Review: BAKUMAN Volume 13

BAKUMAN, VOL. 13
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

STORY: Tsugumi Ohba
ARTIST: Takeshi Obata
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Julie Lutz
LETTERS: James Gaubatz
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4208-9; paperback; Rated “T” for “Teen”
192pp, B&W, $9.99 US, $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Takeshi Obata is a Japanese manga artist. In his published work, he has been the artist in collaboration with a writer. Tsugumi Ohba is a writer of manga whose identity/gender is a secret (although I refer to Ohba as “he” or “him”). Ohba has twice collaborated with Obata, first on the controversial series, Death Note. The second is Bakuman, a shonen manga. This slice-of-life comedy/drama/romance is about two ninth grade boys who set out to become manga creators.

Akito Takagi is an aspiring writer. Moritaka Mashiro likes to draw. After the two meet in high school, Akito begs Mashiro to join him in creating manga, and they eventually become the manga team, “Muto Ashirogi.” They achieve success by getting their manga published in the magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump. After having two series cancelled, this duo creates its longest-running hit, PCP: Perfect Crime Party. But do these young men have what it takes to make it in the manga-publishing world?

As Bakuman, Vol. 13 (entitled Fans and Love at First Sight) opens, Moritaka and Akito learn that PCP is unlikely to become an anime, which was their goal for the series. Each begins thinking about his next move. One of their assistants, Shun Shiratori, is working on a proposal for his own series, entitled “Loveta & Peace.” Moritaka enters Weekly Shonen Jump’s “Love Fest” contest, which is to create a one-shot manga with a romantic theme, but without his writer, the young artist struggles. Plus, Muto Ashirogi gets to judge new talent and comes across a stunning new series proposal.

Practically every time I review the Bakuman (stylized as Bakuman。) manga, I write that it gets better. I like it so much that I just can’t stand it anymore. I find myself slowly reading it so that I can savor each page as if it were a delicious bite for the mind. Actually, Bakuman is one of several VIZ Media titles of which I receive review copies, so I can’t be playin’ around and taking my own sweet time with reading and reviewing.

Of all the comic books and books I’ve read about creating comics (fiction and non-fiction), this is my favorite. What makes it work is the superb character writing by Tsugumi Ohba; this series is a joy to read when you buy into the lives, conflicts, and desires of the characters.

The other reason Bakuman is such a success is artist Takeshi Obata, who is one of the best comic book artists working today. He is a master at composition and at fitting style and pace to capture the setting, plot, and mood at any point in the story. Some artists have trouble changing direction just once in a single issue or chapter. Obata can change multiple times on a single page. Bakuman is the work of supreme manga creators who have mastered their art.

A

Kaze Hikaru: Meet Matsumoto Sei

I read Kaze Hikaru, Vol. 20

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin (which has free smart phone apps and comics).

I Reads You Review: THE ROCKETEER: CARGO OF DOOM #1

"Back in the sky high saddle, again..."

THE ROCKETEER: CARGO OF DOOM #1

IDW PUBLISHING

WRITER: Mark Waid
ARTIST: Chris Samnee
COLORS: Jordie Bellaire
LETTERS: Shawn Lee
EDITOR: Scott Dunbier
COVERS: Chris Samnee with Dave Stewart – Cover A
Dave Stevens with Laura Martin – Cover B and Jetpack Comics Cover
Chris Samnee with Jordie Bellaire – Cover RIA
Chris Samnee – Cover RIB
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S.

The Rocketeer is a comic book character created by artist and illustrator, Dave Stevens (who died in March of 2008). The Rocketeer is Cliff Secord, a stunt pilot who discovers a mysterious jet pack that allows him to fly, and his adventures are set mainly in Los Angeles in and after the year 1938.

The Rocketeer returned to comic books in 2011 in Rocketeer Adventures. Edited by Scott Dunbier and published by IDW Publishing, this anthology comic book was a tribute to Stevens and featured Rocketeer short stories from some of the premiere creators in American comic books. Now, the adventure continues in the new series, The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom, from writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee.

