Using the Library for your Manga Fix

Over on Animefringe, Shannon Fay has written an article for manga and anime fans on how to use your local public library to read manga and view anime: "Club Scene: Library Carded":

What kind of manga will the library have, if it does have any? Don't expect anything released last week. Although it will be unlikely that the library will have any hot new series, it may have classic titles anywhere from a few years to a decade old. If you ever wanted to read some of VIZ Media's older series, such as Sanctuary, or other titles from their Pulp line, but you weren't willing to shell out $19.99 for a manga, the library may be able to help you out. It also may have a few out of print or rare series that you can borrow as well.

She goes on to talk about how to use the library's online catalog to get on the hold list for titles that are checked out, and how to encourage your library to but more manga and anime. About the only thing she leaves out is how to use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to get things that your library doesn't own from other libraries that do.

New Library Comics: Week of August 22, 2005

Here are the comics we got in for our library collection last week:


Break 21 : International Festival of Young Independent Artists (2001 : Ljubljana) Break comics through art /Ljubljana : Studentski Kulturni Center, 2001.

Crumb, R. Robert Crumb : yeah, but is it art? : Museum Ludwig, Koln /Koln : Konig, c2004.

Hernandez, Jaime. Whoa, Nellie! /Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, 2000.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

Today's cover is Superman #324, from June 1978. The cover by Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano features the origin of Titano, the giant ape who shoots deadly beams of Kryptoniite from his eyes. Beams of Kryptonite. From his eyes. A giant ape. Man, that's just beautiful. This same comic story (writeen by Martin Pasko) also features the Atomic Skull, and the Supermobile. That's right, the Supermobile. This surely must be one of the greatest comics of all time!

(standard disclaimer about apes not really being monkeys applies)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Unshelved Book Club

While Unshelved, the best online comic strip about libraries ever, has always had strips on Sundays, they've just recently taken to having over-sized color strips. Featuring the Unshelved Book Club, these strips have Dewey, teh young adult librarian, giving a book talk in his own inimitable fashion. Last week was Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, and today is Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

This Week on YAMB

This week on Yet Another Media Blog:

Yes, I changed the name to Yet Another Media Blog, to reflect a broadening of the scope. In addition to music, I may talk about television, movies, books, games, etc.

First off in the new blog I discussed this week's Celebrity Poker Showdown.

The new program on Yet Another Music Radio is Country Women of the 90s, featuring over 3 hours of music from female country singers from the previous decade.

(A reminder to those of you who joined Yet Another Fantasy League that we'll be having the autodraft on Monday, so be sure to rank your pre-draft selections this weekend.)

Infantino & Toth

Over in this thread on the TCJ message boards someone has posted scans of a short story from a 70's-era Creepy magazine. The story is a triffle, totally ripping off an old Twilight Zone, but the art, by Carmine Infantino & Alex Toth, is just amazing. Toth's inks are rather overwhelming, but it really works. I'm reminded of how great these old masters were, and how much better a lot of the stuff from that era looks in black and white, instead of suffering under the horrible coloring technology of the day.

(link via Adam on Completely Futile)

Review: Para Para

Para Para
by Andy Seto
ComicsOne, $13.95


With Para Para, crator Andy Seto has now firmly established himself on my list of favorite artists.

I have previously praised Seto's abilities to represent the furious motion of cinematic martial arts on the static printed page in his adaptation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In Para Para, he goes one step further by representing a singing and dancing movie musical so effectvely you can practically hear the music swelling and see the characters dancing.

The story in Para Para is a variation on the classic Romeo and Juliet story (in fact, several of the secondary characters in the comic comment on the resemblance), as rich girl Yuki falls for gangster Dennis. their romance swirls around Para Para, a dance craze that is also one of those electronic dancing arcade games. It's a story that's complete in this one volume, which doesn't give a lot of time to explore the characters in depth. But that's fine, as the real purpose of the plot is to give the characters an excuse to break out in song and/or dance at various opportunities.

It's the song and dance sections that give Para Para its strength. Seto is at the very top of his game here. Witness the opening scene: as autumn leaves fall, we see various young people milling about, with close-ups of the Para Para logo on their clothing. The word 'Dance' appears as a bright red sound effect. There's a voice-over going on, which we realize is probably meant to be song lyrics, and the 'camera' focuses on one of these young people, identified as Dennnis Lingmu, obviously caught up in the music and dancing. The camera then pulls back, and we see a chorus of dancers has formed behind Dennis ina two-page spread. Turn the page, and in another two-page spread the camera has pulled back further: we see that the dancers are in a large courtyard, with a large office building on one sid, an elevated train track on the other, a city and mountains in the background, and a large clocktower in the the foreground on the right chiming away. Turn the page again and Dennis's song concludes over the image of orange leaves falling against a stark white background. The title Para Para floats over the leaves, while a giant leaf in the bottom right is superimposed with the face of Yuki, her eyes pensively looking to the right and up, leading us visually to the top of the next page, where the next scene fades in with Yuki at swimming practice.

It's a stunning scene, expertly rendered. And there are several more just like it throughout. The scene where Yuki and Dennis first meet is on a rainy Hong Kong street: the color has been completely leached out of the background, leaving it in stark black and white, while Yuki and Dennis appear in color, and Yuiki has one of those soul-bearing songs that seem to happen frequently in musicals. Of course, this being a dance musical, there are a couple of dance contests, which Seto depicts such that you can practically feel the rhythm of the music as you watch the characters move across the pages.

Yes, the plot isn't terribly deep and the emotion sometimes runs to hysteric heights, but this is a musical created for the comics page. Para Para wins in presenting a dynamic example of comics artistry and, despite the tragic ending (it is loosely based on Romeo & Juliet after all) is still a joyful comics experience.

Rating: 4 (of 5)