Yen Plus Info - Comic mayhem

Sitting out MMF, again

Albright — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:27:42 +0000

Wow, the last few weeks have been crazy for me. I nearly missed being able to scoop up the money to study Japanese in Japan - right before I got a new job offer which is going to substantially increase my income. In all the excitement, I decided to sit out this month’s Manga Movable Feast, but you may be interested, especially if you’re interested in manhwa (Korean comics).

This month’s MMF features the Eisner-nominated Color trilogy by Kim Dong Hwa. Check out the newly-launched Manhwa Bookshelf for the goods (to the best of my knowledge, there’s no single hub page up yet). Perhaps it’s good that I missed it this month, because from reading some of the reviews up so far, it’s apparently a coming-of-age story that strangles the reader in trite symbolism - it sounds like something I’d really, really, really hate. The same sort of swill they’d make us read and then over-analyze in essays I’d have to pad strenuously to meet the arbitrary and often two-digit minimum page count during the years I was attaining my regrettable BA in English literature. Not happy memories…

…But feel free check out what’s being written and draw your own conclusions.

Manga Movable Feast: To Terra…

Albright — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:50:41 +0000

It’s that time of the month again… Time for another Manga Movable Feast! The treat this month is To Terra… by Keiko Takemiya, published in English by Vertical. Our host this moth is Kate Dacey of The Manga Critic; head to the hub page for this month’s feast for more reviews and perspectives on To Terra… and Takemiya’s other works.

Okay, so tell me if you’ve heard this story: There’s a computer which exercises complete control over humanity; however, a small group of people with seemingly magical powers rebels against the machine, even though it means fighting against humans who have willingly, perhaps even subconsciously, accepted the machine’s dominance over their life. Yeah? Or how about this one: A new post-human race of mutants with superhuman powers is developing, and many normal humans, frightened of the unfamiliar and the obsolescence of their species, meet them with heavy persecution. The mutants debate amongst themselves how best to manage their relationship with the weaker humans: Assimilation? Segregation? Domination? Elimination?

While there’s a good chance that Keiko Takemiya had never heard of the X-Men when she started writing To Terra… in 1977, and obviously The Matrix wouldn’t come until decades later, her space opera in graphic novel form nonetheless tends to tread familiar ground, at least from a modern perspective. It’s… the future! and humans now live… in space! after the ecological devastation of Earth (though later parts in this series, which spans three beefy volumes, hint that it wasn’t entirely humanity’s fault this time, thankfully). Convinced that humanity was no longer capable of taking care of itself, humans in centuries prior built a massive computer named Mother to regulate every aspect of their lives; disobeying Mother is tantamount to badmouthing the leader of your standard totalitarian state.

Natural childbirth is a thing of the past (and a crime against Mother, presumably); all children are now conceived in test tubes and born from vats of amniotic fluid. However, for some reason, some children show evidence of telepathic powers endemic in an outlaw race of mutant humans called the Mu. Mother’s doctrine includes strict ESP tests for children in the midst of puberty; if they show evidence of telekinetic powers or mind-reading, they are promptly executed. However, a number of Mu have managed to escape the system, and are living on their own away from the long arm of Mother and her mindless followers. Where they really want to go, though, is back to Earth - to Terra. However, seeing as how the planet is already populated by the most elite humans intent on repairing the planet for human use again, the two sides are on an inescapable collision course. Specifically, we follow Jomy Marcus Shin, the initially reluctant new leader of the Mu, and Keith Anyan, a soldier created by Mother’s own cybertronic hand to be the perfect human, as they grow, fight their respective struggles, and have their fates intertwine in the end.

Despite feeling a bit like it has nothing new to offer from a contemporary perspective, To Terra… is nonetheless a complex, evocative story that can give you a whole lot to think about, if you want it to. Perhaps it’s a stretch, but observing the news of the the two Koreas once again skittering along the brink of war puts a real-life perspective on just how dangerous these sorts of fundamental ideological differences can be. Like all the best sci-fi, To Terra… brings a strong human story to the table, even though it’s told in the framework of the fantastic, such as interstellar space travel and telekinesis. The ending is tight, if perhaps a bit too sudden, and does a satisfying job of tying together plot threads and answering unanswered questions to a degree we often don’t see in manga. Does it have a happy ending? Well… I personally think it’s ultimately optimistic, in the long term… let’s leave it at that.

