Hayate the Combat Butler: Murasaki Mansion

I read Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 25

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

I Reads You Review: BATGIRL #35

BATGIRL #35
DC COMICS – @DCComics

STORY: Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher – @cameronMstewart @BrendenFletcher
ART: Babs Tarr – @babsdraws
BREAKDOWNS: Cameron Stewart
COLORS: Maris Wicks
LETTERS: Jared K. Fletcher
COVER: Cameron Stewart
VARIANT COVERS: Babs Tarr; Kevin Nowlan
28pp, Color, $2.99 U.S. (December 2014)

Rated “T” for “Teen”

“Burned”

Of the many incarnations of the character, Batgirl, the best known and most popular is Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.  Barbara is the daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, and she first appeared in 1966, introduced in Detective Comics #359 (entitled “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl”) in a story written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Carmine Infantino.

DC Comics recently launched a new era of Batgirl-Barbara Gordon with the creative team of writers Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher, artist Babs Tarr, colorist Maris Wicks, and letterer Jared K. Fletcher.  From the start, this looks like its going to be an exciting and invigorating new era.

Batgirl #35 (“Burned”) opens as Barbara moves to the other side of the bridge from Gotham City to the hip Gotham borough, Burnside.  She has a new roommate, Frankie, and is continuing to work on her graduate degree.  This should be a fresh start, but trouble rears its ugly head.  All around her, laptops and hand-held devices are disappearing, including her own.  Plus, Barbara's former bestie, Dinah Lance/Black Canary, has shown up on her new doorstep.  Then, there's Riot Black.

It is hard not to like the spiffy new Batgirl, and I didn't resist.  Like recent Batman-related launches, Grayson and Gotham Academy, Batgirl is mostly free from being connected to continuity.  The new-direction Batgirl is not quite a Batman version of the classic 1960s sitcom, “That Girl.”  Still, Batgirl looks as if it will focus on the life of a young woman who is on the cusp of adulthood while still preparing for it.

I am enamored with Babs Tarr's art, with its Darwyn Cooke's inflection.  I also thought of Jaime Hernandez's Locas stories enjoying the art.  Being similar to Cooke and Xaime are good things, as far as I'm concerned, so I plan on reading more of this new-era Batgirl.

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Magi: Trouble in Zagan

I read Magi, Vol. 10: The Labyrinth of Magic

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

Read Webcomic Grumble: Chapter One - Page 20

Page 20 is here: http://www.comicbookbin.com/grumbleone020.html

I Reads You Review: NARUTO Volume 67

NARUTO, VOL. 67

Creators: Masashi Kishimoto; Mari Morimoto (Translator), John Hunt (Lettering)
Publishing Information: VIZ Media (@VIZMedia); 192 pages, $9.99 (US), $12.99 (CAN), £6.99 U.K.
Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-4215-7384-7 (ISBN), paperback (October 2014)

Rated: “T” for “Teen”

The star of the manga, Naruto, is Uzumaki Naruto.  He was a young shinobi (ninja) with a knack for mischief, and he was the biggest troublemaker at the Ninja Academy in the shinobi Village of Konohagakure.  However, Naruto was also two things:  special and an outcast.  When he was a baby, his parents (father Minato and mother Kushina) imprisoned a nine-tailed fox spirit (Kurama) inside his infant body.  Now, 16-years-old and incorrigible as ever, Naruto is still serious about his quest to become the world’s greatest ninja.

Guided by their secret ally, Uchiha Obito, Akatsuki villains Uchiha Madara and Kabuto declare war on the Five Great Nations of the ninja.  This begins the Fourth Great Ninja War, and the five great shinobi leaders, known as the Gokage, form the Allied Shinobi Forces to fight this war.  Obito and Madara's goal is to revive the monstrous tailed-beast, Ten Tails, but Obito has even more diabolical plans.

As Naruto, Vol. 67 (entitled An Opening – Chapters 638 to 647) begins, Obito reveals himself.  He absorbed Ten Tails into himself and is now the ultimate jinchuriki.  Not waiting, the Lords Hokage attack, and are met by Obito's awesome new powers.  A power that can stop Obito-Ten Tails and save them is discovered.  They will need it, as Ten Tails reaches his final form, the Divine Tree.  Learn how that development reveals the origins of the shinobi (ninja).

After an almost 11-month hiatus from reading the Naruto manga, I read two in three weeks.  And I want more.  Naruto is my favorite comic, and I think that it is currently among the world's best comics.  Creator Masashi Kishimoto has a way of usually offering surprises in Naruto – from new characters to sudden reveals.  Naruto Volume 67 presents a history of the ninja that is practically a throwaway item, but it would make a good story arc by itself.  Kishimoto is stretching out this battle with Obito, but that does not read as a stunt.  This Ten Tails battle is simply too good to end.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: WELCOME TO BRAGGSVILLE

WELCOME TO BRAGGSVILLE
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins @WmMorrowBks

AUTHOR: T. Geronimo Johnson
ISBN: 978-0-06-237763-0; hardcover (February 17, 2015)
384pp, B&W, $25.99 U.S.

An slightly different version of this review appeared at the website, ComicBookBin.

Welcome to Braggsville is a 2015 novel from author T. Geronimo Johnson.  A PEN/Faulkner finalist, Johnson is the acclaimed African-American author of the novel, Hold It 'Til It Hurts.  Welcome to Braggsville focuses on four college students, their plan to stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment, and the resulting fallout.

