one a year, give or take. While I might prefer a monthly fix, I guess I can wait the time it takes to fill a hundred and some odd pages with story and art. From the looks of things in this first volume, Nemo will be one worth waiting for.

Aside: once again, I'm writing from the kitchen table. In this case it's because I'm cooking dinner. Not that the dish needs my constant attention (well, obviously) but since I'm stirring the beans every 20 minutes or so, it's handy to be here in the same room with the range. And the fridge. That has the beer in it.

It's just one of my old standbys, but instead of opening up cans, I'm cooking beans from scratch. With a smidge of tomato paste, garlic, onion, a little chili powder, and a bay leaf. Beans actually smell fantastic, while they're cooking (oddly contrasting to the aromas we'll get after we eat them. It seems that the universe demands balance in all things.)

Yes, I'm telling you again that my house smells awesome. And yes, I say this kind of thing just to mess with you people.

##

SO let's take a look at blogging.

"What, again ?"

Yes, again. Quit yer bitching.

Actually, it's not just my blog this time. Well, it's not really my blog at all (This is my blog: you're soaking in it) but rather a new venture where I am merely one voice among many. (well, one of two. anyway, moving on...) So there are some different considerations.

This is my first foray into any sort of collaborative work. Well, there were group projects for some of my college courses, but by far the greater number of those ended up with me basically doing everything myself because I had been arbitrarily placed in a group with a bunch of drunken asshole fratboy slackers. (This is me, a drunken asshole slacker, saying it, so if I'm complaining about other people not doing anything, you can only imagine what kind of plugs I had been expected to work with)

...but ComicSnob.com is my first foray into a collaborative web log. Or review site. Or whatever: it's original content posted daily bringing unique perspectives with a clear focus to a single topic. Comics are pretty broad as a topic, actually, but nowhere near so vague or nebulous as "some drunk guy with access to a keyboard"

The neat thing is that I can still be some drunk guy at a keyboard, over on the new site, just as long as I'm talking about comics.

We'll see where things are at in six months. Or a couple of years. I'm in this for the long haul, or for as long as My Esteemed Colleague puts up with my beer-fuelled ranting on quirky-or-even-perverted manga over on his otherwise clean, family-oriented [*snicker*] comic site. My hope is that Bob will be able to make a go of it, in that the site supports itself, with maybe enough left over for a bar tab each month. I'm not looking for a paycheck myself, but it would be nice if publishers caught on to what we're doing at some point, and started sending me free copies of stuff to review. Because you know, the beer is expensive and all but have you any idea what they're charging me for manga?

##

But what makes a successful site?

Well, let's start with the Tayler Principle, previously posted, named after Howard Tayler-- who has been doing amazing things over on his site (i.e. today's comic strip, or you can go back a bit and start here) for six and a half years now.

He's never missed an update. For 78 months. That's somewhere north of 2370 daily updates. The mind boggles. The jaw drops. Hence, the Tayler Principle: if you want to build up an web audience, it doesn't matter what your content is, just update every damn day.

The first corollary to the Tayler Principle is: It doesn't matter how rough your start is, if you're doing it every damn day you're going to get better at it. Eventually, you'll be pretty damn good at it.

The second corollary, henceforth referred to as the Burnsian Exception, is that after you've built up an audience, if you then stop updating your audience will wait for you, for months even, but only if you're good.

Of course, ComicSnob.com is in it's earliest stages; we haven't even officially launched yet. It's nice though-- when we do "launch", the site will be up, humming along nicely, and already stocking two months worth of archives.

New Year's Day has a likely look to it, if you ask me. But it's not my site. Bob will make a decision, and of course that decision may be "What, are you drunk? Well, drunk [*sigh*] again? It's only 8am, dude; besides, the site launched back in October."

If we could get a few folks to help us by linking to the site tho', on whichever day is chosen for the (hypothetical) Official Announcement and Launch, that'd be cool-- maybe help jump start the whole damn thing. All we'd need to do then is update. Every damn day. (It'll be easier with two of us; share the load)

I know he reads my ramblings, but someone remind me to email Bob with this suggestion, maybe before the 25th, if New Year's is the target.

did you know that there was a competitve BBQ circuit?

I didn't, but I was browsing a bit to track down more local barbeque (mmmm.... barbeque [*homeresque gargle*]) and came across WhiteTrashBBQ, from some guy who competes nationally, and from there I found the Hot Suace Blog (which may become one of my daily reads) and also the winner of the

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 17 December 2006

Sugar and Lard

Being a good southern boy (at least by geographical coincidence, if not in the way I was raised) obviously the phrase "Sugar and Lard" just makes my mouth water. Right this very minute if you go over to the site then the top article is a lovely recipe for a seared lamb chop. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I need to break out the cast iron tonight and see what I can do to some poor unsuspecting hunk of meat.

(about the award -- past winners)

Hunter S. Thompson, photographer. "Still Life, Beer Making", New York, circa 1950s, Link. Gelatin silver photograph; stamped, dated and numbered by the estate. Limited edition of 10.

Hell, I'll take one. If you were looking for something to get me for Christmas. I'm still holding my breath for the dead-tree version of the OED (a bargain at $805; heck, I'll take the shorter or the cd-rom if that's all that'll fit in my stocking, but it just doesn't have the same gravitas as the 20 volume set)

Hunter S. Thompson photography, though? Perfectly acceptable substitute.

[aside: now, I would just post a link, but my experience is that click-through on this blog ranges from sparse, on the high end, down to non-existant, even on things like other readers' insights or contradicting arguments posted in the comments, which you should be reading. SO, you all get to (have to) read this crap on my main page. dammit. because I wrote it, that's why.]