The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #1 opens in 1940. Cliff dons his Rocketeer garb and gear to rescue two people from a struggling airplane. One of those people is Sally, the young niece of Peevy, Cliff’s best pal and the one mechanic who can tinker with the Rocketeer’s jetpack. Sally has a mad crush on Cliff, and Cliff’s actress/bombshell girlfriend, Betty, is fuming about the crush and Sally. Meanwhile, something wicked has just docked at the port in Los Angeles, and the sinister mastermind targets The Rocketeer.

As much as I liked both Rocketeer Adventures series (or at least parts of Vol. 2), I wanted IDW to publish an actual Rocketeer story arc. I was excited to discover The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom while reading the list of comic books shipping this week (8/22/). I was immediately determined to get my hands on this comic book, and having just read it, I am not disappointed.

When Mark Waid is on, the comic books he writes are fun to read. In Cargo of Doom, he uses dialogue to form the characters for readers, and crackling dialogue is always preferable to a psycho-babble when it comes to developing comic book characters. This is why I think someone like Waid is more of a natural at creating comic book than other writers who seem to have some kind of quasi-literary credibility. Under Waid’s care, Peevy hasn’t been this spicy since Dave Steven’s original comics. As for the characters’ actions, Waid also makes that clear and straightforward, from the lecherous government agent to the mercurial Guptmann.

I had been planning on reading some comic books drawn by Chris Samnee, but I was reluctant to try some of his Marvel Comics work if that meant figuring out whatever is going on in the Marvel Universe. Samnee’s art bears similarities to the work of Darwyn Cooke, David Mazzuchelli (Batman: Year One era), and Bruce Timm, while remaining uniquely his own style. Samnee’s figure drawing is killer, and there is a bit of classicism in the way he poses characters, as if he were drawing human bodies for academic critics.

I must admit that I am not crazy about Cargo of Doom’s cover price, and I may ultimately balk at paying $20 to read the entire series. Still, The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #1 is one of the year’s best debuts.

A-

Review: A DEVIL AND HER LOVE SONG Volume 4

A DEVIL AND HER LOVE SONG, VOL. 4
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Miyoshi Tomori
TRANSLATION: JN Productions
ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Ysabet MacFarlane
LETTERS: Monalisa de Asis
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4167-9; paperback, Rated “T” for “Teen”
216pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S. $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Manga creator Miyoshi Tomori made her debut in 2001 and created such series as Brass Love!! and First Boyfriend (Hatsukare). Her series, Akuma to Love Song is published in North America as A Devil and Her Love Song.

The series focuses on Maria Kawai, a teen girl expelled from the prestigious Catholic school, St. Katria, because of her difficult ways. She attends Totsuka High School, but even there, the students find her frank nature more than just a bit off-putting. However, Maria’s angelic singing voice catches the attention of two boys: the blond Yusuke Kanda, who wants to be everyone’s friend, and the dark-haired Shin Meguro, a rebellious, sullen boy. Can they melt Maria’s cold heart or will they end up being scorched?

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 4 opens just days before Totsuka High School’s coral singing competition. There is a huge rift in Class 1-C between Maria and two other girls, Hana Ibuki and Ayu Nakamura. Hana is the popular girl who is the chorus’ conductor, but she doesn’t show much leadership, as she is always conniving. Ayu is in love with Yusuke, and seems to hate Hana as much as she loves Yusuke.

Meanwhile, Maria is trying to convince the antagonistic Ayu to be true to her feelings. At the same time, Maria is also trying to encourage Hana. But that only causes an even bigger rift between Ayu and Hana. Pranks, sabotage, crazy teachers, and spineless boys: is there a place for music in all this craziness?

A long time ago, I saw the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston movie, The Bodyguard, with a friend who was also a fan of Houston’s. After the movie was over, he said, “Man, all the black women in that movie were crazy.” A few days later, I was talking about the movie to a pal who worked at a record store, and he said, “Man, all the sistahs in that movie was crazy.”

