Yaoi Review: THE MAN OF TANGO

THE MAN OF TANGO
SUBLIME – @SuBLimeManga

CARTOONIST: Tetuzoh Okadaya
TRANSLATION: Ivana Bloom
LETTERS: WOWMAX Media
EDITOR: Jennifer LeBlanc
ISBN: 978-1-4215-6011-3; paperback (September 2013) Rated “M” for “Mature”
266pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $14.99 CAN, £8.99 UK

Mangaka (artist) Tetuzoh Okadaya made The Man of Tango, a boys’ love graphic novel, her debut manga in 2007.  SuBLime Manga recently released a “revised special edition” of The Man of Tango.  This SuBLime Manga Edition of the book collects the prologue and five chapters that compose The Man of Tango, and also two additional tales, one an early and alternate version of the story (“El hombre del tango”) and the other an epilogue story (“Libertango”) that revisits the lead characters.

As some of you know, boys’ love (BL) is manga that depicts romantic relationships between men.  Yaoi manga is a subset of BL and features explicit depictions of sex between men, which The Man from Tango does (and boy, does it ever!).

The Man from Tango introduces Angel “Angie” Almódovar, a Latin American living in Japan.  Hailed as “the Man of Tango” because of his skills as a dancer, Angie believes that he has never truly felt the deep, fiery passion of the dance known as “tango.”  Then, Angie meets office worker, Hiromasa “Hiro” Koga, a half-Japanese, half-Latino who was born in Columbia, South America.

Angie is immediately attracted to Hiro; in fact, Angie feels seething lust for him.  Hiro tells himself that he is in no way interested in men, but what will he do when he wakes up in Angie’s bed?  What will Hiro make of those memories of physical contact and passion that crowd his hung-over addled mind?  Will he open his heart and his body to the persuasive dancer?

Perhaps, it’s just me, but I find The Man of Tango manga to be a little on the melancholy side.  There is plenty of humor, and the story occasionally brings friends of Angie and Hiro’s into the narrative mix, such as Angie’s dance partner, Benedict “Bene” Maria Cruz.  That gives the story a feeling of camaraderie and fun.

There are sex scenes in the story, and they can run for several pages.  They put the “yowza” in yaoi.  In fact, The Man of Tango does not come across as boys’ love, so much as it seems to be a gay comic.  Angie and Hiro are both so fit, so buff, and so butch that their physical intimacy has a pound-your-ass quality to it.  You can call it lovemaking, but it may be more accurate to use that “F” word for sex to describe it.

I think the melancholy comes from the darkness of Hiro’s past and the tragic fate of one of Angie and Hiro’s friends.  Plus, there is a flash-forward short story that looks at the characters a little too far into the future for my tastes.  Still, in the world of yaoi manga, The Man of Tango is definitely something different simply because there seems to be a realness about Angie and Hiro’s relationship that much of BL does not have.

B+

www.SuBLimeManga.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Psyren: Infiltration

I read Psyren, Vol. 13

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

Strobe Edge: The "Just Friends" School Trip

I read Strobe Edge, Vol. 7

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.

Fantagraphics Books Seeks Help with Kickstarter Campaign

Fantagraphics Books Launches a Kickstarter Campaign to Help Fund Spring-Summer 2014 Comics Publishing Season

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS IS ASKING FOR READERS' SUPPORT THROUGH KICKSTARTER. HELP FINANCE OUR SPRING-SUMMER SEASON, AND BE A PART OF THE COMPANY THAT HAS PUBLISHED MORE OF THE BEST CARTOONISTS IN THE HISTORY OF COMICS THAN ANY OTHER PUBLISHER.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels

Fantagraphics Books is launching a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to help finance our Spring-Summer 2014 season of books. Earlier this Fantagraphics Co-Publisher Kim Thompson was diagnosed with cancer and died four months later, on June 19, 2013. Because Kim was such an active part of our company, his death has had repercussions — both emotionally and financially. Kim edited our European graphic novel line and, as a result of his illness, 13 of the books scheduled for the Spring and Summer of 2013 had to be cancelled or postponed. This represents the loss of one-third of the entire season. We have suffered a severe shortfall that will impede our ability to produce next season's books. That's why we're asking our faithful readers and new converts alike to help us recoup — and help finance our 2014 Spring-Summer books through Kickstarter. We are offering a varied list of premium options, from signed copies of the books from that season to a target-shooting trip with Fantagraphics' Publisher Gary Groth.

