I posted a review at Comic Book Bin (which has free comics).
Monday, December 5, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Grand Guignol Orchestra: Troubadour's Love Song
I read Name Your Link
I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has FREE smart phone apps and comics).
I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has FREE smart phone apps and comics).
Saturday, December 3, 2011
"Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha" #1 Gets a Cover
New Weekly Manga Anthology Launches In January 2012 And Offers Unprecedented Near Simultaneous U.S./Japanese Release Of Some Of The World’s Most Popular Manga Titles
VIZ Media gives fans and readers a taste of what’s to come from the new WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP ALPHA (WEEKLY SJ ALPHA), a serial digital manga anthology launching on January 30th, 2012 that will feature some of the most popular manga series in the world and offer near simultaneous release of these titles in the U.S. and Japan. The company has revealed the cover for the first issue, which will be available initially through VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga apps for iPhone®, iPod® touch, and iPad®.
The first cover for the new brand features the main characters from all six series featured in WEEKLY SJ ALPHA, including Naruto from NARUTO, Ichigo from BLEACH, Luffy of ONE PIECE, Rikuo of NURA: RISE OF THE YOKAI CLAN, Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi of BAKUMAN｡, and gourmet hunter Toriko of TORIKO.
Each new digital issue of WEEKLY SJ ALPHA will bring manga fans in North America the latest chapters of their favorite series only two weeks after they debut in Japan’s massively popular WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP magazine. WEEKLY SJ ALPHA will be made available through an annual membership that provides 52 weeks of access to 48 weekly issues for just $25.99. Single issues of WEEKLY SJ ALPHA can be read for a four weeks for only $0.99. Each issue, once received on one device, can be read on all other enabled devices through the easy-to-use integrated VIZ Manga platform which includes the VIZ Manga Apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch as well as VIZManga.com.
To prepare fans for the debut of WEEKLY SJ ALPHA, VIZ Media is also offering the SHONEN JUMP DIGITAL WARP, a limited collection of digital graphic novel speed-ups that will bring North American readers up-to-date with Japanese releases, in some cases jumping ahead of the print releases in North America. The SHONEN JUMP DIGITAL WARP has already begun on VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga Apps with NARUTO Volume 53-55 (Vol. 53 print edition debuting December) and BLEACH Volumes 49-51 available now (print editions forthcoming).
For more information on WEEKLY SJ ALPHA and exclusive subscriber offers, please visit ShonenJump.viz.com or VIZManga.com.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Leroy Douresseaux Reviews: INFINITE KUNG FU
TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS
CARTOONIST: Kagan McLeod
INTRODUCTION: Gordon Liu
FOREWORD: Colin Geddes
ISBN: 978-1-891830-83-9; paperback
464pp, B&W, $24.95 U.S.
Rating: Young Adult (13+)
Kagan McLeod is a Canadian artist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and Mad Magazine, to name a few. Infinite Kung Fu was a comic book created and published by the Toronto-based cartoonist, his first major comics work in fact.
McLeod published seven issues of the series before moving it to Top Shelf Productions. A few months ago, Top Shelf published Infinite Kung Fu, a paperback omnibus edition (with a flex-cover) that collects the series in its entirety. This collection has an introduction by Chinese martial arts actor, Gordon Liu (who played the white-browed Pai Mei in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 2), and a foreword by martial arts film historian, Colin Geddes.
Infinite Kung Fu is set in the Martial World, a version of Earth that has regressed from civilization. The lack of civilization is not enough, however, because the Emperor wants to destroy the world. Because of some powerful kung fu, the Emperor cannot return to his body and exists as a ghost. He needs to recover his armor, which was separated into five pieces by his enemies, which they hid in secret spots around the Martial World.
The Emperor has sent his five great generals on a quest to retrieve the armor. His newest general is Yang Lei Kung, an ex-soldier who has infiltrated the Emperor’s forces. Will Lei Kung fight the emperor or do his bidding, and what are the plans of the Emperor’s most diabolical and conniving general, Li Zhao? An eclectic cast includes the Eight Immortals, a legion of zombies, and various students of the Immortals, including the corn-rowed Black man, Moog Joogular.
As a linear narrative, Infinite Kung Fu has some structural problems. Scene shifts sometime come with jarring breaks. Subplots come and go and change, sometimes from one chapter to the next or disappear and return a few chapters later as something new. But fuck all that! Infinite Kung Fu is a damn good comic book.
Although it is steeped in martial arts and kung fu culture, Infinite Kung Fu is an epic masterpiece of comic book fun. Yes, I said fun. This comic book is drawn in black and white (with lots of ink wash), but you’d swear it was in color. The characters are such gaudy oddballs, so vividly conceived and drawn, with the eccentric motivations, ardent emotions, and passionate conflicts. The story is set in a weird world of kung fu and bizarre magic with an exotic landscape as the backdrop. The plot involves long-running feuds and salty conflicts, but everything rests on an interesting philosophical disagreement that surprisingly may make sense to some readers.