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

School Rumble, Vol. 1

Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Jin Kobayashi

192 (162) pages
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition February 2006.
English Translation & Adaptation: William Flanagan
Letterer: Dana Hayward
Publisher's Rating: Older Teen, ages 16+

Rating: 2 out of 5

##

Premise: High school romance, the comedy.

Synopsis:

A collection of 18 'shorts', each smaller story featuring a different problem in the love lives of a small group of High School students.

Tsukomoto Tenma is a second-year student, and she has a big ol' crush on Karasuma Oji. He's calm, cool, collected, and completely clueless as to how she feels.

Harima Kenji is a delinquent, a drop-out, and a motorcycle-riding badass who generally gets along by beating up or running over anything in his way. It turns out he has a big crush on Tenma. But she's also clueless as to how Kenji feels. Well, she's clueless in general.

After the first few chapters set up this love triangle and the rest of the story, events proceed as you'd expect, with any number of good ideas to get close to or to confesses to the object of one's affection going horrible awry, or just failing with a comedic flop.

##

Review:

Let me say a few good things first. The art is nice, the girls are cute, there is a fairly tight story focus and the short chapters make for a brisk read.

Another nice touch is the differing art styles employed; when Tenma is the main character the art is crisp, if perhaps a bit manga-generic, but when the delinquent Harima is featured, Kobayashi switches to a looser, grittier style, with screen tones often replaced by cross-hatching and other hand-drawn shading, especially in the fights and other action sequences. It's a neat gimmick, and certainly gives you the feeling that poor Harima really has been dropped from another comic entirely, right into the middle of white-bread suburban high.

The bits of background and other scenery are sparse, though. In quite a few panels (and regrettably, a few whole pages) it seems like the characters are floating in white space.

The cast is small, though additional teachers and students-- nameless extras-- step in as needed. It looks like the series is going to concentrate on Tenma, her sister Yamuko, and three of Tenma's friends, with Harima as added comic relief and the enigmatic Oji only there as an object for Tenma's affections.

The back cover and other promotional materials have pitched this as an 'over the top' comedy. And at it's best, it is chuckle inducing-- usually when there is some excuse for Harima to whop someone upside the head. Some of the setups shade a bit dark for real comedy, though, and there may have been some losses in translation.

Del Rey has done a decent job with the adaptation, with lots of notes (the end notes not only explain some of the trickier translations, they reprint the panel in question so you don't have to flip back through the book) and some care in keeping a lot of the flavour of the original Japanese. They leave written foley in the original katakana script (with translations in small subscript) for example. But even with all that effort, it doesn't always play well. The manga didn't make me laugh out loud, which might generally be considered a failure.

From the setting (high school) to the characters (students) to the setup (crushes, love triangles, and unrequited love), School Rumble is close to being a typical (or even stereotypical) plain-vanilla manga. Kobayashi uses all the usual visual conventions-- including intercutting with cute, cartoony versions of characters and similar wild-takes to emphasise a punchline-- so if that aspect of the manga style is hard for you to take in large doses then even the good jokes won't make you laugh.

Sometimes the comedy and the story work, sometimes they don't. If you like the premise, or perhaps if you're closer (in age, temperament, or relative hormone levels) to the whole high-school-crush thing, then this manga might "work" more often for you than it does for me. But I think a lot of us would rather go read something with more explosions in it.

SO, What is Manga?

"Manga" is just another world for comics, folks. Hate to burst your bubble, but that's all it is. It's a Japanese word, I'll give you that, but there is no extra weight that can really be applied past the country of origin.

There is a sentiment among some American fans of Japanese comics to invest "manga" with almost mythical status, that manga is somehow more pure of an art form, an expression that has deeper historic roots and a greater creative gravitas.

As to history, well, modern-style manga dates to 1945 and Dr. Osamu Tezuka. (Bats and Supe are from the 30s. I'm just sayin'.) As far as being something noble and pure, well, maybe you aren't reading the same books I am.

A lot of this elitism derives from the need for each new generation to stake out something of its own, something new. They put a label on it, like (to pull in a musical analogy) Rock, or Punk, or Metal, or Grunge, or Trip-hop, or whatever it is the emo kids are listening to nowadays. The point isn't so often the music itself, but the label that differentiates 'ours' from 'yours'.

Let me cite my favourite Duke Ellington quote: "If it sounds good and feels good, then it is good." Music is music, Comics are comics, and if you like it then it doesn't matter what we call it.

##

Now that I've taken a bit of the air out of some folk's pretensions, let's take a look at what really makes manga different. So far as I can tell, there are only two main differences: first a matter of length, and second a matter of style.

Your average manga tankoban, or paperback, is going to run 160-240 pages. Your average comic is 24-32 pages. Actually, a lot of manga is first serialized in magazines in Japan, so each monthly instalment (which then becomes a chapter in the tankoban) would correspond to a single comic. To make a fair comparison, manga paperback to comic book, you'd have to consider collections, graphic novels, or a stack of comics equal to about a year of your favourite superhero rag. It's not a fair comparison.

That said, the longer page-count does give our writers and artists a lot more room to tell a story. Actual execution on this promise varies as much for Japanese comics as it does for American equivalents, but there is the opportunity there. Some manga snobs like to conveniently ignore this point; they'll say that longer stories and deeper meaning can only be found on the far side of the Pacific. My take on that is that they obviously haven't read Watchmen, Sandman, or Frank Miller.

Next, let's look at the style points: Big eyes, funky hair, and a unique visual 'vocabulary'.

