Monkey Covers

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

Detective Chimp is on the case on the cover of this week's Shadowpact #18 by Tom Derenick & Wayne Faucher.

(Standard disclaimer about magnifying glass-using chimpanzees not really being monkeys applies.)

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

Review: Old Boy vol. 1

Old Boy vol. 1
by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi
Dark Horse, $12.95

Old Boy is pretty much what I'm looking for in a seinen manga. The story is straighforward: an unnamed man, having been held captive for ten years, is released onto the streets of Tokyo. Not knowing why he was a captive or who arranged his captivity, he starts to put a life together with the aim of the one thing he has left: revenge. There's not much of the 'revenge' component yet, as this first volume is mostly set-up; but this is obviously a slow build story and the revenge will surely be that much sweeter when it arrives.

While I hold out to see if Tsuchiya's story will pay off, I can definitely recommend the art by Minegishi. In layout and pacing it compares favorably to Goseki Ikegami; he is able to use an eleven-panel page to give a simultaneous sense of timelessness and time passing, or break out a two-page spread at the moment of maximum impact. The backgrounds are often detailed to the point of gorgeousness and the figures are expressive without veering into cartoonishness.

If future volumes can hold up the level of quality and move the story forward, Old Boy should make for a worthwhile ride over its eight volumes.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5).

NaGraNoWriMo?

Last year I participated in NaNoWriMo--kinda--by starting NaGraNoWriMo (National Graphic Novel Writing Month). The concept was to write the script for a 175-page graphic novel during the month of November. Four people participated, but I believe only one of us was successful (not me--I only got about 30 pages of script written).

I'm considering trying again, though I haven't decided yet. I have a concept in mind, it's just whether or not I'll have the time. But since November is just a week away, I guess I'll have to make up my mind soon...

Anyway, if you're interested in giving it a go, let me know and I'll add you to the group blog so that you can share in the joy.

New This Week: October 24, 2007

What looks good at the comic shop this week?


The first collection of Buffy season 8, The Long Way Home, was supposed to hit stores last week, but looks like it'll be arriving this week instead. I'm sure all hardcore Buffy fans already picked up the floppies, but you'll surely want a sturdy trade collection to put on your shelf and loan to all your friends, right?

(What did arrive last week, and I missed it in the NTW write-up, was Jason Shiga's Bookhunter, which so far is my favorite graphic novel of the year. It's a procedural set in a library in a slightly alternate 70s. If you've read anything by Shiga before you know you'll want to read it; if you've never read anything of his, Bookhunter is a great place to start.)

She-Hulk fans get a double dose this week, with the fifth trade collection, World Without a Hulk, collecting the end of Dan Slott's run as writer, and issue #22 featuring Peter David's debut.

Also in trade collection this week is the second Jack of Fables volume; IIRC it features more of the sexy evil librarians, which makes it worth picking up right there.

Floppy-wise you might enjoy the Gold Digger Halloween Special 2007, a new issue of Casanova (#10), the second issue of Andi Watson's Glister, or a new issue of X-Men First Class (#5). (And you might overlook Velocity: Pilot Season #1, but it has art by Kevin Maguire so that's likely worth a look.)


Enjoy your new comics!

From Atoms to Bytes

Johanna brings word that two fun comics (both with varying degrees of manga influences) are now online: Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check by Rosearik Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons is up in its entirety; and Little White Mouse by Paul Sizer is going up at the rate of three pages per week.

This seems to be a growing trend, with cartoonists repurposing their old print works to the Web. While I still prefer the dead tree mode of experiencing long-form comics, I definitely like the idea of these works finding a new audience online.

Lolthulhu

Because you probably need a laugh on a Tuesday morning:



Plenty more at LOLTHULHU.

(found via Daily Illuminator)

New Library Comics: Week of October 15, 2007

Here's a list of the comics that were added to our library collection last week:


Powell, Nate. Sounds of your name / Portland, OR : Microcosm Publishing, 2006.

Sala, Richard. Delphine no. 2 / Seattle : Fantagraphics Books ; [Bologna, Italy] : Coconio Press, 2006-

Stan Lee : conversations. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

Tomorrow, Tom, 1961- Hell in a handbasket : dispatches from the country formerly known as America / New York : J.P. Tarcher/Penguin, c2006.


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