Review: STAR WARS: Legacy Volume 2 #3

STAR WARS: LEGACY VOLUME 2 #3
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

["Star Wars Central" review page is here.]

SCRIPT: Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman
ART: Gabriel Hardman
COLORS: Rachelle Rosenberg
LETTERS: Michael Heisler
COVER: Dave Wilkins
EDITOR: Randy Stradley
28pp, Color, $2.99 U.S. (May 2013)

Prisoner of the Floating World Part Three

Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 is a new Star Wars comic book series from Dark Horse Comics and writer Corrina Bechko and writer-artist Gabriel Hardman. The events depicted in this Star Wars comic book take place “approximately 138 years after the events in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.”

Legacy Volume 2 focuses on the character, Ania Solo, the great-great granddaughter of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo. Young Miss Solo, the owner of a junkyard, is on the run after inadvertently stumbling onto a conspiracy involving the Carreras System. It begins when she finds a lost lightsaber.

As Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 #3 opens, young Imperial Knight, Jao Assam, is deep inside the Surd Nebula, as he continues his search for Imperial Knight Yalta Val. Elsewhere, in the Carreras System, Ania and her friend, Sauk (a refugee from Mon Calamari), and the assassin droid, AG-37, are aboard the droid’s ship, trying to escape pursuing snub fighters.

Meanwhile, the Sith continue to manipulate the construction of a communications array in the Surd Nebula. Perhaps, Jao Assam and Solo and company need to find common ground… or space.

Brian Wood and Carlos D’Anda’s new eponymous Star Wars comic book series recalls both the original Star Wars films and Marvel Comics’ Star Wars comic book series (1970s-80s). It is about re-imagining classic Star Wars. The second new Star Wars comic book series, Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin, is fun just because it puts Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine in mortal danger.

Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 is as “real Star Wars” as a Star Wars comic book can get, as far as I’m concerned. Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 artists, penciller-inker Gabriel Hardman and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, are doing their best impersonation of Al Williamson, a quintessential Star Wars comic book and comic strip artist, without it being a mere copy or pastiche. So, when I read this well-written series, I look at Hardman and Rosenberg’s art and think that I’m seeing Star Wars personally guided by George Lucas and Al Williamson, even if Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 really isn’t.

Anyone who reads Star Wars comic books must read Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Jormungand: The Final Volume

I read Jormungand, Vol. 11

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.

Review: AKANEIRO #1

AKANEIRO #1
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

STORY: Justin Aclin
ART: Vasilis Lolos
COLORS: Michael Atiyeh
LETTERS: Michael Heisler
COVER: Shu Yan
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (May 2013)

“The Path of Cloak and Wolf” Part 1 of 3

American McGee is a game designer perhaps best known as the designer of American McGee's Alice and for Spicy Horse, his Shanghai-based independent video game developer. McGee and Spicy Horse’s latest game is Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, a re-envisioning of Red Riding Hood set in the world of Japanese folklore.

Dark Horse Comics is producing a comic book adaptation of Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, entitled Akaneiro. The series is written by Justin Aclin and drawn by Vasilis Lolos.

Akaneiro #1 opens on Yomi Island, the home of the Ainu people, who were the first to settle Nippon. The island is beset by yokai, who will destroy humanity if too many enter the world. The Red Hunters of the Order of Akane hunt and kill yokai, maintaining a balance, but the Ainu and Red Hunters, at best, only tolerate each other.

Kani is a half-Ainu girl (on her late mother’s side) who lives with her father, a shabby ronin. Her lineage makes her an outcast to the Ainu, but an Ainu ceremony, the Iomante, will change Kani’s life.

I can’t tell how much Little Red Riding Hood is in Akaneiro, but the influences of feudal Japan-set fiction, as well as Japanese folklore and mythology are clear. Honestly, I did not find Akaneiro interesting at first, but once Kani begins her journey, the story takes a nice, wicked turn. At that turning point, it seems as if the Japanese folklore aspect lessens. Now, Akaneiro has a Sam Raimi-Army of Darkness vibe.

Two things to keep me coming back are, first, artist Vasilis Lolos’ peculiar, but compelling drawing style. The second thing is that the part of the story that begins in the last seven pages is just too good to be left hanging.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Cemetery Dance Announces Stephen King's "The Dark Man"

From Cemetery Dance:

Cemetery Dance Publications is pleased to announce our World's First Hardcover Edition of THE DARK MAN by Stephen King, which will be available in bookstores and libraries across America on July 30th.