Man, all the teenaged girls in the A Devil and Her Love Song manga are crazy. You might go crazy trying to keep up with all the back-stabbing, back-biting, plotting, and conniving. I wonder if creator Miyoshi Tomori is trying to depict these girls as dangerous, because I certainly consider them to be treacherous. Girls in shojo manga can be catty, but I like this series just because of the unvarnished bitchiness that Tomori presents. The feuding is fun to read, and although it gets a bit repetitive by the end of an entire volume, I’m curious about where this series is going.

B+

I Reads You Review: YOUNG JUSTICE #18

YOUNG JUSTICE #18
DC COMICS

WRITER: Greg Weisman
ART: Christopher Jones
COLORS: Zac Atkinson
LETTERS: Dezi Sienty
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

Rated “E” for “Everyone”

Young Justice is the ongoing, spin-off comic book series of “Young Justice” an animated superhero television series currently airing on Cartoon Network. “Young Justice” the television series focuses on the lives and adventures of the sidekicks and protégés of some of DC Comics’ biggest superheroes, which includes such young heroes as Artemis (Green Arrow), Robin, and Aqualad, among others.

Young Justice #18 (“Monkey Business”) begins with a wrap up of the team’s recent (mis) adventures. That includes a case involving Red Tornado and also a mission in India with Captain Marvel acting as den-mother. Now, Batman sends Aqualad, Robin, Superboy (and his pet Wolf), Artemis, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian into darkest (imaginary) Africa – the nation of Bwunda.

There, in the Bwundan jungles, they will find the Brain and Monsieur Mallah’s latest Kobra-Venom operation. Although Young Justice recently shutdown the Brain’s last such operation, the villain has an ally this time around, Ultra-Humanite, and he’s calling on Grodd to deal with the children.

My reviews of Young Justice, issue numbers 16 and 17, praised the art by Christopher Jones. Jones is a classic comic book artist in that he understands the visual and graphical storytelling that brings superhero comic books to life. His page layouts and style capture the eye, and his compositions sell the drama and action of the story. After Jim Lee on Justice League, Christopher Jones is the best artist on a Justice League title.

Sans co-writer Kevin Hopps, Greg Weisman offers a story that is darker than the previous story arc. In “Monkey Business,” Weisman places the young heroes in what clearly reads like a convincing perilous situation. More so than in the previous issues, I want to come back for the second part of this.

Young Justice #18 has a 4-page preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series #7 (the comic book adaptation of the similarly named Cartoon Network animated series).

WRITER: Ivan Cohen
ARTIST: Luciano Vecchio
COLORS: Gabe El Taeb
LETTERS: Saida Temofonte

The story features my favorite Green Lantern villain, the Tattooed Man, and I enjoyed reading the preview. I will try to find a copy of this issue.

A-

Review: Starstruck #1 (IDW version)

[IDW Publishing did indeed publish all thirteen issues of their Starstruck re-launch slash re-packaging. Now, the publisher has collected the entire series in an oversized edition (in paperback and hardcover) collecting all thirteen issues with re-mastered art and extras. In conjunction with the release of this collection, I am reprinting my review of IDW’s first issue that I originally wrote for another site.]





STARSTRUCK #1
IDW PUBLISHING

WRITER: Elaine Lee
ARTIST: Michael Kaluta
INKS: Michael Kaluta, Charles Vess
COLORS: Lee Moyer
LETTERS: Todd Klein, John Workman
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S.

In 1980, Elaine Lee, along with her co-writers, Norfleet Lee and Dale Place, saw the off-Broadway production of her stage play, Starstruck. Lee continued the characters and stories of Starstruck in comics form. Written by Lee and drawn by Michael Kaluta (who contributed to the play’s staging), the Starstruck comics were a prequel to the events of the play and revealed the history and relationships between the various characters and introduced new characters. The Starstruck comics first appeared as comic strip series in Heavy Metal magazine in 1982.