OUR NEXT SEASON: APRIL-AUGUST 2014
Fantagraphics' Spring-Summer season is comprised of 39 books by a stellar line-up of cartoonists. There are a number of books from names familiar to longtime comics readers — Peter Bagge, Daniel Clowes, Joe Sacco, Drew Friedman, Michael Kupperman, Jim Woodring, Don Rosa, Tony Millionaire, and The Hernandez Brothers. Not to mention any number of other names that could anchor a comics Hall of Fame: Charles Schulz, Steve Ditko, Simon & Kirby, Hal Foster, Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson, L.B. Cole, Jacques Tardi, John Severin, S. Clay Wilson, Wally Wood, and more. We also have one of our strongest seasons of original graphic novels ever, including new books from Olivier Schrauwen, Simon Hanselmann, Esther Pearl Watson, Conor Stechschulte, Carol Swain, Lane Milburn, Eleanor Davis, and Ed Piskor.

From The Complete witzend to The Complete Eightball, Buddy Bradley to Megg & Mogg, and Don Rosa's Ducks to S. Clay Wilson's pirates, plus new Peanuts, Donald Duck, EC Comics and Love and Rockets books, our 2014 lineup truly features The World's Greatest Cartoonists.

And that's merely one publishing season of five months; we publish a virtual pantheon of cartoonists every season.

OUR MISSION
Fantagraphics Books has been waving the banner of cartooning for almost 40 years, and we have always believed in the artistic potential of comics — in the medium's power and subtlety; its vast capaciousness and intimate smallness; its ability to transport us to different worlds or express the human heart in conflict with itself; its ability to vivify political and historical events or reveal intimate autobiographical truths; its hilariously vulgar humor, or its moving urban dramas. We strive to find the best and brightest comics from new cartoonists and from the classic archives.

THE PERENNIAL STRUGGLE
Ours is and always has been an intrinsically difficult commercial enterprise, and we have survived due to a combination of great taste, sheer will, good luck, and reasonable business acumen. Still, it has never been easy. Fantagraphics has always been a guerilla publisher — lean and mean. In order to do what we do, we have always kept our overhead low and our lifestyle modest. We publish about 100 books a year with a staff of less then 20 — a level of efficiency unheard of in corporate publishing. We pride ourselves on taking risks, publishing work based on merit, and a commitment to serious artistic standards.

Fantagraphics has never existed comfortably within the traditional capitalist model — ruthlessly competitive, obsessed with growth, and the endless accumulation of surplus money. Our artistic values have always tempered our profitability. Fantagraphics has managed to scrape by, but we realized that with the advent of crowd funding, we are in a position to make an end-run around the most brutish strictures of the marketplace and appeal directly to our readers through Kickstarter. We are asking the public to help us continue this quixotic enterprise. At the end of the day, we cannot rely on anyone but our readers.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels

fantagraphics.com
twitter.com/fantagraphics
facebook.com/fantagraphics

Review: SWEET REIN Volume 1

SWEET REIN, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Sakura Tsukuba
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
EDITOR/ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Nancy Thislethwaite
LETTERS: Inori Fukuda Trant
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5931-5; paperback (November 2013); Rated “T” for “Teen”
200pp, B&W, $9.99 US, $12.99 CAN

Have a holly, jolly manga!  It’s the most wonderful manga of the yeeeeaaarrrr!

I don’t hate all Christmas songs.  I actually do like many Christmas movies, even the wonky made-for-TV movies that show up on the Hallmark Channel.  Many American comic books have had Christmas issues (like the “Christmas Spirit,” episodes of Will Eisner’s The Spirit).  Now, enter the yuletide manga.