The Dark Man has never seen the light of day beyond a few hardcore collectors of King's college work, but many people consider it to be a prequel to King's epic end of the world novel, THE STAND, because it stars the first appearance of Randall Flagg, one of King's greatest villains.

This is a unique addition to the King canon, an eighty-eight page poem featuring extraordinarily detailed Glenn Chadbourne artwork on every page. We've taken this breathtaking poem and worked closely with acclaimed artist Chadbourne to bring King's chilling words to life in a unique way.

There was a very specific rhythm to the poem that we wanted to convey through the blending of the text and the artwork, and Chadbourne skillfully used his illustrations to create a new kind of mixed media story.

Feedback from early readers has been fantastic, with some saying they never expected a poem to make their heart race with terror and horror the way the ending of The Dark Man does.

We hope you enjoy this experimental project and we appreciate your consideration of this title.

Title: The Dark Man
Author: Stephen King
Artist: Glenn Chadbourne
Page Count: 88
Pub. Date: July 30, 2013
Trade Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-58767-421-1
Trade Hardcover Price: $25
Slipcased Trade Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-58767-425-9
Slipcased Trade Hardcover Price: $49.95

You can view the covers for our various editions and read more on our website: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/king08

Please contact me if you have any questions or need more information. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
Managing Editor

Cemetery Dance Publications
132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7
Forest Hill, MD 21050

410-588-5901 [phone]
410-588-5904 [fax]

http://www.cemeterydance.com

Review: SUNNY Volume 1

SUNNY, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Taiyo Matsumoto
TRANSLATION: Michael Arias
LETTERS: Deron Bennett
ISBN: 978-1-4215-3448-0; hardcover (May 2013); Rated “T” for Teen is recommended for ages 13 and up
224pp, B&W, $22.99 US, $26.99 CAN

Taiyo Matsumoto is a manga creator best known for his manga, Tekkonkinkreet, which was made into an animated film in 2006. VIZ Media’s English-language publication of Tekkonkinkreet won Matsumoto an Eisner Award. He also created the series the manga, GoGo Monster.

Matsumoto’s new series, Sunny, began publication in the Japanese manga magazines, IKKI, in February 2011. Sunny is set at Star Kids Home, an orphanage. There, a car called “Sunny” is a place where the children find solace.

Sunny, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 6) introduces readers to Star Kids Home, a home for orphans and foster children. Another resident of this Japanese orphanage is the Sunny 1200, a dilapidated old Nissan car that sits abandoned in the orphanage’s garden. The children call the old car “Sunny,” and it is off-limits to adults. Sunny is something of a clubhouse for the kids, because it is the place where they can escape their everyday lives, daydream, think, hangout, and talk.

I’ll start my review with this recollection. Many years ago, I read a review/essay about the late comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, in which the review’s author praised cartoonist Bill Watterson for creating a “real kid” in Calvin. The author did his praising of the strip by criticizing “the Cosby kids” of The Cosby Show (1984 to 1992), the long-running NBC situation comedy starring Bill Cosby.

The author of the review/essay said (not exact words) that the Cosby kids weren’t real because of the way they acted. Back then, I figured the author did not know many upper-middle class African-American families – if he knew any at all. Maybe, if Theo Huxtable busted a cap in an ass or impregnated his fine-ass sister, Denise, then, the Cosby kids would have seemed more “real” to the review/essay author.

I don’t how many people will see the fictional children that Taiyo Matsumoto created for Sunny as real. At least at this point in the series, he hasn’t given each character a grocery list of quirks, motivations, and conflicts to prove to people that he can create “well-developed” or real characters.

Matsumoto simply makes the children seem authentic by their actions. The children of Star Kids Home (a great name, by the way) are seekers of knowledge, explorers of the ways of the world, and investigators of what drives people to do what they do. Sunny is poignant, but it is not really about a happy/sad or good/bad dynamic. Instead, Matsumoto has created manga with a sense of wonder and curiosity about the way the world is.

So are the children in Sunny real or real-like? I don’t know, but I do know that Sunny is the real deal in great comics.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for May 22 2013

DC COMICS

MAR130246 ALL STAR WESTERN #20 $3.99

MAR130177 AQUAMAN #20 $2.99

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MAR130179 FLASH #20 $2.99

MAR130183 FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #20 $2.99

MAR130224 GREEN LANTERN #20 (WRATH) (NOTE PRICE) $7.99

MAR130226 GREEN LANTERN #20 COMBO PACK (WRATH) (NOTE PRICE) $8.99

MAR130229 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #20 (WRATH) $2.99

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MAR130231 RED LANTERNS #20 (WRATH) $2.99

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