The eyes and hair, which many American readers might point to as being a bit much, are actually nothing new. Mickey and Bugs share a lot of the same facial proportions; Betty Boop is pretty much a straight 'manga' style character, too. No, really, go do a Google image search and you'll see what I'm talking about. Setting aside the fact that these deformations are artistic standards, they also are used because it's an easy 'cheat'. Eyes are very expressive and can easily convey emotion-- larger eyes do the job that much better. Also, the hair profiles (and often, colour) serve to make each character instantly recognizable. When you're dealing with a large cast, most of whom are similar (i.e. a gaggle of cute high school girls, or a bunch of martial arts fighters in a tournament) then a unique profile that instantly IDs the character is a definite plus. Matt Groening (I shouldn't have to tell you, but that's Matt "Simpsons" "Futurama" Groening) has brought up this point also, and a distinct profile, in silhouette, is an important consideration in each of his character designs.

The visual vocabulary of manga is where we find most of the differences, though. Not that the actual conventions of manga are hard to figure out-- the throbbing vein on a forehead, the blush of embarrassment, a nervous sweat, the sigh of relief-- but taken in aggregate, it can be a bit much all at once. And when combined with a particular application of style, they can seem as alien as, well, Japanese dialogue in a John Wayne movie. Over time, I've found that these bits and pieces slip into the background, kind of like Bam and Pow sound effects in the Batman TV show.

The big difference is the use of chibi or super-deformed (occasionally abbreviated SDF) versions of the characters in panels or extended asides within the comic. Some manga don't use this convention at all. Others rely on it heavily.

This is more easily seen than described, but I'll give it a shot: The basic idea is that a quick-and-dirty, cute, and "cartoony" version of our otherwise faithfully-depicted characters is used by the artist, often for comedic effect, and usually in a situation where the character(s) in question are either stressed, surprised, or otherwise placed in a situation just outside of the norms of the story. The closest American equivalent would be a wild-take from a vintage Looney Tunes short. You watch the eyes bug out or the jaw drop in an extremely anatomically-incorrect way, and then in the next panel, it all shifts back to normal.

You either follow, or you don't. And sometimes even if you're familiar with the convention, it'll still be done poorly. Like any joke, it won't always work. And its use is restricted to manga or manga-inspired works; I've yet to see anything like it in a 'mainstream' comic.

But that is the extent of the differences in my opinion. After that, it is all just sequential art, whether we're considering X-men, Garfield, PvP, or Fullmetal Alchemist. Manga are comics. And the deformed style doesn't always raise its ugly, swollen super-cute head; only one of the four manga reviewed on the site to date employs this convention. The others are straight-up action comics for the most part.

Manga are different, though, and this provides a whole new window on the world of comics, for those who don't mind an influx of inspiration into the perhaps-stale world of superhero stories. For my money-- while I do love Japanese comics-- I think the most interesting development is the emergence of Original English Language manga. (check out my review of Captain Nemo, for one example.)

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

Air Gear, Vol. 1

Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Oh!great

232 (208) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition July 2006.
Translation & Adaptation: Makoto Yukon
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Publisher's Rating: Older Teen, Ages 16+

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: The very latest in cool gear are inline skates with power boosters, called Air Trecks. It's all fun and games until the Trecks are adopted by the local street gangs...

Synopsis:

Meet Itsuki Minami, near legendary street fighter, hero of the Eastside, known all over as "Babyface".

He can beat anyone except any of the four girls he lives with, the Noyamano sisters. All five are orphans; both families used to be close friends, and circumstances being what they are Itsuki lives in the Noyamano household. Itsuki makes due, looking out in his own way for his 'sisters' while trying to keep from getting too beat up at home.

"Babyface" Itsuki may look like a softy, but outside of the Noyamano household, he kicks serious ass. He'll take any challenge. The troubles start when he accepts a challenge from a rival gang, and while he wins decisively, he has no idea that the Westside punks have dangerous underworld connections.

Avenging their recently-defeated cohorts, gangsters on Air Trecks move into Itsuki's turf-- defeating his gang, kicking his ass, and generally making life a bitch for all the kids involved. Soundly beaten, Itsuki loses any cred with his gang, or his rivals, or the Sisters. But he's like family, so the Noyamano girls help the poor kid out.

With new trick skates and a few choice skate tricks, Itsuki finds redemption in the mangled near-corpses of his enemies. Of course this takes a few chapters to cover, including the inevitable one-on-one showdown with the rival gang's boss.

Now turned on to a whole new (underground) world of blood, skates, and flying leaps, in some ways Itsuki is just more confused than he's ever been, but he wants to know more. As he goes in search of answers to all these burning new questions... we get a pretty solid setup for what we'll all get to read about in Vol. 2.

##

Review:

Oh!great is the pen-name of Ito Oogure (go ahead, say his last name out loud... you'll see where he picked up his nom de plume) and he has built up something of a reputation over the past few years as a writer and artist with a flair for fight scenes and violence.

In that respect, at least, Air Gear does not disappoint. Also, Oh!great does some really good work with perspective and motion, imbuing a number of scenes with a definite sense of soaring over an urban landscape.

While the pages are pretty, sometimes the story takes a back seat. Important plot points flash by in a single panel, occasionally hidden or obscured by a stylish but confusing layout. I found myself re-reading pages just to figure out exactly what was going on, and how Itsuke managed to get to where he was, three pages on.

The story moves in fits and starts, not really settling into a steady narrative, or bothering to expand on characters or circumstances much past a rather two-dimensional portrayal, including the so called hero. But the art is nice to look at, and perhaps if Oh!great steps back a bit to tell his stories with a bit more space and care, it'll all make sense in future volumes.

As a special bonus, Del Rey gives us the first 8 pages rendered in colour (a nice touch) and of course the extras at the end of the volume include their usual translation notes, along with some character info/preliminary sketches, and a few preview pages from volume 2, which are sort of nice to look at but only really handy if you happen to read Japanese.

