VIZ Media Launches "The World Next Door" Video Game

VIZ MEDIA UNVEILS THE WORLD NEXT DOOR

Award-Winning Narrative-Driven Puzzle Battler Launches for the Nintendo Switch console and PC/Mac

San Francisco, CA – VIZ Media takes gamers on a vivid journey to an alternate realm with the release of THE WORLD NEXT DOOR on March 28th, 2019.

This debut video game from the multimedia entertainment company is produced as part of an ongoing publishing partnership with indie game innovator Rose City Games, with character designs by Lord Gris. Already award-winning in pre-release and most recently nominated for the upcoming 2019 SXSW Gamer’s Voice Award, THE WORLD NEXT DOOR follows Jun, a rebellious teen, who finds herself trapped in the parallel world inhabited by magical beings.

Combining the emotional storytelling and thrilling action of anime and indie gaming, THE WORLD NEXT DOOR delivers a rich narrative and fast-paced, real-time puzzle battles in a universe where portals connect two planes - the human realm of Earth and the magical world of Emrys. Players must activate runes to cast colorful spells and defeat mysterious enemies known as Grievances and help Jun uncover the secrets to opening a portal back to Earth before time runs out. Charming branching dialogue offers players the freedom to choose among various responses to impact the game’s course and outcome.

THE WORLD NEXT DOOR is available for the Nintendo SwitchTM console, and for PC/MAC via Steam, the Humble Store, Itch.io and GOG.com. The game will be offered at an MSRP of $14.99 with a premium game and soundtrack bundle available on PC/Mac for MSRP $19.99.

“THE WORLD NEXT DOOR’s anime-inspired story is accented with visually striking graphics and an exciting gameplay that changes based on the decisions you make each play through,” says Eric Eberhardt, Director, VIZ Media Business Development. “Created in close collaboration with the Rose City Games team, the game has an expansive environment and a host of intriguing and relatable characters. We invite players everywhere to discover the secrets of THE WORLD NEXT DOOR next month.”

Join THE WORLD NEXT DOOR Discord now, and stay up to date with The World Next Door at viz.com/the-world-next-door and on Twitter at @worldnextdoor.


About Rose City Games
Rose City Games is an independent game studio based out of Portland, OR.  Their mission is to make better games, by assembling teams of passionate developers for whom hard work, authenticity, and creativity are a top priority. Founded by indie game community organizers Will Lewis and Corey Warning in 2015, the studio has produced a game jam event for Cartoon Network, helped launch Headmaster for PlayStation VR, and activated the local development scene by organizing the Portland Indie Game Squad.

Learn more about Rose City Games at rosecitygames.com.

Follow Rose City Games on Twitter for updates: twitter.com/rosecitygames

About VIZ Media, LLC
Established in 1986, VIZ Media is the premier company in the fields of publishing, animation distribution, and global entertainment licensing. Along with its popular SHONEN JUMP brand and blockbuster properties like NARUTO, DRAGON BALL, SAILOR MOON, and POKÉMON, VIZ Media offers an extensive library of titles and original content in a wide variety of book and video formats, as well as through official licensed merchandise. Owned by three of Japan's largest publishing and entertainment companies, Shogakukan Inc., Shueisha Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media is dedicated to bringing the best titles for English-speaking audiences worldwide.

Learn more about VIZ Media and its properties at viz.com.

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Review: YOUNG MONSTERS IN LOVE

YOUNG MONSTERS IN LOVE
DC COMICS – @DCComics

[This review was originally published on Patreon.]

STORY: Kyle Higgins; Tim Seeley; Mairghread Scott; Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing; Paul Dini; Mark Russell; Steve Orlando; Alisa Kwitney; Phil Hester; James Robinson
PENCILS: Kelley Jones; Giuseppe Camuncoli; Bryan Hitch; Javier Fernandez; Guillem March; Frazer Irving; Nick Klein; Stephanie Hans; Mirko Colak; John McCrea
INKS: Kelley Jones; Cam Smith; Andrew Currie; Javier Fernandez; Guillem March; Frazer Irving; Nick Klein; Stephanie Hans; Mirko Colak; John McCrea
COLORS: Michelle Madsen; Tomeu Morey; Nathan Fairbairn; Trish Mulvihill; Dave McCaig; Frazer Irving; Nic Klein; Stephanie Hans; Michael Spider; John Kalisz
LETTERS: Rob Leigh; Clayton Cowles; Carlos M. Mangual; Sal Cipriano; Travis Lanham; Tom Napolitano; Dave Sharpe; Clem Robins
COVER: Kelley Jones with Michelle Madsen
80pp, Color, $9.99 U.S. (April 2018)

Rated T+ for “Teen Plus”

Young Monsters in Love in a one-shot, comic book anthology and holiday special from DC Comics.  A comic book celebration of Valentine's Day 2018, Young Monsters in Love presents 10 tales of twisted love and strange romance starring some of DC Comics' most most infamous monster and dark fantasy characters (although Swamp Thing, who is one of them, is in a different story).

