Quick GN Reviews

Small Gods, vol. 1: Killing Grin
by Jason Rand, Juan Ferreyra & Kristen Simon
Set in an alternate world where psionic powers exist--though there public acknowledgment is only about a decade old--Small Gods tells the story of Detective Owen Young, a cop with precognitive abilities that allow him to see crimes before they are actually committed. Although the basic premise is ripped straight out of a well-known Philip K. Dick story, Rand goes off in a completely different direction. He's more interested in telling a story along the lines of Homicide or Gotham Central than a scifi think piece. It's done to good effect, and the story is told complete in this volume (a nice bonus these days for collections of continuing series). I was completely unfamiliar with the creators involved before reading this, but they do a darn good job; the story is clearly told, and the black and white toned art, while ocasionally a bit inconsistant, is still attractive and appropriate. This one flew under my radar when it first debuted as a series, so I was glad to be able to pick it up in an affordable collected edition. If you like cop stories with a tinge of the speculative, you'll probably like Small Gods too.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)


Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq
by Mark Alan Stamaty
A graphic novella in the guise of a children's book, Alia's Mission is the story of an Iraqi librarian and her struggles to save the books of her library from the ravages of war. Avoiding the politics of the war itself (for the most part--though neither Saddam's troops nor the British army come off very well) Stamaty instead focuses on the true story of the heroism of Alia and the people she inspires to help her preserve the knowledge of her culture. It's not a deep story, and the art is mostly just functional, but it's always inspiring to see ordinary people pushed to extraordinary deeds and succeeding. Plus, how often to librarians get to be refered to as super-heroes? (Well, outside of the fictional Oracle...)
Rating: 3 (of 5)

Marvel's 'Wait for the Trade' List

A couple of weeks ago, Comics Continuum posted a listing of Marvel trades & collections for the second half of 2005. So if you're wondering what to buy now and what to wait to buy later in a bookshelf-friendly, ad-free edition, now you can make an informed decision.

A word of caution though: just because Marvel pre-announces a trade of something in this fashion, that doens't mean that the trade will actually materialize--witness the numerous Tsunami collections that never showed up. So if you really want to read something, you'll want to buy it in floppy form.

New This Week: June 8, 2005

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze, vol. 2: Sacrifice, the second collection of his retelling of the Trojan War, is now available in paperback. (I watched Troy on DVD this past weekend, and trust me when I say that Age of Bronze is much better.)


In other comics:

Amaze Ink has a new issue of Patty Cake and Friends (vol. 2 #14)

Antarctic has Fred Perry's new OGN, Peebomanga.

Archie has a new issue of Tania del Rio's Sabrina (#67).

DC has new issues of Action Comics (#828), Fables (#38), Gotham Central (#32), Majestic (#6), Rann/Thanagar War (#2), and Tom Strong (#33).

El Capitan has a new issue of David Lapham's Stray Bullets (#38).

Evil Twin has the Action Philosophers All Sex Special.

Fantagraphics debuts their new anthology, Bete Noir.

HK Comics has a 'revised and expanded' edition of the fourth volume of Andy Seto's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon adaptation.

IDW has a collection of Puffed.

Image releases a new issue of Age of Bronze (#20) as well; debuts Strange Girl and Ploog & DeMatteis' Stardust Kid; and the Negative Burn Winter 2005 finally shows up, now that it's June and 90 degrees ouside.

Marvel has the first issue of Gravity; the final issues of Mary Jane: Homecoming (#4) and District X (#14); new issues of New Thunderbolts (#9), The Pulse (#9), The Punisher (#22), Ultimate Spider-Man (#78), and Ultimate FF (#19); a third Ultimate Fantastic Four collection, N-Zone; and those of you who were waiting patiently for the trade of Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 can finally read it.

Pantheon has Dan Clowes' new OGN, Ice Haven (which I predict will sell much better in bookstores than in comic shops).

Shooting Star has the debut of Nick Landmine vs. The World Crime League (with no BB in sight!)


Once again there's plenty of stuff to but and read; when will the madness end?!

More on Harlequin Manga

Via the GNLIB list, there's a Website with sample pages from a few of the Japanese versions of various Harlequin comics at http://www.cuppacafe.com/comics/

It's all very, um, generic... The best of the lot is All Male (no, it's not a yaoi title...) which at least has some decent backgrounds in the establishing shots.