Volume 1 is a slick and fast-paced opening for a series with an original concept and some very nice artwork... you know there's a "but" coming. The premise works, for the most part, but the whole gangland-skate-challenge theme could be written off as just a flashy 90s extreme sports retread overlayed on old 50s car culture memes, right down to a final duel (or should I call it a race?) between the once-beaten hero and his nemesis. If you can buy into the ground rules, though, it looks like we're in for a hell of a ride.

~~

Air Gear, Vol. 2

Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Oh!great

224 (196) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition October 2006.
Translation & Adaptation: Makoto Yukon
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Publisher's Rating: Older Teen, Ages 16+

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: The very latest in cool gear are inline skates with power boosters, called Air Trecks. It's all fun and games until the Trecks are adopted by the local street gangs...

Synopsis:

Itsuki has a screw loose.

In this case literally: Even though Itsuki Minami feels ten feet tall and bulletproof because he is coming fresh off of a win, his Trecks are a little worse for wear. So he heads of with Mikan (second-oldest of the unsinkable Noyamano sisters) as his guide to the thrilling world of... sporting goods stores.

At this particular store, though, all is not as deadly boring as we might fear because Itsuki meets the girl of his dreams, the sexy and mysterious Simca. We all know this is going to lead to trouble.

Simca gets our poor dumb hero into yet another scrape with a local skating gang, and after that altercation, his equipment ends up even more messed up.

So now Itsuki needs money, fast. After a few false starts he finds himself a gig as a ramen delivery boy. This introduces him to the world's most improbable extreme athlete, "Fats" Buccha, who needs really hefty skating gear to get his bulk flying. Fats has a proposition for Itsuki, a way to get free parts for his Air Trecks, if our hero can handle the challenge...

##

Review:

Volume 2 has been out since the end of October, so hot on the heels of the review for Volume 1 here's a two-fer for all you nice folks.

If you liked the art and action from the last volume, Oh!great has got more for you. The panel layouts continue to be dynamic, and between speed-lines, shading and lighting effects, and forced perspective we always have a sense of both velocity and altitude when two Storm Riders are fighting it out on skates above the city skyline.

I'll heap some praise on Del Rey, too. Their translation manages to catch (or perhaps, manufacture) a real sense of the slang and phrasing we'd expect from a bunch of teenage skaters. All in all it's a fun read.

And yet...

OK, here's my major complaint: Our "Hero", Itsuki? He's a dick. I find it hard to like him. In fact, I'd like to reach into the book and smack him. It's not that he's an anti-hero, or that he's got that "I'm evil only because your world calls me evil" shtick working for him. He's just a dick.

His only virtues are his fighting skills. He steals from his foster sisters. He's a bundle of male hormones that drops any brains or sense just as soon as he's presented with even the barest whiff of a likely female target. He'll try just about any scheme to avoid real work, and

Oy! Hey, Itsuki, get off my lawn! Damn punk kids, think they can get away with anything [mumble, mumble]. Maybe I'm getting old, and just can't relate to the mindset anymore.

Still and all, the supporting cast is pretty good. Also, while the enemies faced down by Itsuki and the Noyamano sisters in volume one were pretty much dire villains straight out of central casting, volume two brings in few shades of grey and begins fleshing out the whole sub-culture surrounding Air Trecks and their enthusiasts, the "Storm Riders".

And there was a mini-physics-lesson-slash-(unintentional?)-Monty-Python-reference that had me laughing out loud.

Will I be buying volume three of Air Gear? Yes, if only to watch the Sisters bring the beat down on that dick, Itsuki. That, and there was enough punch coming out of the first volume that I'll give the writer time to find his pacing and his story, and see what develops. You can either pick up #1 and see if the premise grabs you in the same way it did me, or wait and see-- I'll be buying and reviewing volume three (and four. and likely five, too.)-- before you start investing in these.

After running a few errands this morning, I decided to set up camp in the kitchen and do the n+1th batch of chili. Mmmm... chili. Now a purist might object, and say that in fact my signature dish (wait? is this my signature dish? I need to remember to ask old roommates at the next football tailgate, which unfortunately will be 9 or so months from now) is not chili con carne, but instead just some sort of meat and bean spicy soup.

Yeah, whatever. It's still damn tasty.

Following the success last week of stovetop beans for the burrito recipe, I decided that from-scratch was the way to go this Friday as well. Abridged version: 1 lb. bag of beans, a short boil and then a one hour 'quick soak', and drain. Return beans to pot, add two chili seasoning packets (let me check... those are 1 1/4 oz. packets), a cup of tomato sauce, 5 cups of water, a few spices (cayenne, garlic powder, and a bay leaf today) and cook to specs.

To this I'm going to add the rest of the 29oz. can of tomato sauce, two cans of spicy refried beans, two more chili seasoning packets, and four pounds of MEAT. I usually use ground turkey. Or coarse ground chunk. The local megamart didn't have quite enough turkey so today I'm trying both.

Why not both? Sounds mighty tasty, in fact. This may be a start of a trend, and eventually a half dozen or more animals will have to die to go into my chili recipe.

Right before serving I'll add two cans of diced tomatoes (w/ green chilies), because the flavor is so much better if you don't cook the tomatoes long.

##

Instead of writing (or working, for that matter) while cooking this morning, I was drinking beer (nothing tastes like "a day off" quite like beer for breakfast) and reading through the archives on the Hot Sauce Blog. Makes me want to try a couple dozen new sauces, or hell, make my own. I guess I should head on down to the Dekalb Farmers Market and see what kind of peppers they have. Heck, I should work on my own chili spice mix and barbeque sauce too.

Oh and I suppose after lunch, I'll trying writing a bit more, too.

damn that's a lot of chili.