Marvel Comics re-published the strips that appeared in Heavy Metal in 1984 as the graphic novel, Starstruck: The Luckless, the Abandoned and Forsaked (Marvel Graphic Novel #13). The graphic novel was followed by a six-issue comic book series published under Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint. Plans by Lee and Kaluta to reprint the previously published Starstruck comics and to add new material resulted in the aborted Starstruck: The Expanded Universe (four issues from Dark Horse Comics, 1990-91), as well as a few stand-alone “Galactic Girl Guides” short story comics in Dave Stevens’s The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine (two issues, Comico Comics, 1988-89).

Now, it seems as if everything that Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta want to release as Starstruck comics will finally see publication because IDW is publishing a new 13-issue Starstruck series. The entirety of Starstruck #1 is previously published material: 15 pages of Starstruck; six pages of “Galactic Girl Guides;” and four pages of supplementary material that explains the Starstruck universe (in a rather obtuse way).

Starstruck is set in a far-flung, alternative future. One might think of it as something like the science fiction and fantasy comics of Moebius, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! (which Starstruck predates), Zap Comix!, and Star Wars thrown into a blender. A space opera, Starstruck follows the offspring of two powerful houses as they vie for wealth and dominance in a universe that is newly freed from the Incorporated Elysian Republic. Issue one introduces several characters, but focuses on Baron Bajar and his son Kalif and daughter Lucrezia.

Lee’s story and script are complicated and challenging, but fans of space opera will want to dig through this intricate and exotic concept. Of course, having Mike Kaluta, with his decorative, illustrative style, as the artist to visualize Lee’s concepts into comics art is serendipity. Her oblique and outlandish storytelling and his intricate, Pre-Raphaelite graphic scenarios were meant to be together.

As much as I like the main story’s astonishing weirdness, “The Galactic Girl Guides” is the kind of sweet treat I’d want to have on a regular basis. Written as a playful, comic appendage to Starstruck, GGG is simply about girls having fun, playing pranks, and seeking out adventure – the kind of things that most storytelling leaves to boys. Unlike the main narrative, in which Kaluta pencils and inks the art, Charles Vess inks Kaluta’s pencils, and the resulting difference in look makes GGG seem like a more traditional kid friendly comic book than Starstruck.

Before this review ends, I must call attention to painter Lee Moyer’s glorious new coloring for this rebirth of Starstruck. I’d buy this comic book just to see more of the color splendor found on pages 6-7.

A-

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for August 22 2012

DC COMICS

MAY120306 ALL NEW BATMAN BRAVE & THE BOLD TP VOL 02 HELP WANTED $12.99

JUN120218 ALL STAR WESTERN #12 $3.99

JUN120185 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #12 $2.99

JUN120134 BEFORE WATCHMEN DR MANHATTAN #1 (MR) $3.99

JUN120137 BEFORE WATCHMEN DR MANHATTAN #1 COMBO PACK (MR) $4.99

JUN120274 FABLES #120 (MR) $2.99

JUN120158 FLASH #12 $2.99

JUN120161 FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #12 $2.99

JUN120201 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #12 $2.99

JUN120209 I VAMPIRE #12 $2.99

APR120288 INVISIBLES OMNIBUS HC (MR) $150.00

MAY120295 JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS TP VOL 03 $29.99

JUN120205 JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #12 $2.99

JUN120266 MAD MAGAZINE #517 $5.99

JUN120163 SAVAGE HAWKMAN #12 $2.99

JUN120284 SCALPED #60 (RES) (MR) $2.99

JUN120168 SUPERMAN #12 $2.99

MAY120280 SWAMP THING TP VOL 01 RAISE THEM BONES TP $14.99

JUN120221 TEEN TITANS #12 $2.99

JUN120289 UNWRITTEN #40 (MR) $2.99

JUN120217 VOODOO #12 $2.99