One Piece: Dressrosa's Forgotten

I read One Piece, Vol. 72

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is asking for donations.  Follow me on Twitter.

2014 Harvey Award Winners Announced; "Saga" Leads the Awards Ceremony

Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples' "Saga" Leads the Evening with Four Wins

Comics professionals honor peers for comics and books published in 2013 at the Harvey Awards Banquet

Comic professionals came together Saturday night, September 6, 2014 at the 2014 Baltimore Comic-Con to honor their peers during the presentation of the 2014 Harvey Awards.

The awards are named in honor of cartoonist, comic book creator, editor, and publisher, the late Harvey Kurtzman.  According to its administrators, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding achievement in the field of comics, and is the only industry award both nominated and selected by comic professionals.  First awarded in 1988, it is one the industries oldest and most respected awards.

The 2014 Harvey Award winners:

Best Original Graphic Album:  THE FIFTH BEATLE: THE BRIAN EPSTEIN STORY, Dark Horse Comics

Best Continuing or Limited Series:  SAGA, Image Comics

Best Writer:  Brian K. Vaughan, SAGA, Image Comics

Best Artist:  Fiona Staples, SAGA, Image Comics

Best Cartoonist:  Paul Pope, BATTLING BOY, First Second

Best Single Issue or Story:  Pizza is my Business, HAWKEYE # 11, Marvel Comics

Best Letterer:  Terry Moore, RACHEL RISING, Abstract Studios

Best Colorist:  Dave Stewart, HELLBOY: THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS, Dark Horse Comics

Best Syndicated Strip or Panel:  DICK TRACY, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services

Best Online Comics Work:  BATTLEPUG, Mike Norton, http://www.battlepug.com/

Best American Edition of Foreign Material:  ATTACK ON TITAN, Kodansha

Best Inker:  Wade Von Grawbadger, ALL NEW X-MEN, Marvel Comics

Best New Series:  SEX CRIMINALS, Image Comics

Most Promising New Talent:  Chip Zdarsky, SEX CRIMINALS, Image Comics

Special Award for Humor in Comics:  Ryan North, ADVENTURE TIME, KaBOOM! Studios

Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers:  ADVENTURE TIME, KaBOOM! Studios

Best Graphic Album Previously Published:  MOUSE GUARD VOL. 3: THE BLACK AXE, BOOM! Studios/Archaia

Best Anthology:  DARK HORSE PRESENTS, Dark Horse

Best Domestic Reprint Project:  BEST OF COMIX BOOK: WHEN MARVEL COMICS WENT UNDERGROUND, Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Comics

Best Cover Artist:  Fiona Staples, SAGA, Image Comics

Best Biographical, Historical or Journalistic Presentation:  THE FIFTH BEATLE: THE BRIAN EPSTEIN STORY, Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson, and Kyle Baker, Dark Horse Comics

Special Award for Excellence in Presentation:  BEST OF COMIX BOOK: WHEN MARVEL COMICS WENT UNDERGROUND, John Lind, Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Comics

Harvey Kurtzman Hall of Fame Award: Charles M. Schulz

Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award: Stan Goldberg

Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award: Herb Trimpe

The Baltimore Comic will also host the Harvey Awards for the ninth year during the 16h annual show, taking place September 25-27, 2015.

-------------------------

Review: MIDNIGHT SECRETARY Volume 7

MIDNIGHT SECRETARY, VOL. 7
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Tomu Ohmi
TRANSLATION & ENGLISH ADAPTATION: JN Productions
LETTERS: Joanna Estep
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5950-6; paperback (September 2014); Rated “M” for “Mature”
192pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Midnights Secretary Volume 7 is the final volume of the series.  Created by Tomu Ohmi, Midnight Secretary focuses on a human female, Kaya Satozuka, and a vampire male,  Kyohei Tohma.

Kaya Satozuka prides herself on being an excellent secretary and a consummate professional at Tohma Corp., a tableware manufacturer.  When she was 22-years-old, Kaya was reassigned to the office of the company’s difficult Managing Director, Kyohei Tohma.  Kaya did not worry about her hard-to-please new boss; then, she discovered that Kyohei was a vampire.  Now, 23-years old, Kaya works full time at Lakes Venture Capital (LVC), a new investment company started by Kyohei.

As Midnight Secretary, Vol. 7 (Chapters 31 to 33 to Final Chapter) opens, Kyohei is banished from the vampire clan because he refuses to renounce his love for Kaya.  However, it is dangerous to be a lone vampire outside the clan, cut off from the vampires' power, influence, and protection.  He even loses access to blood substitutes.

Kaya is determined to support Kyohei through this difficult time, even if it means arranging “dinner dates” for him.  A “dinner date” is a woman who has sex with Kyohei and also gives him blood.  Can Kaya really accept that?  Will she be able to accept the big change in their relationship and an even bigger change in both their lives.

[This volume includes a bonus story, “Special Feature: Midnight Butler” and the extra, “Nekomata Today.”]