Quick Super-Hero Comic Reviews

The Incredible Hulk #82
by Peter David & Jae Lee
David kicks it old school, telling a done-in-one mystery in which Banner/Hulk tries to help the ghost of a sorceress determine who killed her before her spirit dissipates. It feels like old times--ina good way--and the story draws on Lee's strengths as an artist, providing lots of opportunity for spooky, moody drawing. Yes the end may be a bit too pat, but it's such a novelty these days to read a Marvel comic that brings closure at the end rather than serving as prologue to a long decompressed slow-moving tale.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Power Pack #3
by Marc Sumerak, Gurihiru, & Chris Eliopoulos
Those complaining about the lack of action in the previous issues of this mini will be pleased to know that there's plenty of action here, as the Pack family teams up with Marvel's first family, the Fantastic Four, to take on a bevy of Doom-bots while on a camping trip. Sumerak continues his accessible stories and spot-on characterization, and Gurihiru's art remains very attractive and looks like it jumped off of an animation cell and onto the page. It's good all-ages uper-hero family fun. The bonus story (that's 27 pages of story in all folks!) once again features young Franklin Richards messign around with one of his dad's inventions and continues the fun as well. I had high hopes for this latest Power Pack series, and so far Sumerak and company have lived up to those expections.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)


Superman/Batman #20
by Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines
It's the start of another story arc in Superman/Batman, and that means more incomprehensible stuff with alternate timeslines and people acting out of character for reason that hopefully may become clear before it is over. Supes and Bats seem somehow to have made their way to an analogue of Marvel's Ultimate universe where they face off against The Ultimates-lite. But the true joy in this comic comes from a seemingly unrelated section with Bizarro & Batzarro, where Loeb totally takes the piss out of his own pompous 'voice-ovr narration' style with Batzarro's narration; I chuckled big, so bonus points for that.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Firestorm #14
by Stuart Moore, Jamal Igle & Rob Stull
Stuart Moore comes aboard the title, and his first order of business is too smooth things out to give us a straightforward super-hero title. He ably sets the new status quo for Jason/Firestorm, moving him out of the house with a new job and preparing him to start college. In the span of one issue, Moore sets the stage for further adventures and throws in some action besides. The series is still set in Detroit, but it actually looks like one of the many non-descript suburbs, with 'Lowrence' University (actually Lawrence Tech) and Star Labe Detroit taking up space in a strip mall. The art from Igle & Stull is good too; not flashy and a bit stiff in the non-action scenes, but their Firestorm looks nuclear powerful.
Rating: 3 (of 5)

FCBM Wrap-Up

Free Comic Book Month here at YACB was a smashing success! I received 98 entires, and 50 of those people received free comic books. If I could have given everyone free comics I would have, but it was becoming a bit expensive: I spent $80.66 on postage, not to mention the costs of envelopes, bags & boards, etc. All told I probably spent around $100 on FCBM--but that's money well-spent if I was able to turn some people on to new comics!

I gave away a total of 121 comics; 50 of those were the Free Comic Book Day Edition of Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards, and the rest were other comics from my collection.

Some people wondered why I was giving away my comics. Was I crazy? Well yes, a little bit. Some of you may recall back in mid April I posted my little essay on Ranganathan & Comics. In that essay I said: "If I have 25,000 comics, it does no good to anyone to leave them locked up in my closet--they need to be set free!" So I decied to put up and give away some of them. Of course, 71 comics is just a drop in the bucket, but it's a start. Sure I suppose I could try selling them on eBay, but this results in slightly better karma :) (I've also been donating comics to the library these past few months.) It can be fun to give stuff away; I've been a member of Bookcrossing for a while now, leaving books around to be picked up and mailing off books to people who ask.

Plus, giving away comics is just fun. Matching people up with reading material is something at which I think I do a decent job, and it was fun trying to match people up with comics they might like based on the list of comics they gave me.

I also wanted to promote comics, and free comics is a good way to do that. That's why I decided to toss in copies Jim's Bone Sharps; the additional postage wasn't much to add them into the envelopes, and hopefully some of you will like it enough to get the full graphic novel when it comes out in August (it's in the current Previews--pre-order now!) More than one person has posted that they liked the free comic(s) I sent them and plan on looking for more of that title or by those creators, so by that measure it was a success too.

I also knew that May was going to be a somewhat-busier-than-normal month for me and that I wouldn't have time to do though-intensive posting like reviews and such; that's why regular content took a breather during May for the most part.