Sweet Rein is a shojo manga (comics for teen girls) from creator Sakura Tsukuba.  In the world of Sweet Rein, numerous people take on the role of Santa Claus, dispersing gifts to a particular area.  Each Santa has a magical reindeer that does whatever his Santa commands, and that reindeer can also transform into a human.

Sweet Rein, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 3) introduces 17-year-old Kurumi Sagara.  Since her mother died, she lives mostly alone, as her father is practically always at work.  Now, Kurumi is about to experience another lonely Christmas.

One day, Kurumi is crossing the street when a boy bumps into her.  A rein suddenly appears and binds Kurumi to the boy.  Overjoyed, the boy tells her that his name is Kaito and that she is his master.  Why?  Apparently, Kurumi is a Santa Claus and Kaito is her magical reindeer.

Can she dismiss this boy as crazy, even after he transforms into a reindeer?  Plus, see them help a sick boy named Mamoru Tajima.

[This volume contains a bonus short story, “Sweet Bite Mark.”]

The Sweet Rein manga seems as if it would be just too sweet.  At least, that is how it came across to me after one chapter.  It is a typical shojo teen magical romance, except for the fact that it is essentially a Christmas and Christmas-themed manga.  I make the distinction between Christmas and Christmas-theme because some of the chapters in Sweet Rein Volume 1 take place at Christmas time, and other parts of the narrative are about Christmas, to one extent or another and directly or indirectly.

Sweet Rein is poignant, cutesy, and even a bit weird.  It is entertaining, but not great, and it remains to be seen how much potential this series has.  I can’t say that I would read a second volume.  Obviously I am not in the target audience for this, but fans of magical romance will want to try the Shojo Beat title, Sweet Rein.

B-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: Joe Sacco's THE GREAT WAR

THE GREAT WAR
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. – @norton_fiction

WRITER/ARTIST: Joe Sacco
ISBN: 978-0-393-24039-9; hardcover/slipcase (November 2013)
Black and white, $35.00 U.S., $37.00 CAN

Cartoonist, journalist, and cartoonist-journalist, Joe Sacco, first rose to prominence in the 1990s with his comic book series, Palestine (Fantagraphics Books).  Time Magazine would later name his Safe Area Gorazde the best comic book of the year.

The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme: An Illustrated Panorama is a new work from Sacco.  The Great War is not a graphic novel, comic book, or even a book, as I discovered when publisher, W.W. Norton & Company sent me a copy a few months ago.

The Great War is an illustrated depiction of the first day of The Battle of the Somme.  Also known as the Somme Offensive, this was a World War I battle fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire.  The battle took place between July 1 and November 18, 1916 on either side of the River Somme in France.  More than 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed, and 20,000 British soldiers alone were killed with another 40,000 on the just the first day of the battle.

Depicted from the British perspective, The Great War is a 24-foot-long, black and white drawing.  Each foot of the drawing is a “plate,” so there are 24 plates, each plate connected to another.  This drawing is a wordless panorama presented on heavyweight, accordion-fold paper connected on both ends by a hardback cover.

The story that The Great War tells begins with General Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force, leaving church service and moves the massive artillery positions behind the trench lines.  The drawing shows troop movements and also depicts a battle on the morning of July 1st.  It portrays the soldiers going “over the top,” as they leave their trenches to advance towards the Germans.  We see the destruction of the first hour of the attack, and a German barrage that kills many of the Brits before they can leave their trenches.  Then, we see scenes of many soldiers dying, the wounded being moved, and the gathering of the wounded to be treated, with some of them dying before they can be treated.  Finally, the panorama closes on the mass burial of British troops.

The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme: An Illustrated Panorama is packaged in a solid, cardboard, hardcover deluxe slipcase.  This set includes a 16-page booklet with some extras:  an “Author’s Note” (Sacco); a seven-page essay about the first day of the Battle of Somme written by historian and author Adam Hochschild; and Joe Sacco’s annotations for each plate of the panorama.  The dimensions of this slipcase package and its contents are 11.25 inches (width) x 8.5 inches (height) x 1.1 (depth or thickness).