A heretofore undescribed principle of culinary science, which I will dub the 1020 Atlantic phenomenon, is that over time a chef's chili recipe will slowly grow, until it is a liquid volume at least one pint more than can be comfortably stirred (without sloshing on the range) while simmering in his (or her) largest pot.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

By the Sword, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Published by: ADV Manga
Writer & Artist: Sanami Matoh

192 (184) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition March 2005.
Translator: Yuko Yoshikawa
Translation Staff: Javier Lopez (Translation Supervisor), Kay Bertrand, Amy Forsyth, and Brendan Frayne
Print Production/Art Studio Manager: Lisa Puckett
Production Staff: Klys Reedyk (Pre-press Manager), Jorge Alvarado (Senior Designer), George Reynolds (Group Leader), Heather Gary (artist), Natalia Morales (artist), Mark Meza (intern)
International Coordinators: Toru Iwakami, Atsushi Kanbayashi, and Kyoko Drumheller
Editor: Susan Itin
Editorial Staff: Margaret Scharold (Assistant Editor), Sheridan Jacobs (assistant), Mike Essmyer (intern), Marsha Arnold (research)
Executives who get their name in the book though it's questionable if they actually did any creative work on the project: Kevin Corcoran & John Ledford.
Publisher's Rating: Ages 13+

Rating: 2 out of 5

##

Premise: Whilst wandering medieval Japan, an itinerant demon hunter finally finds the mystic blade through which he can properly channel his powers, but it comes with some baggage...

Synopsis:

We meet our hero, the demon hunter Asagi, in a brief action sequence that kicks off the comic. Asagi offs the demon he is fighting, though he has to use his mystic power to do so. (it's an unspecified power, but really good against demons apparently. His power can only be used when channeled through a sword, though this has the side-effect of fatally weakening the blade.

Soon after, he gets a tip on a mystical blade, the Moegi, that would let him chop up demons as much as he'd like, if he can find it. His only clue is that the one who supposedly has the blade is a girl named Kaede in a prefecture a couple of mountains ranges over.

This being a two volume mini-series, only a couple pages later Asagi tracks down Kaede (well, he randomly runs into her at a temple, after making his way to the prefecture in question) and he now has the blade he needs. Sort of.

Asagi can use the blade, when Kaede lets him, but she insists on carrying it around & generally not letting it leave her sight. The blade also comes with other baggage: namely, Kuranei the fire demon, the blade's forger. Well, Kuranei is feeling a little under the weather; his body is missing so it's just his spirit that hangs around. His spirit appears as a foot tall version of himself. And he's a reformed demon, he doesn't go around eating people's livers any more. Oh, and he happens to be Kaede's father.

The volume ends with some more exposition on how each of the characters ended up like they are, as well as a bit of a cliffhanger.

##

Review:

If the number of people listed in the credits is any indication, ADV is fairly serious about making a business of this manga licensing thing. Sheesh, people, I just want to know which poor, underpaid artist actually did the lettering, I don't need to know the whole office staff, or who went out for coffee and doughnuts. I tried to summarize as much as I could in the header above (this is only a review, after all) while still giving credit where due.

(to be fair, this is one of ADV's first releases-- first manga release, anyway; they've done two boatloads of anime-- and in a more recent release from ADV which I've referenced, it seems they've reined in a bit on the credits.)

If you've seen Inuyasha on Cartoon Network then you have a feel for this type of background and setting already. Fans of one will likely find something to enjoy in the other. Still, the plot seems wafer thin and character motivation and development are both fairly simplistic.

I can say a few good things about the art, though. The panels are dense, and renderings use both hand-drawn inks and screen tones to produce some very lush, expressive black and white artwork. Action scenes have a lot of punch [har har] and all in all, the book is fun to look at.

Even with all the pretty art to distract me, I still thought story was yawn inducing. I probably won't even bother buying the second volume.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

Recast, Vol. 1

Published by: Tokyopop
Writer & Artist: Seung-Hui Kye

192 (184) pages.
Original Language: Korean
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: 2003. US edition November 2006.
English Translation: Woo Sok Park
Re-touch & Lettering: Nathan Kaestle
Graphic Designer: James Lee
Editor: Hope Donovan
Publisher's Rating: Teen, Ages 13+

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: In a world where just about anyone can use magic--if they bother to pay attention in their high school classes--JD is an apprentice mage being raised by his grandfather to be something exceptional...

Synopsis:

JD is trying to follow in his grandfather Grifford's footsteps; problem is, Gramps is a kick-ass mage, and he doesn't bother to teach much, believing in something along the lines of "Well, toss 'im in. If he doesn't drown, he'll learn to swim."

JD runs into all kinds of crap in the zombies-coming-to-get-us line in this first instalment, which he manages to deal with, both with and without his grandfather's help. Along with Professor Celine, who is too hot by half to be stuck teaching kids magic, and the currently-unnamed-but-persistent foes, JD has his hands full. I'd love to go into more details, but there are a lot of spoilers I won't get into

##

Review:

...because you should read this for yourself.

This is not your standard fantasy. Oh, some of the usual props and tropes are here--from spells and magic weapons, to wise old mages and young, brash apprentices. And then after that, all your expectations are going to fail you. This isn't just another D&D rip-off.

There's a cosmology here, something that seems new. It may be old hat to someone conversant with Korean myths... but then again, I don't think so. (I don't have a degree, but I'm pretty sure I'd heard about most world myths already.)

The basics are "heaven" (the 6th world) and "hell" (the 4th world) and the goldilocks-zone of the 5th world (which has a top and bottom-- the inside of the sixth sphere and the outside of the fourth sphere, near as I grok it) where all our characters are starting out. And while some restrictions apply, there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth movement between the three. From here, though, who knows where Kye is going to take us next.

There is a lot of other stuff dealing with the mechanics of magic that I won't go into, either because it's barely been mentioned yet, or because it has something to do with major plot points related to our characters. And there we are. A complex fantasy story that I can't describe in detail because I don't want to ruin it for you.