Young Monsters in Love opens with Dr. Kirk Connors a.k.a. “Man-Bat” trying to find love again, but in the story “Nocturnal Animal,” he will learn that sometimes you have to stopping loving the one who will not stop loving you.  Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. proves that Frankenstein has the soul of a poet, but will his “Bride” see that in “Pieces of Me.”

Superman gives a helping hand to Solomon Grundy in “Buried on Sunday,” but Superboy does not feel the love.  The Teen Titans' Raven has to take it to the dance floor in “The Dead Can Dance.”  Deadman takes a bullied child into his care and helps victim and victimizer in “Be My Valentine.”

Swamp Thing discovers that he can't have anything nice, even love, in “Heart-Shaped Box.”  Long-time friends and Doom Patrol haters, Monsieur Mallah & The Brain have to face the truth in “Visibility.”  I, Vampire is featured in “The Turning of Deborah Dancer.”  The Demon goes to Hell for one more kill in “To Hell and Gone.”  Finally, the Creature Commandos get bad news from the home front in “Dear Velcoro.”

In a recent article for The Washington Post, the author (Geraldine DeRuiter of everywhereist.com) offers a heart-breaking story, entitled “I thought my bully deserved an awful life. But then he had one.” that is also a great read.  She discovered that the boy who bullied her in school, a boy she always wished bad for, was actually murdered when he was 25-years-old.  She wondered, in this time when the culture has the long knives out for bullies, if we forget that bullies may need help as much, if not more, than their victims.

Without spoiling it, this is more or less the theme of writer Paul Dini and artist Guillem March's Deadman story, “Be My Valentine.”  First, to my imagination, it feels like a classic Deadman story from the 1960s, written by either Arnold Drake (Deadman's creator) or Jack Miller and drawn by either Carmine Infantino or Neal Adams. Secondly, Dini and March's story is one of the best comic book stories about bullying that I have ever read.  It alone is worth Young Monsters in Love's cover price of $9.99.  Colorist Dave McCaig and letterer Sal Cipriano also do some of their best work in creating a graphical package that is classic cool.

Young Monsters in Love is full of wonderful stories besides “Be My Valentine.”  Five of them are truly greats comic book short stories, including the powerful “Heart-Shaped Box” and “Visibility.”  Two are quite good, including the Creature Commandos story, which is my first reading experience of these characters.  Three of these stories are not as well executed as they could have been, including the opening Man-Bat story.

I usually ignore DC Comics' holiday specials, but Young Monsters in Love makes me think that I should not be so quick to dismiss them.  So if you missed it, dear readers, run back to your local comic book shop and find Young Monsters in Love.

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: CHAOS CAMPUS #23

CHAOS CAMPUS: SORORITY GIRLS VS ZOMBIES #23
APPROBATION COMICS

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: B. Alex Thompson – @ApproBAT
ART: Pramit Santra
COLORS: Russell Vincent Yu and Schmerys Baal
LETTERS: Elisa M. Coletti
POST-SCRIPTING/POLISH: John P. Ward
COVER: Kevin Wallace
24pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (2015)

Rated: Teen 13+

Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs. Zombies created by B. Alex Thompson

“The Pink, Part 1 of 2”

The long-running Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs. Zombies is a horror-comedy and zombie apocalypse comic book series.  It was created by B. Alex Thompson and is published by his company, Approbation Comics.  The series is set during a zombie invasion and follows the adventures of three members of the sorority, Epsilon Alpha Zeta Upsilon (EAZY):  ass-kickin’ Jaime Lynn Schaeffer, brainy and magic-wielding Paige Helena Patton, and sexy Brittany Ann Miller.

The current story line is “The Pink,” which finds the trio and other zombie riot survivors in a house that holds a surprise.  This story is written by B. Alex Thompson; drawn by Pramit Santra; colored by Schmerys Baal and Russell Vincent Yu; and lettered by Elisa M. Coletti.

Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs. Zombies #23 opens in the wake of the “Smart Zombies” conspiracy.  On the run with four other survivors of that debacle, Jamie, Paige, and Brittany come upon a strange meteor after an even stranger meteor shower.  Then, the group finds a house that is perfect as a shelter because it has not one, but two generators.  However, Jamie has been acting strange since her encounter with the meteor, and the house also holds a shocking connection to her past.