The Midnight Secretary manga is an intriguing shojo vampire manga, although it is also silly and playful, at times.  I will miss it, as it is ending sooner than I expected.  As this is the final volume of the series, creator Tomu Ohmi offers two big surprises and even a few small ones.  Some have been previously teased, and some are obvious, considering that this is a romance manga.  [Hint: think Twilight.]

At times, Midnight Secretary has been melodramatic, a bit dark, even edgy, and sometimes comedic.  This final volume is all sentiment and warm cocoa.  Ohmi leaves behind the potential of the series self-contained mythology and the intrigue presented by the internal and external politics of the vampire clan, especially where it concerns Kyohei.  Still, Midnight Secretary had some good moments, and while I doubt that it will be memorable, I can be an entertaining read.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Review: KILL MY MOTHER: A Graphic Novel

KILL MY MOTHER: A Graphic Novel
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY/Liveright – @wwnorton and @LiverightPub

CARTOONIST:  Jules Feiffer
ISBN: 978-0-87140-314-8; hardcover (August 25, 2014)
160pp, Color/2-Color, $27.95 U.S., $32.95 CAN

Born in 1929, Jules Feiffer won a 1961 Academy Award for his animated short film, Munro.  In 1969 and 1970, his plays, Little Murders and The White House Murder Case, each won Obie and Outer Circle Critics Awards.  Feiffer won the Pulitzer Prize for political cartoons in 1986.

Jules Feiffer is American author, playwright, screenwriter, and comics creator.  He is also a syndicated cartoonist and may be best known for his long-running comic strip, Feiffer, which ran for 42 years in The Village Voice.

Now, the former teenage assistant to comics legend, Will Eisner, has produced the first graphic novel of his long and distinguished career, entitled Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel.  This Film-Noir inspired comic book pays loving homage to the pulp-inspired films and comic strips that Feiffer loved as a youth, according to press material included with this original hardcover graphic novel's release.  Kill My Mother centers on five formidable women who are fatefully linked to a has-been, alcoholic, and lecherous private detective.

Kill My Mother opens in Bay City in the year 1933.  The story introduces Elsie Hannigan and her estranged teenaged daughter, Annie, who hates her mother.  Elsie is a widower, following the murder of her husband, Sam, a policeman.  Elsie's life is hectic and complicated.  Her boss is Neil Hammond, a hard-drinking, has-been private detective who takes shady jobs.

Hammond's most recent case arrives when a mystery woman, who identifies herself as Ruby Taylor, walks into the office, and asks Hammond to find Patricia Hughes.  This woman is a missing high school drama teacher with whom Ms. Taylor once had a close relationship.  Hammond knows that Taylor is lying about much (if not all) of what she tells him, but he takes the case anyway.  And he ends up murdered.

Ten years later, in 1943, Elsie is living in Hollywood.  She is the Executive Vice President of the Department of Image Security and Maintenance at Pinnacle Studios.  Basically, Elsie does damage control for the studio's movie stars.

Meanwhile, her daughter is now Ann Hannigan, and she is the single-mother of a young son, Sammy Hannigan.  Ann is also the creator and writer of the popular radio show, “Shut up, Artie.”  Of course, the series is based on her ex-boyfriend, Artie, but there is a problem with the wildly popular series.  America is at war, and Annie's former teen punching bag in no longer known as “Artie.”  He is now Captain Arthur Fulsom of the United States Marines, and he is a decorated World War II hero who is still fighting in the Pacific theater and who does not like the show.

Both mother and daughter discover that their pasts and their current jobs are about to clash in unexpected ways.  People from their respective and shared pasts either reemerge with new identities or with their true identities revealed.  Also, Elsie may be finally able to uncover a murderer.  This is all headed for an explosive conclusion that begins on the island of Tarawa, where war rages.

To be honest, the first time I tried to read Kill My Mother, I stopped after a few pages.  I avoided the galley/review copy that the publisher (Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company) sent me.  I finally forced myself to read Kill My Mother, although I did not think that it would amount to very much.

Dear readers, you humble and favorite comic book reviewer was so wrong.  In the fourth chapter of this comic book, the first femme fatale enters the story, and Kill My Mother explodes.  From that point on, I tore through the story.  I didn't want it to end.  I am attracted to this comic book because of its Film-Noir and detective fiction influences.  At the beginning the book, Feiffer dedicates Kill My Mother to detective and crime fiction legends, including Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.  He acknowledges Film-Noir and crime film masters, such as John Huston and Howard Hawks, among others.  One might even call Kill My Mother the first Turner Classic Movies (TCM) graphic novel.

I think the biggest influence on Kill My Mother is the late Will Eisner, for whom Feiffer once worked.  In the way the story is executed and the way that the narrative unfolds, Kill My Mother is like a Will Eisner graphic novel.  The characters:  their personalities, the way they act, and their motivations make me think of the kind of characters found in Will Eisner's melodramas like A Contract with God and A Life Force, among others.

Feiffer makes this work distinctly his own through his dazzling graphical storytelling.  His compositions give life to static images.  The cartooning of the human figure makes emotion and motion a tangible thing; motivation and conflict are genuine.  Reading the storytelling that Feiffer tells though drawings and word balloons is also an adventure in plot twists.  You will likely not see some of what is coming, but you will want to see it.