To Terra… is a product of the late ’70s, and looks it, art-wise. Though Takemiya, as it turns out, is considered one of the grandmothers of what we now think of as shoujo-style art in comics, the character designs will be quite different from what you’re used to if you’ve previously avoided manga made before the late ’90s. Some will love this style; some will hate it. Personally, as I stated in my look at Swallowing the Earth I really like these older character designs. It turns out Takemiya is also almost solely responsible for creating the shounen-ai manga trope - stories about romance and rutting between two beautiful young men, written for an audience of young women. So now we know who’s to blame… And this sort of thing does seem to pop up a bit in To Terra… too, with a suspicious number of scenes where one male character gazes at another longingly while the gazee is asleep - that sort of thing. At first, I thought it was just something which could be misinterpreted by those inclined to do so, but since I learned about Takemiya’s kink, I now figure it was probably on purpose… Well, all that aside aside, the mechanical design will be a little more familiar - the woman draws a mean space battleship and computer mainframe, and the crowded cityscapes that go on forever…

Publisher Vertical made an interesting decision in the localization; none of the sound effects are translated. Not replaced or subtitled with English equivalents as most other publishers do; there’s no translation for them at all. I wonder why they did this - I think it was a poor decision, because we do lose a good deal of context that way. I personally can read katakana, but that didn’t always help me; two characters are fighting hand-to-hand and “dosun!” is scrawled across the panel. What just happened? I don’t know, and no Japanese dictionary I’ve tried has a definition for “dosun.” (Not entirely true, but you get the point.)

So can I recommend To Terra… to others? Yes… with reservations. Though the story has potential to appeal to a wide range of audiences, I’m sure that many may see the similarities in story I highlighted above and grow bored with it if they’re unable to appreciate the time in which it was written. The art may be a turn-off for some, as well, for similar reasons. However, I think those who can dedicate the time and attention to make it to the end will be rewarded with a very serious, thought-provoking human story which ages well. Give To Terra… a look.

Flip that book, homie

Albright — Mon, 24 May 2010 06:17:59 +0000

FLCL volume 1, Tokyopop, 2003

Emma volume 1, CMX, 2008

If you’re on the front page or reading with RSS, click that there “Read more” link for more.

Yotsuba&! Club

Yotsubafan234 — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:28:46 +0000

If you’re a fan of Yotsuba&! please do come here! I’m posting up a Fanclub for the comic called, “Yotsuba&!” This is the most funniest comic ever! It takes place in Japan and a young girl named Yotsuba means… Clover goes to a new place and meets new friends like Enna, Fuuka, and their mom, dad and their other friends! Don’t miss this most exciting adventure ever! Buy Volume1 to get to know Yotsuba!

Manga Movable Feast: Emma

Albright — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:07:40 +0000

This is my entry for the March session of Manga Movable Feast, an experiment where manga bloggers from around the web write about a single title. This month’s title is Kaoru Mori’s Emma, and the host is Matt Blind of Rocket Bomber. A full list of articles and reviews by those participating in this month’s MMF can be found here.

Emma is a Japanese comic about a maid.

Aside: I don’t really get the maid fad that was popular in Japan a few years back (and maybe still is?). When I was there, I never went into a maid café, and will not go to one if/when I ever return. I mean, if I went into a place for a cup of coffee and a bunch of girls in lace and frills I had never met before bowed at me and said “Welcome home, master,” I would probably back out slowly, then turn around and sprint the other direction with a cartoonish cloud of dust swirling behind me. And have you heard of some of the things the “maids” at these places do? They “cool” your drink by blowing on it, or give you hand massages. Assuming I somehow managed to stay in one of these establishments long enough to be served, I’d be like, “Why are you getting your spittle and germs in my coffee? What the hell are you doing to my hand?”

Of course, that’s all a rather romanticized interpretation of who a maid really is. Emma is rather romanticized as well, but seeing as it’s a romance story, I guess we can accept that a bit. And it at least tries for accuracy; it takes place in turn-of-the-century London (er, turn of the previous century, not the current one), when ostentatious display of domestic servitude was in fashion.

Emma, not to be confused with the Jane Austen novel of the same name, has had all ten of its volumes released domestically by CMX. (The books have a very nice non-glossy paperback cover with an interesting texture as you hold it in your hand - just don’t spill anything on it.) As I wasn’t really up to buying ten volumes of a series I wasn’t sure I was going to like, and wouldn’t have had time to sanely read all of them even if I had done so, I limited my purchase and reading to just the first two volumes.

So the titular Emma is a maid. She serves Keisuke, a lecherous 14-year-old aristocratic schoolboy who is always trying to peep on her when she’s changing out of her short frilly maid skirt; she inevitably catches him and sends him spinning into the heavens every single time with a stiff uppercut with her right hand while futilely attempting to cover her gargantuan breasts with her left. Wacky! Tacky! Sexy in a naked Barbie doll kind of way!