As suspected, traffic to this blog went up a bit suring FCBM, especially during the first half of the month. But I got kind of hard to measure the effects, as partway through the month librarian.net linked to my Ranganathan post and stats took a huge bump from that. But by the end of May my stats were back down to normal levels, and it was my non-FCBM posts that generated the most traffic; I guess that some of you got tired of seeing me give away comics to others. But as you can see, we're more-or-less back to normal around here.

It was interesting to see what comics people told me that they liked. I did some compiling, and here are the comics listed by all 98 of the entrants:

16 people: Y, the Last Man
12 people: Fables
11 people: Ex Machina; Planetary
9 people: Daredevil
8 people: Astonishing X-Men; Gotham Central; Hellboy; Sleeper
7 people: Runaways
6 people: Hellblazer; Sandman; The Invisibles
5 people: Birds of Prey; Powers; Supreme Power; The Walking Dead; X-Men
4 people: The Authority; Bone; Captain America; Girl Genius; Green Lantern; JSA; Legion of Super-Heroes; Queen & Country; Strangers in Paradise; Stray Bullets; Teen Titans; Tom Strong; Top Ten; Watchmen
3 people: Batman; Conan; Doom Patrol; Eightball; Flash; Love & Rockets; Madman; Marvel 1602; Promethea; Spider-Man; Starman; Street Angel; Superman; Swamp Thing; The Goon; Transmetropolitan; Ultimate X-Men; Ultimates
2 people: 100 Bullets; Amazing Spider-Man; Astro City; Blankets; Blue Monday; Cerebus; Concrete; Dr. Strange; Flaming Carrot; From Hell; Global Frequency; Green Arrow; Grendel; Hikaru-no Go; Invincible; JLA; Kabuki; Losers; Love Fights; Marshall Law; Milk & Cheese; Outsiders; Plastic Man; Preacher; PS 238; Ranma 1/2; Rex Mundi; Rom, Spacenight; Sandman Mystery Theatre; Scott Pilgrim; Seaguy; Seven Soldiers; Superman/Batman; The Maxx; True Story Swear to God; Ultimate Spider-Man; We3; Wonder Woman; Young Avengers

Plus another 159 titles chosen by one person each (too many to list!)

That should pretty much wrap things up. If you received free comics, and you haven't already done so, please make a comment on the post announcing your comics whether you liked them or not; the feedback will help me improve my recommendation skills.

Oh, and we're not done giving away free comics here on the blog; later this month I'll be announcing a new contest; not quite as large in scope, but still with a couple of pretty good prizes. Stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone who participated. I had fun, and I hope you did too.

Quick Shojo Reviews

Imadoki! Nowadays, vol. 2: Magnolia
by Yû Watase
After having been pleasantly surprised by volume 1 of Imadoki! I found myself a bit disappointed in this second volume. Gone for much of this volume is main character Tanpopo's positive and forthright attitude; instead she comes off as yet another shojo manga girl pining for a boy who is distant and unavailable. The gardening club also moves to the sidelines, becoming a weak excuse for character actions rather that a prime motivator or a strong metaphor. Near the end of the volume we start to get a glimpse of the return of the old Tanpopo, but it's a little too late to save the whole book. It remains to be seen which way the story will go, but I'm hoping that Watase again veers away from standard shojo tropes in future volumes. Of course, art-wise the book still looks fabulous.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Doubt!! vol. 1
by Kaneyoshi Izumi
We all know the story of the Ugly Duckling and how she turns into a beautiful swan, but what happens after the transformation? Ai Maekawa was a dweeb/geek/nerd (a 'Jimi') in junior high, but when the opportunity comes to attend a new high school where no one knows her, Ai transforms herself over the summer into one of the beautiful people. Of course she now thinks that life will be so much better at her new school, but she's in for a rude surprise: the boys treat her like an object rather than a person, the popular girls don't like the new competition, and the other girls are jealous. And inside of her new look is still the same insecure Jimi, now terrified that her 'shameful' past will be exposed. Creator Izumi treads a fine line in presenting Ai as likable even though she can be vain and oftentimes petty, but through the first volume at least she does a good job. Izumi keeps the story moving and the characters show signs of growth in character and personality. It remains to be seen if she can keep a level of interest going through multiple volumes, or if like so many shojo stories it starts to bog down in repetition. Izumi's art is attractive, with a smooth line that gives the story a nice feminine edge, and the storytelling moves things forward without confusion.
Rating: 3 (of 5)