In the “Smart Zombies” story line, creator/writer B. Alex Thompson threw a left-hook at readers.  Chaos Campus is a humorous spin on comic books, and it is a comic take of the zombie apocalypse.  But (and its a big but) Chaos Campus offers good characters and an intriguing, evolving narrative.  With the arrival of a smart zombie, Thompson showed that Chaos Campus will defy genre expectations by whatever means necessary and unnecessary.

Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs. Zombies #23 is funny, and I'm assuming that it is spoofing the Species film series.  I really like the personal reveal, which is one more example of Thompson evolving our fearless zombie fighters.  This remains a fantastic comic book, and I enjoyed reading it, although I am not crazy about the artist.  Pramit Santra's graphical storytelling is good, but the technical aspects of the art is wanting, I must say.  Still, I am ready for issue #24.

8 out of 10

Buy Chaos Campus #23 at comiXology.

www.ApprobationComics.com
www.AlexThompsonWriter.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint or syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: THE HUNTING PARTY

THE HUNTING PARTY: A NOVEL
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Lucy Foley – @lucyfoleytweets
ISBN: 978-0-06-288937-9; hardcover (February 12, 2019)
336pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

The Hunting Party is a 2019 novel from author Lucy Foley.  Although Foley has written historical fiction, The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel.  This new book focuses on a group of college friends trapped by snow on an isolated estate where one of them is killed by someone in the group.

The Hunting Party opens January 2, 2019, on the estate of the “Lodge,” an isolated retreat in the Scottish Highlands.  Heather Macintyre, the Lodge's office manager, has just learned that Doug, the estate's “gamekeeper,” has discovered a dead body.

Let's go back three days earlier to December 30, 2018.  A group of nine adult friends and a baby are arriving by train on their way to the Lodge.  They are Emma and Mark Taylor; Miranda Adams and her husband, Julien; Nick and his American boy friend, Bo; the new parents, Samira and Giles, and their infant daughter, Priya; and Katie Lewis, a single, professional, working woman.  Seven of the nine are old college friends who met at Oxford University over a decade ago.  The group plans to spend the New Year's Day holiday together, but they don't know that they will be snowed-in due to a record setting snow storm.  The friends also do not know that one of them is going to be murdered over the course of this holiday, and the murderer is one among them.

Describing The Hunting Party is at once easy and at once a bit difficult.  Author Lucy Foley sprinkles familiar mystery and crime novel tropes throughout this book.  The book's cover copy declares “... psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie...”  Indeed, The Hunting Party is something of a spiritual descendant of Christie's legendary Murder on the Orient Express.  The copy also recommends The Hunting Party to fans of British crime novelist, Ruth Ware, and Irish mystery writer, Tana French, neither of whom I have read.  That's the easy part.

The Hunting Party is a mystery novel, a crime novel, a murder mystery, and a suspense thriller.  However, the book is very much a work of modern fiction, as Foley delves into timeless and modern themes and issues regarding marital discord, long-term relationships, the rivalries and prejudices within groups of friends and acquaintances.  While the killer is something of a familiar type, the act of killing itself is complicated and is not as easy to judge as one might think.

That said, I can say that The Hunting Party is a enjoyable read, and the last one hundred pages are an immensely enjoyable read.  I tore through the last third of this book as if my life depended on it, and there were times while reading this novel that I felt uneasy and felt a sense of foreboding.

Foley uses five narrators to tell this story.  At first, that makes the narrative a bit disjointed, but as Foley gradually reveals the troubled histories of individual characters and of these people as a group, the narrative strengthens its ability to engage the reader.  As the chapters race by, Foley makes it obvious that everything is headed to one flash point – the discovery of a body.  She tells a riveting story, revealing just how fragile the thin line between love and hate is.  So join The Hunting Party.

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Review: FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: The Complete Four-Panel Comics

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: THE COMPLETE FOUR-PANEL COMICS
VIZ MEDIA

MANGAKA: Hiromu Arakawa
TRANSLATION: Lillian Diaz-Przybyl
LETTERS: Jeannie Lee
EDITOR: Hope Donovan
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0617-4; paperback (March 2019) Rated “T” for “Teen”
136pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $17.99 CAN, £8.99 UK

Fullmetal Alchemist is a shonen manga written and drawn by Hiromu Arakawa.  The manga was serialized in Japan's Shonen Gangan magazine from 2001 to 2010 and was collected in 27 tankobon (trade paperback) volumes.  VIZ Media published an English language edition of the manga in North America as a series of graphic novels.