Infinite Kung Fu is deranged and sometimes nonsensical, but that is a good thing. Too many comic books have vague literary aspirations and need to give it up, cause few of them are worthy of being literature. They need to be what they are – glorious outsider trash. Infinite Kung Fu takes kung fu films, Westerns, horror, and even a touch of sci-fi and mysticism and turns it into good comic book gumbo. Kagan McLeod is wild and free and his imagination is on fire. By not trying to make something important, McLeod made a great comic book.
D.Gray-Man Art Book Due Next Week
VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF D.GRAY-MAN ILLUSTRATIONS: NOCHE
New Full-Color Art Book Features The Memorable Work Of Series Creator Katsura Hoshino And Includes A Double-Sided Poster, Artist Interviews And More!
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, will delight manga (graphic novel) art fans with the release of D.GRAY-MAN ILLUSTRATIONS: NOCHE on December 6th. The new art book arrives just in time for the holidays and will carry an MSRP of $21.99 U.S. / $25.99 CAN.
Enter the lavish fictional 19th century world of D.GRAY-MAN in this new collection featuring nearly 100 pages of full-color character art, magazine covers, and other original compositions by series creator Katsura Hoshino. Also featured are insightful Q&A’s between Hoshino and two manga creators that inspire her: Takeshi Obata, the artist behind HIKARU NO GO, BAKUMAN｡, and the smash hit DEATH NOTE (all published in North America by VIZ Media); and Osamu Akimoto, whose manga series, Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen Mae Hashutsujo, has been serialized in the best-selling boy's manga magazine in the world, Weekly Shonen Jump, for 35 years and remains the magazine’s longest-running manga series. D.GRAY-MAN ILLUSTRATIONS: NOCHE also includes an exclusive, double-sided full-color poster.
Set in a fictional version of 19th century England, D.GRAY-MAN (published by VIZ Media’s SHONEN JUMP ADVANCED imprint; rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens) is the story of Allen Walker, a 15-year-old boy who roams the earth in search of Innocence. Washed away to unknown parts of the world after The Great Flood, Innocence is the mysterious substance used to create weapons that obliterate demons known as akuma.
“D.GRAY-MAN ILLUSTRATIONS: NOCHE is an ideal collection of the work of Katsura Hoshino, and shows off many of her most memorable characters from the hit series,” says Andy Nakatani, Editorial Director. “Fans can savor lush renderings of Allen Walker, Lenalee Lee, and the evil Millennium Earl and learn more about Hoshino’s background, influences and the evolution of D.GRAY-MAN in an enlightening interview conducted by two of the biggest names in the manga world! This new release also makes a thoughtful gift for that special fan this holiday season.”
Born in 1980 in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture, Katsura Hoshino's hit manga series D.GRAY-MAN has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since 2004. Her first series, Continue, debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2003.
For more information on D. GRAY-MAN, or others SHONEN JUMP titles from VIZ Media, please visit ShonenJump.viz.com.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
I Reads You Review: PORTRAIT OF M&N, VOL. 2
Publishing Information: TOKYOPOP, B&W, paperback, 192 pages, $10.99 (US), $13.99 CAN
Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-4278-1725-9 (ISBN-13)
Romance/Comedy; Rated “T” for “Teen Age 13+”
Portrait of M&N is a shojo manga focusing on two high school students with embarrassing, even debilitating secrets that cannot be shared with people outside their homes. First, 15-year-old Mitsuru Abe is an extreme masochist who delights in receiving brutal beatings. Mitsuru meets fellow student, 15-year-old Natsuhiko Amakusa, an extreme narcissist who is mesmerized by his reflection.
They keep each other’s secrets. Then, another student, 17-year-old Eiichi Hijiri, inserts himself into their relationship, claiming to be in love with Abe. Is he really, and does Natsuhiko even care if another guy is in love with Abe?
It’s meet the parents in Portrait of M&N, Vol. 2. Mitsuru meets Natsuhiko’s parents, but she is deathly afraid that they will learn her secret life as a masochist. However, the Amakusa clan has its own secrets, including Natsuhiko’s mother. Natsuhiko makes things worse by inviting the inquisitive Hijiri.
Next, the school’s Ball Games Tournament reveals the jealousies that the other female students have against Mitsuru because they believe she stands between them and Natsuhiko. And they plan to give her hell for it. After he is hurt in an accident, Hijiri plays on Mitsuru’s guilt and turns her into his nursemaid, which is probably making Natsuhiko jealous. So why won’t he admit it?
I didn’t enjoy this second volume of Portrait of M&N as much as I did the first. In Vol. 1, the art by creator Tachibana Higuchi (Gakuen Alice) reminded me of the work of famed New Yorker cartoonist, Charles Addams. This time around, Higuchi’s work lacks the macabre flourishes, and the wicked sense of humor is now more slapstick. The stories are more like traditional high school shojo (comics for teen girls) romance, and the secrets that made the leads seem weird now seem more like debilitations than dirty secrets. I enjoyed reading this volume of Portrait of M&N, but now it is quaint rather than edgy and comic.
B-
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