Back to nuts and bolts: So, even with new clothes, is it just the same old hoary story? Yes and no. I can see the setup: Young hero must overcome obstacles, realize his own power, collect the plot coupons, find the Magic McGuffin and then face off against evil ("You're not my father!") before cashing in on the happily-ever-after voucher. And while I want to write this off as just another derivative fantasy, so far artist/writer Kye doesn't seem to be falling into that well-worn and well-padded rut. I'm not sure what to expect from future volumes, but the usual cliches don't seem to be any part of the story yet.

It's that promise that raises my eyebrow, and my review by a point. Otherwise I might have only given this a 3 (for uneven pacing, and and annoying habit of not explaining anything) but his hook has worked. I want to read more.

(... but I really want to comment)
(ah heck, I guess that counts as a comment.)

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 24 December 2006

Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly, International

(you can also buy a t-shirt)

(about the award -- past winners)

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

My-HiME, Vol. 1

Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Kimura Noburu
Artist: Sato Ken-etsu

200 (192) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2004. US edition November 2006.
Translation: Jeremiah Bourque
English Adaptation: Gina Lee Firenzi
Copy Editor: Sarah Morgan
Design and Layout: Michael Paolilli
Graphic Designer: Monalisa De Asis
Editor: Bryce P. Coleman
Publisher's Rating: Mature, Ages 18+

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: School girls with psychic powers are gathered at a special academy to fight the "orphans", monsters that appear out of nowhere with little but mayhem and destruction on their mind. So far, at least, the Orphans only appear to attack the school...

Synopsis:

Yuuichi Tate is a new transfer to Fuka Academy. He's stoked, because his old school was boys-only, and he's looking forward to co-ed education.

The poor lad. It's just his second day, and on the way into class from the dorm, he finds himself in the crossfire of a psychic-powered catfight: a couple of girls named Mai and Natsuki are in the middle of a grudge match when poor Yuuichi takes a wrong turn.

The results of the fight are pretty much a draw, but Yuuichi discovers he is a Key, and as such is able to amplify the power of a Hime, as the girl psychics are called. The thing is, it looks like he is the Key for not one but both of the girls.

That afternoon one of the Orphans attacks (at the pool; because the writer & artist wanted girls in swimsuits in peril, is my guess) and while the Hime response team (with Yuuichi's help) manages to defeat the monster, a stray shot takes out Yuuichi's dorm room.

Poor guy. This being a manga, he gets assigned temporary quarters in a girl's dorm, rooming with Mai and her junior roommate, Mikoto. Before the night is over Yuuichi has to put up with strict rules about which side of the room is not his (enforced by Mikoto with a sword), inadvertent temptation, a kidnapping, and a botched rescue that results in another destroyed dorm room, and a third girl (Mai's rival Natsuki) being crammed in with the rest.

There are at least two more battles and a lot of school politics, and mayonnaise-covered ramen and other horrors to contend with. And Yuuichi's first week isn't even over yet.

##

Review:

My-HiME is based on an anime of the same name. From the info in one of the sidebars within the manga--and also some of the flaws apparent in it--we know the comic was conceived as part of a multichannel strategy (TV, print, a PS2 game, merchandise, etc.) to drown the market in cute power-wielding, creature-summoning, monster-fighting school girls, who in the heat of battle occasionally have bits of their uniform burned, torn, or melted off.

Obviously, these guys know their target market.

Like many (all?) adaptations, this manga suffers from one glaring flaw: the writer assumes everyone is familiar with the show, so they hardly bother to introduce anyone or explain anything.

If you didn't know better, you might think that this was a brilliant literary device, using foreshadowing while simultaneously dropping the reader in medias res, with the expectation that characters and concepts will be introduced later, after the action.

Let me disabuse you of that assumption right now. Nope, no exposition, no introductions, and only the slightest nod to the reader not-in-the-know. At most, they'll toss a name at you in a caption the first time a character appears, and that's all you get. A knowledge of a whole bundle of personalities, allegiances, conflicts, back story, and motivation is all taken as a sine qua non.

But here I am, 600 words into a review, and while I've insulted several people, disparaged a whole class of manga, and used Latin twice, I still haven't actually told you anything about this particular comic.
Well, I haven’t seen the anime yet (I’m waiting for the final disc to street sometime this March; call me picky, I like to see a show all at once) so like most of you would be, I’m nearly lost in this first volume. And, if an offhand comment from another sidebar is any indication, fans of the TV show will be just as confused (if a bit more familiar with the characters) because apparently the manga is an alternate storyline anyway.

The events of this first volume could easily have been split over two books of the same length. A slightly slower pace, particularly in the beginning, would have given the writer room to introduce characters (and setting, and concepts) while also providing the artist some room to display the monsters and summoned creatures in all of their glory, rather than having them shoehorned in behind explosions in the fight scenes.

Granted, the art is good, mostly. Tender moments between leads are perhaps some of the best panels in the book; Ken-etsu manages to convey the emotions of the teenage characters well. You can literally read it in their faces. The action panels are also well done, but tend to pile up on one another. And inexplicably some attacks appear to be happening in mid-air, without impact or targets, just because the character will look cooler that way.

The book earns its 18+ rating, so don’t let your 12-year-old read it. Damsels in distress get at least a half page, skirts fly even without a breeze, and there was the aforementioned fight at a swimming pool. I know that as a manga fan I’m supposed to demand my books uncut and unbowdlerized, but in this case some of the fan service is just distracting, or seems misplaced. The book would have actually been better without a bare ass or strategically-tattered uniform or three. Not that you’ll hear me repeat that.