Kill My Mother cannot quite be called “beginner's luck,” as this is not Feiffer's first experience with the comics medium.  However, his first graphic novel makes me want more from him.  Readers looking for comic books worth reading will want Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Gangsta: Boyhood

I read Gangsta., Vol. 3

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin, which is seeking donations.  Follow me on Twitter.

I Reads You Review: SCOOBY-DOO, Where Are You? #48

SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? #48
DC COMICS – @DCComics

STORY: Scott Neely, John Rozum
PENCILS: Scott Neely, Leo Batic
INKS: Scott Neely, Horacio Ottolini
COLORS: Candace Schinzler-Bell, Heroic Age
LETTERS: Saida Temofonte; Nick J. Napolitano
EDITOR: Aniz Ansari
COVER: Scott Neely and Candace Schinzler-Bell
28pp, Color, $2.99 U.S. (September 2014)

Rated “E” for “Everyone”

I recently received another issue in my Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? subscription.  As regular readers of this blog know, I bought the subscription via a fundraiser held by my nephew’s school last year, which involved selling magazine subscriptions.  [It's time to renew my Scooby subscription, by the way.]

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? #48 opens with “Tiki Taboo Trouble” (written and drawn by Scott Neely).  Scooby-Doo and Shaggy are cleaning out the garage to find items they can sell at a neighborhood garage sale.  The garage looks like something from a television show about hoarders.  They find lots of stuff, including the Mystery Inc. Archives.  They even find a tiki from one of their mysteries, “The Case of the Night Marchers.”  Shaggy not only decides to keep the small wooden idol, but he also puts it on a chain around his neck.  Is he asking for trouble and bad luck?

“A Wolf in Creep’s Clothing” (written by John Rozum and drawn by Leo Batic and Horacio Ottolini) finds the gang at a monster convention, “Monster Mix 2004.”  This is the one place where Shaggy and Scooby can feel safe around monsters, because these monsters are only fans in costumes.  However, the ghost of Patricia Millicent, the late, famed movie monster costume designer, is terrorizing the contestants of the convention’s costume contest.  And Shag and Scoob have to solve this mystery on their own, as Fred, Daphne, and Velma are trapped on a convention panel.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? #48 is the first Scooby-Doo comic book that I have read in which the story depicts domestic harmony for Mystery Inc.  Cleaning up the clutter, garage sales, and running errands:  for a Scooby-Doo fanboy like me, this “home front” story is a nice change of pace.

Meanwhile, “A Wolf in Creep’s Clothing.” this issue's reprint story (originally published in Scooby-Doo #92), has already been recently reprinted in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? #46.  That must be an editorial glitch, but it is a good story.

B-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for September 3, 2014

DC COMICS

MAY140310     ACTION COMICS FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140311     ACTION COMICS FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
MAY140286     AQUAMAN FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140287     AQUAMAN FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
JUL140223     BATMAN 66 MEETS GREEN HORNET #4     $2.99
JUL140234     BATMAN ESSENTIALS BATMAN & SON SPEC ED #1     $1.00
JUL140210     BATMAN ETERNAL #22     $2.99
MAY140326     BATWING FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140327     BATWING FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
JUN140271     BATWOMAN TP VOL 04 THIS BLOOD IS THICK (N52)     $14.99
MAY140320     DETECTIVE COMICS FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140321     DETECTIVE COMICS FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
MAY140290     EARTH 2 FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140291     EARTH 2 FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
JUL140277     FAIREST #29 (MR)     $2.99
MAY140364     FOREVER EVIL HC (N52)     $24.99
MAY140270     GRAYSON FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140271     GRAYSON FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
MAY140292     GREEN ARROW FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140293     GREEN ARROW FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
MAY140340     GREEN LANTERN FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140341     GREEN LANTERN FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
JUL140280     HINTERKIND #11 (MR)     $2.99
JUN140281     JLA EARTH 2 TP NEW ED     $14.99
MAY140177     JUSTICE LEAGUE #33     $3.99
MAY140180     JUSTICE LEAGUE #33 COMBO PACK     $4.99
JUN140275     MARTIAN MANHUNTER RINGS OF SATURN TP     $19.99
MAY140410     MR PUNCH 20TH ANNIVERSARY ED HC (MR)     $34.99
JUL140266     NAMES #1 (MR)     $2.99
JUL140206     NEW 52 FUTURES END #18 (WEEKLY)     $2.99
JUL140265     SCOOBY DOO TEAM UP #6     $2.99
MAY140348     SWAMP THING FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140349     SWAMP THING FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99
JUL140262     TINY TITANS RETURN TO THE TREEHOUSE #4     $2.99
MAY140300     TRINITY OF SIN PHANTOM STRANGER FUTURES END #1     $3.99
MAY140301     TRINITY OF SIN PHANTOM STRANGER FUTURES END #1 STANDARD ED     $2.99

DC COMICS/DC COLLECTIBLES

MAR140313     DC COMICS SUPER VILLAINS POKER SET     $99.95