Welcome to Braggsville, Georgia – population 712.  For the better part of two centuries, Braggsville's denizens have called it “The City That Love Built in the Heart of Georgia.”  D'aron Little May Davenport is a son of Braggsville, and his name, “D'aron” is really Irish and is pronounced like “Daron,” or so say his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Davenport.

D'aron is currently attending the University of California-Berkeley, better known simply as “Berkeley.”  Although he had few close friends in Braggsville, D'aron has found three kindred spirits in college.  There is Louis Chang a/k/a “Loose Chang, who is Malaysian, but tells people that he is Chinese.  A jokester, Louis wants to be a stand-up comic –  the “Lenny Bruce Lee” of comedy.

Next, there is Charles “Charlie” Roger Cole, the former football star and Black friend from Chicago.  Like the former Senator Barack Obama, Charlie is “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”  Finally, there is Candice Marianne Chelsea, an Iowa blonde who claims Native American roots.  D'aron is in love with her, but so are Louis and Charlie – maybe.  This quartet comes together as the “4 Little Indians.”

One day, in alternative history class, D'aron lets slip loose that Braggsville hosts an annual Civil War reenactment that has recently been re-branded as “Patriot Days.”  Candice suggests that the 4 Little Indians travel to Braggsville and crash Patriot Days in an act of “performative intervention.”  The journey to Braggsville provides plenty to laugh at, but things turn decidedly unfunny.

William Morrow sent me an advance reader's edition of Welcome to Braggsville.  In a letter posted on the very first page of the book, Jessica Williams, the editor of this novel, describes it as “Alternatively poignant and provocative, hilarious and devastating...”  Yes, yes, yes, and yes; Welcome to Braggsville is all that.  Williams says that this novel is “a brave and necessary portrait of contemporary America....”  That's sho-nuff true.

You see, Welcome to Braggsville is not really like many novels that fill bestseller lists and store bookshelves.  It's plot might seem simple – kids protest a Southern Civil War reenactment.  However, that truly only scratches the surface of this ambitious novel that plumbs the depths of both the human heart and the troubled racial and racist history of the United States.  There are probably potboiler novels that can be described similar to this:  say something like:  star police detective tracks a mysterious new spree killer whose crimes are uncannily similar to murders committed by the Ku Klux Klan a century ago!  But Welcome to Braggsville is not about plot.

At its center, Welcome to Braggsville tackles an act that may be racist or have racial overtones.  This complex, messy, and beautiful novel is both surprisingly readable and stubbornly difficult.  T. Geronimo Johnson digs into the lies and deceit about racism, discrimination, exploitation, and even about America's most recent imperialist adventures.  He deconstructs it all and tries to get at the human heart of the matter.  Perhaps, that is where the answers and solutions are – in the yearning, confused, and troubled human heart.  This is the kind of novel that is both a necessary read and a good read.  Welcome to Braggsville is the modern satirical novel, but its pedigree is Southern-fried and Southern Gothic.  We need more fiction like this.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for March 11, 2015

DC COMICS

JAN150291     ACTION COMICS #40     $3.99
JAN150355     ARROW SEASON 2.5 #6     $2.99
JAN150398     ASTRO CITY #21     $3.99
NOV140331     ASTRO CITY PRIVATE LIVES HC     $24.99
DEC140407     ASTRO CITY VICTORY TP     $16.99
JAN150229     BATMAN ARKHAM KNIGHT #1     $3.99
DEC140388     BATMAN BEYOND JUSTICE LORDS BEYOND TP     $16.99
JAN150301     BATMAN ETERNAL #49     $2.99
JAN150394     COFFIN HILL #16 (MR)     $2.99
JAN150264     CONSTANTINE #23     $2.99
JAN150311     DETECTIVE COMICS ENDGAME #1     $2.99
JAN150244     EARTH 2 WORLDS END #23     $2.99
JAN150395     FABLES THE WOLF AMONG US #3 (MR)     $3.99
JAN150401     FBP FEDERAL BUREAU OF PHYSICS #19 (MR)     $2.99
JAN150345     GREEN LANTERN CORPS #40 (NOTE PRICE)     $3.99
JAN150357     INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR THREE #11     $2.99
DEC148490     IZOMBIE #1 SPECIAL ED (MR)     $1.00
DEC140382     JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 05 FOREVER HEROES (N52)     $14.99
JAN150254     JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED #10     $3.99
JAN150269     KLARION #6     $2.99
JAN150354     MORTAL KOMBAT X #4 (MR)     $3.99
DEC148482     MULTIVERSITY GUIDEBOOK #1 2ND PTG     $7.99
JAN150224     NEW 52 FUTURES END #45 (WEEKLY)     $2.99
JAN150274     NEW SUICIDE SQUAD #8     $2.99
JAN150389     SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #55     $2.99
JAN150362     SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 CONTINUITY #4     $3.99
DEC148491     SUPERMAN #38 2ND PTG     $4.99
DEC140398     TINY TITANS RETURN TO THE TREEHOUSE TP     $12.99
JAN150299     WORLDS FINEST #32     $2.99

DC COMICS/DC COLLECTIBLES
SEP140354     BATMAN ARKHAM KNIGHT BATMAN STATUE     $124.95
JUN140334     BATMAN BLACK & WHITE STATUE BY BOLLAND 2ND ED     $79.95