So I might have given this a 4, if they bothered to explain anything, or a 2 just for the distracting T&A. I’ll split the difference. And as distractions go… I suppose it could be worse. [*cough*]

Fortunately for me the final DVD will be released about the same time as the second volume, so I can watch a few episodes and then come back to this property with a little more background. If you are already a fan of the show, then you might just give this a try for an alternate take on your favourite characters.

It seems that I am perhaps best suited to writing reviews. I have opinions, apparently, and I also have the suspicion that my opinions are better than yours. And also, in my opinion on top of all that, I am a fair writer.

OK. I'm just a hack writer. But so are quite a few best-selling novelists. And I'm very comfortable being a hack. I've been meaning to have "I am a talentless hack" put on a t-shirt in large letters so I can wear it while I bang away on my laptop at the coffee shop during that NaNoWriMo thing. I do plan to get back to the damn novel (or some novel, at any rate) eventually.

"Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it." --Russel Lynes

Non-fiction is an easier fit, though, a mode I almost naturally fall into. I have a strong didactic streak, and perhaps missed my calling when I left the college environs after 7 and a half years. If I had stuck with it for a few more years, maybe I would have become a professor. Or at least a graduate.

That's one of the reasons I want to try my hand at some sort of non-fiction project. Once I get off of my metaphoric ass long enough to outline the book, it will be then be easy for me to write it--as easy as writing this blog, in fact. My planned cookbook & lifestyle guide will be told with humour, in my own voice, much like these blog entries.

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." --Russell Baker

And then there is the new writing job, which every time I turn around is becoming something entirely different from what I expected; it's both more exciting and a little frightening. Over here on tabulas, I know I am speaking to mere handfuls, a small audience and a mostly sympathetic one. The review site has the potential to build into something with hundreds of daily readers.

I was half joking in a previous post when I called it a job. It looks like the joke is on me. This isn't like a real writing job, it is a real gig. Unpaid, yes; but damn if this doesn't look like a roller-coaster ride, and we're clickclacking our way slowly up the long first slope, and I have no idea what is going to happen next but I foresee a wild time coming up when we final crest that hill and momentum takes us into something new and unknown.

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do." --Dale Carnegie

Unlike Bob (and I'm not knocking My Esteemed Colleague, who knows a lot more about comics, first and foremost, and CSS and XHTML, and who also took that vital first step out into the void) I have a lot of experience as a writer. Well, as a blogger, which is the new species of writer that is threatening to do something non-specific and still unknown but supposedly revolutionary, if the technology press and Time Magazine (we're all their Person of the Year, after all) are to be believed.

And on my blog I've reviewed all kinds of things already. The only formal reviews have been for local bars and a few CDs (and now the manga), but I was writing critically on all sorts of things just for my own benefit, before I ever thought to do anything with the impulse to critique others.

"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct." --Benjamin Disraeli

The new site gives me a framework, and sets a few ground rules. I can't just criticise anything I want to, whenever I feel like it. I have to harness that impulse, and produce. In it's own way this has freed my writing like nothing else I have tried to date. I'm still not pouring out words like blood from an arterial wound--in fact my buffer for the comicsnob site is usually only 1 or 2 posts--but I'm signed up for 3 reviews each and every week. Plus what I want to write here on my tabulas. Plus the column on Mondays.

(Amazingly, I have a buffer. Posts ready to go. A steady flow of content. I don't want to congratulate myself until I've been doing it for 3 or 4 months, but damn... I don't know if I'm proud or just shocked)

I suppose the only catch so far is that I have a temptation to review all the manga, everything I've read or am reading, whether that is going to serve the site best or not. Not least is because of the investment (list price $10 each) so I either need to justify the cost, or maybe keep other people from wasting a sawbuck on the steaming pile I just stepped into.

"One cannot review a bad book without showing off." --W. H. Auden

It'll be a new skill, I guess, learning what to review. Until I gain proficiency in that aspect of being a critic, I guess I'll just keep banging 'em out. Some of the reviews will end up being good, perhaps accidentally, but still.

Every now and then, I remind myself they're just comic books. Even though I enjoy reading them, and like to advocate them, and even though I am making this my job... they're still just comics

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." --Kurt Vonnegut

This new writing job is a great opportunity. I hope to make the most of it.

This is a hardware hack, btw.

SO I need to order a new AC adaptor for the much loved and much abused cheap-ass Dell. I also need to keep using said Dell for whatever time period it'll take to get a new plug.

Solution: (well, this is messy...)

I took a knife to the old adaptor, to find the actual wires that connect to the more-or-less standard socket that plugs into the back of my laptop. It seems that heat and/or stress had worked their entropic magic on this particular connection, so yeah, it's busted.

I used a soldering iron, not to fix the connection, but just to clear the post of wire fragments and useless solder. Right now the business end of my AC adaptor, just there as it plugs into my laptop, is the socket, a couple of bare wires, and a small spring clamp keeping the one busted connection, well, connected.

It's a kludge. It's a fire hazard. It keeps my ass online, so no one gets to knock it.

while I wanted to give the award to Cooking for Engineers this week, their site name (in keeping with the site itself, actually) is a bit, um, dull. Good stuff, just not exciting. Kind of like running into and having a conversation with an engineer at a cocktail party. I mean, in context engineers are great, and good friends to have, but dude just behind you is a sweet young thing in a slinky red number and I'm having difficulty following your conversation on the difference between capacitors linked in series and in parallel anyway...

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 31 December 2006

Academia as an Extreme Sport

A personal blog. Perhaps a bit more personal that most others, while remaining insightful and engaging. And (while this should be taken as a mark against me, not the blog in question) it gives me a wonderful opportunity to repeat the absolute worst joke I know:

Setup: What do you call two college professors in an insane asylum?
punchline: (wait for it...) Acadamia nuts.
[*drumfill*] [*cymbal crash*]

(about the award -- past winners)

I seem to recall writing long, meandering review posts in the past. I think I can boil down 2006 into a single phrase, the best thing I've written all year:

"mayonnaise-covered ramen and other horrors"

thank you. we now return you to your regularly scheduled slacking.