In his author’s notes, Sacco writes that the model for the Great War’s panorama is Manhattan Unfurled, an accordion-style foldout drawing of the city’s skyline drawn by Matteo Pericoli.  In presenting this panorama as a narrative, Sacco writes that he looked to the Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman invasion of England.

Joe Sacco is known for his comic books and graphic novels.  His comic books, which acted as reports and journalism from inside war zones, refugee areas, and occupied territories, were brilliant and harrowing.  Even with his caricature, cartoony, non-realistic style, Sacco could transport you to fantastic and hellish places that were not on other planets, in other dimensions, or someplace else in time.  With his comics, Sacco can depict and portray what is right here on our world with the same gritty realism and drama that a camera can capture.

The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme: An Illustrated Panorama is not a comic book.  Like a comic book, however, it is narrative art or art as a narrative.  It is a powerful piece of work that infuriates me when I think of the human lives wasted and the human potential never met because of WWI.  I look at Sacco’s depictions of these young men dying, and I cannot help but think of the children they would never father or their fellow humans they would never help.

I am hopeful, however, that another author will try to create something like Sacco’s The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme: An Illustrated Panorama.  It takes an enormous and grand story and turns it into a unique, but assessable presentation of art and storytelling, and it is another reason to admire Joe Sacco.

A+

www.wwnorton.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for November 6 2013

DC COMICS

SEP130147 ACTION COMICS #25 (ZERO YEAR) $3.99
AUG130300 ALL-STAR WESTERN TP VOL 03 BLACK DIAMOND PROBABILITY (N52) $16.99
SEP130256 BATMAN BLACK & WHITE #3 $4.99
AUG130291 BATMAN NIGHT OF THE OWLS TP (N52) $19.99
SEP130223 BATMAN SUPERMAN #5 $3.99
SEP130226 BATMAN SUPERMAN #5 COMBO PACK $4.99
SEP130150 BATWING #25 (ZERO YEAR) $3.99
SEP130286 DC COMICS ESSENTIALS JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (N52) $1.00
SEP130154 DETECTIVE COMICS #25 (ZERO YEAR) $3.99
SEP130156 DETECTIVE COMICS #25 COMBO PACK (ZERO YEAR) $4.99
JUL130269 DJANGO UNCHAINED HC (MR) $24.99
SEP130201 EARTH 2 #17 $2.99
SEP130164 FOREVER EVIL #3 $3.99
SEP130169 FOREVER EVIL #3 COMBO PACK $4.99
JUL130245 FRACTION TP NEW ED $17.99
SEP130161 GREEN ARROW #25 (ZERO YEAR) $3.99
SEP130241 GREEN LANTERN #25 $2.99
SEP130243 GREEN LANTERN #25 COMBO PACK $3.99
SEP130302 HINTERKIND #2 (MR) $2.99
AUG130308 JUDAS COIN TP $14.99
JUL130230 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA HC VOL 01 (N52) $24.99
AUG130324 MAD MAGAZINE #524 $5.99
SEP130252 MOVEMENT #6 $2.99
JUL130263 SANDMAN OMNIBUS HC VOL 02 (MR) $150.00
SEP130298 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #39 $2.99
SEP130253 STORMWATCH #25 $2.99
AUG130213 SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #4 $3.99
AUG130215 SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #4 COMBO PACK $4.99
SEP130254 SWAMP THING #25 $2.99
SEP130312 TRILLIUM #4 (MR) $2.99
SEP130196 TRINITY OF SIN THE PHANTOM STRANGER #13 $2.99

DC COMICS/DC COLLECTIBLES

JUL130283 BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS SER 1 BANE AF $24.95
JUN130307 BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS SER 1 BATMAN AF $24.95
JUN130308 BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS SER 1 BLACK MASK AF $24.95
JUL130282 BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS SER 1 JOKER AF $24.95