Fullmetal Alchemist's story focuses on brothers Edward & Alphonse Elric.  The duo engages in a forbidden alchemical ritual in an attempt to bring their late mother back to life.  However, the ritual goes wrong, causing Edward to lose a leg, while Alphonse loses his entire body.  Edward grafts his younger brother’s soul into a suit of armor, a process which also costs Edward his right arm.  Edward replaces his own missing flesh with “auto-mail” limbs, and he eventually becomes a state alchemist in service of the Amestris state military.  Edward searches for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, the one thing that can restore the brothers’ bodies.

Like many manga, Fullmetal Alchemist included with the main narrative what are called four-panel comics.  Four-panel comics are generally gag comic strips that play with a series' characters, plots, stories, and settings in a humorous manner.  They are usually four panels in length and are printed vertically.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Complete Four-Panel Comics is a new single-volume paperback book from VIZ Media.  It collects the four-panel comic strips from Hiromu Arakawa’s original Fullmetal Alchemist series.  In a addition to the four-panel strips from the Fullmetal Alchemist graphic novels, this book publishes the four-panel comics that were included in the DVD collections of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime (including the “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” series) and other Fullmetal Alchemist related products.  This book also includes some never-before-published bonus comics.

My VIZ Media representative sent me several volumes of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga during the series' original North American publication.  He also sent me Fullmetal Alchemist: The Complete Four-Panel Comics.

I won't kid you and say that all these Fullmetal Alchemist four-panel comics are great, but many are funny, in fact, surprisingly so.  Fullmetal Alchemist can be such an intense narrative, so it is nice to see so many of the characters, especially Ed and Al (Edward and Alphonse Elric) in a funny light.  Honestly, there were points during my reading of this book in which I thought that these four-panel comics were making a convincing argument that there are at least several chapters worth of humorous manga to be mined from the world of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist will want to experience the sunny side of Fullmetal Alchemist: The Complete Four-Panel Comics.

B+
7 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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BOOM! Studios from Diamond Distributors for March 20, 2019

BOOM! STUDIOS

JAN191408    ADVENTURE TIME MARCY & SIMON #3 (OF 6) MAIN    $3.99
JAN191409    ADVENTURE TIME MARCY & SIMON #3 (OF 6) PREORDER MARCY    $3.99
JAN191410    ADVENTURE TIME MARCY & SIMON #3 (OF 6) PREORDER SIMON    $3.99
NOV181314    BEN 10 TRUTH IS OUT THERE ORIGINAL GN    $7.99
JAN198253    BLACK BADGE #8 FOC ZONJIC VAR    $3.99
JAN191373    BLACK BADGE #8 MAIN & MIX    $3.99
JAN191354    FIREFLY BAD COMPANY #1    $7.99
JAN191400    LUMBERJANES #60 MAIN    $3.99
JAN191401    LUMBERJANES #60 PREORDER ALLEN VAR    $3.99
DEC181365    SPARROWHAWK #5 (OF 5)    $3.99
JAN191406    STEVEN UNIVERSE ONGOING #26 MAIN PENA CVR    $3.99
JAN191407    STEVEN UNIVERSE ONGOING #26 PREORDER PERRONE VAR    $3.99
JAN191375    WIZARD BEACH #4 (OF 5)    $3.99

Dark Horse Comics from Diamond Distributors for March 20, 2019

DARK HORSE COMICS

JAN190424    AVATAR TSU TEYS PATH #3 CVR A WHEATLEY    $3.99
JAN190425    AVATAR TSU TEYS PATH #3 CVR B STANDEFER    $3.99
NOV180225    BEASTS OF BURDEN WISE DOGS & ELDRITCH MEN HC    $22.99
NOV180278    BLADE OF IMMORTAL OMNIBUS TP VOL 08    $21.99
JAN190454    BPRD DEVIL YOU KNOW #14    $3.99
NOV180232    BPRD HELL ON EARTH HC VOL 05    $34.99
OCT180364    EROMANGA SENSEI TP VOL 02    $11.99
OCT180365    GANTZ G TP VOL 03    $13.99
NOV180237    HARROW COUNTY LIBRARY EDITION HC VOL 02    $39.99
JAN190409    INVISIBLE KINGDOM #1    $3.99
JUL189183    JURASSIC PARK ADULT COLORING BOOK TP    $14.99
NOV180223    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #5 CVR A NAUCK    $3.99
NOV180224    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #5 CVR B VANCE    $3.99
NOV180252    POLAR HC VOL 04 KAISER FALLS    $19.99
JAN190439    STARCRAFT SOLDIERS #3 (OF 4)    $3.99
NOV180220    WORLD OF TOM CLANCY DIVISION HC    $39.99