[written for and originally posted on ComicSnob.com]

Someday's Dreamers, Vols. 1 & 2


Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Norie Yamada
Artist: Kumichi Yoshizuki

144 (128) & 144 (98, +37) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2002. US editions March and July 2006.
Translation: Jeremiah Borque
English Adaptation: Hope Donovan
Copy Editor: Eric Althoff (vol. 1) & Peter Ahlstrom (vol. 2)
Retouch & Lettering: James Dashiell (vol. 1) & Creative Circle and Camellia Cox (vol. 2)
Production Artists: Jennifer Carbajal and Lucas Rivera (vol. 1) & Fawn Lau (vol. 2)
Cover Design: Gary Shum
Editor: Paul Morrissey
Publisher's Rating: Teen, ages 13+

Rating: 5 out of 5

##

Premise: Modern-day, professional magic is just another part of the service economy. Yume Kikuchi has come to Tokyo for a summer internship with noted mage Masami Oyamada. Learning the rules of magic is only the beginning of her education...

Synopsis:

An odd misunderstanding that develops from the way his name was spelled leads Yume Kikuchi to think her new teacher would be a woman. When she finds out that Masami Oyamada is a man... well, lets just say that her slight phobia towards men is going to make this difficult. Not just because Masami is her teacher, but also because Yume signed up to stay at (not 'her' but) his house for the next few months.

Over the course of her internship, Yume makes a few bad decisions. It's all part of the educational experience, and daily proof that magic won't solve all problems. Despite the reassurances of her friends and teachers--and while her magic does do some wonderful things for the people that she meets--Yume ends up taking all of these small failures all too seriously.

When her desire to help ends up going head to head with both the realities and limitations of her craft, Yume get disheartened, and despairing and depressed, runs back home with every intention to give up magic for good. But with the help of her teacher, her mother, and the head of the magic bureau, she works through both her trepidations and the problems of her most difficult client, and finds that in the end, the magic of both her special gifts and the human heart will prevail.

##

Review:

From the ComicSnob FAQ:

[quote]
Q: Why is there so much stuff about manga? I hate those creepy-looking bug-eyed kids.

A: There are two kinds of people who like manga. The first are 12-year-old girls. The second are middle-aged pervs with school uniform fetishes people who are such comic nob/snobs that they believe that manga is better than guys in spandex beating each other up.
[/quote]

Well, let me switch gears from my usual fare (rated 16+ or 18+; "Wrapped in plastic = bonus!") and review a couple of books that appeal to the other half of the demographic. While the back of the books say ages 13+, I don't see anything objectionable here. If you let your kids read Harry Potter, than this series is more than fine. (in fact, I'd heartily recommend these to any Rowling fan)

Another reason to review this particular title is that the first volume of the spin-off series released just last week (check this space in 2 days) so I'm presented with a perfect opportunity to dust off and review one of my favourites.

Let me make a note on the page counts: The second volume barely runs a hundred pages, after subtracting out a couple of 'bonus' stories, and there is the usual padding of ads and extras across both volumes. (Take that as one more reason why I decided to combine the two volumes into one review.) While Tokyopop could have sold us a single ~240 page book, if they had done so, we would have had one less cover.

The cover art is gorgeous. The thumbnails don't really do it justice; try to find a larger image or just hunt this one down at a local comic book store. You can find yourself getting lost as your eyes gaze down a road winding into the background art (particularly on the cover for volume one).

The first 5-6 pages of each volume (along with the last few pages of story in vol. 2) are hand-shaded, either with watercolours or art markers (it's hard to say with black & white art)-- but either way, it's very nice. If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to be paying serious bank to some artists to do whole books in this style. The soft tones (without inks) provide an excellent introduction to both the main character and the overall mood of the books.

After the subtle, nuanced art of the first few pages, the rest of the book will be jarring, briefly, but even after switching to standard inks and tones, the artist is still doing some amazing things with the standard palette. The play of dappled light and shadow as sunlight is filtered through leaves; the background of trees, rocks, and water when two characters are sitting by the side of a creek; dynamic visual contrast on nearly every page--I don't know if the credit goes to Yoshizuki or to a phalanx of unnamed art assistants (heretofore unnamed; let's name 'em: Junji Ikeda, Makoto Koizume, Shin Hasegawa, & Takehiro Kotera) but you could use these books as examples in manga art classes. Yeah, it's still black and white art, but we're not missing a damn thing because of that.

So it's pretty. How's the story?

The anime of the same name is a slow, meandering story that seems to take 25 minutes to make a single plot point. (I saw the anime first) By contrast, and perhaps because this is just a 2 volume series, events in the manga move at a much brisker pace. After volume one, our heroine has not only taken on four cases, but the aftermath of that last case ends the book with a real dramatic punch.

Volume two steps away from outside events, and begins to wrap things up for all of our main characters. The drama is still there, but it is focused on the present-day consequences of things hidden in the main characters' back-stories. While the books reach a conclusion, we are also left with the distinct feeling that the characters are now moving forward. In some ways that's the best kind of ending, particularly when the main conflict is more psychological than physical.

We do get a little more, though: the end of volume two is padded out with a couple of cute stories about Yume and a friend of hers, a couple of light romances for the end of summer.

I've already said this series is one of my favourites; and between the art, the story, and the overall accessibility, this is one of very few manga that I can recommend to anyone without reservation. If you wanted proof that comics can be more than superheroes and formulaic monster-of-the-week plots; here ya go, have at it.