…Not. That’s kind of along the lines of what I would expect from a Japanese comic about a manga, and I bet it would sell real well and be made into a fifty-two-episde cartoon series and sell hundreds of thousands of naked Emma statuettes and set creator Kaoru Mori for life. But instead, Mori puts a lot of class into Emma’s world and characters, lucrative computer dating game profits be damned.

No, Emma is the personal maid of Kelly Stonwar, an elderly retired widow who plays something of a mother figure to the orphaned Emma after taking her in. Her maid frock is modest and simple, and she has yet to bare so much as an ankle - I’m at a loss as to why CMX slapped a “Teen Plus” rating on the back cover. And unlike Black Butler, the domestic servant in question is wholly human and spends her day cooking and cleaning rather than fighting bandits and solving mysteries.

Emma’s love interest in this romance is William, a former student of Kelly’s who meets Emma during a visit. William belongs to a family of merchants making their way in the world. Emma and William immediately take a liking to each other, and through a series of other meetings, chance and otherwise, they fall in something resembling love. However, William’s father - and much of the rest of society - disapproves of his son’s relationship with a lowly servant, and is instead trying to hook him up with Eleanor, the dolled-up daughter of another wealthy family who looks to be about ten years his junior. (Kelly, for her part, wants to see her two proteges get together.)

It’s all rather a classic story, but I’ve got to say that I have issues with how Mori tells it. She seems to not be following the old writers’ mantra of “show, don’t tell.” For one, I don’t see what these two people see in each other, and that’s a rather crucial aspect of understanding their romance, isn’t it? Is it just a physical attraction? I suppose Emma, with her round face, rounder glasses, and braided updo, has a bit of a librarian chic look to her. She apparently fetches - and rejects - the attention of many suitors, but when asked why she hasn’t rejected William, Kelly seems to be satisfied when Emma responds with something like “he doesn’t come off as strong.” And William for his part could probably have no trouble earning a trophy shinier than Emma, but does not and apparently never has. So they go for walks and on dates and such, and apparently have wildly fascinating conversations that deepen their attraction for each other which Mori doesn’t feel like sharing with us for some reason. Heck, it seems to me that Mori shows us more intimate conversation between William and Eleanor than William and Emma, even though we know William is just going through the motions to keep the peace with his dad.

Okay, maybe I just don’t get it. I’m a dude and therefore totally the wrong gender for this kind of story, after all. But in the end, I felt like I knew William and Emma cared for their each other merely because we had been told that William and Emma cared for each other instead of being shown how they fell in love, what they saw in each other, how they displayed affection. And the main conflict in the book - the entrenched differences in class between the two lovers - I also felt was being hammered into us instead of being displayed for us to witness for ourselves. Furthermore, I felt Emma herself as a character was a more interesting element of the comic than the romance between her and William. What does that mean when the story is supposed to be a romance? The whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.

So I’m afraid I’m going to stop with these two volumes. I know Emma has its fans, but I’m just not hooked.

Manga Movable Feast: Sexy Voice and Robo

Albright — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:54:30 +0000

David Welsh, blogger at The Manga Curmudgeon, had an idea for what he (somewhat puzzlingly) called the Manga Movable Feast; a manga title and date would be announced, and manga bloggers around the web would be invited to post about that title on the week of that date. The first title was Iou Kuroda’s Sexy Voice and Robo, and the date was Monday, February 8. I decided I wanted to join in, so I headed over to Amazon and placed my order for a copy of Sexy Voice and Robo. However, I opted to use Amazon’s free shipping option, which is marketed as “Super Saver Shipping” but should perhaps more accurately be titled “Whenver We Get Around To It Shipping,” as I ended up not getting my copy of until Tuesday, and I just finished it Saturday.

But perhaps being late to the party will give me a unique perspective. I was careful to avoid others’ posts about the book until I was done reading it for myself, and now that I’ve caught up on those other posts (which are listed here), I can react to those as well as the book itself.

Let’s start with the book. The curiously-titled Sexy Voice and Robo is, essentially, an episodic mystery series. The eponymous characters are Nico, a fourteen-year-old girl who part-times as a phone flirt (think phone sex, but less overtly sexual), hence “Sexy Voice;” and Iichiro, a stereotypical otaku adult loser with an unhealthy obsession with giant robot toys, hence “Robo.” (Erica Friedman provides us with a character study of Robo.) Nico’s job has made her quite skilled at not only altering her voice, but accurately judging the appearance and personality of the men she talks to just by the sound of their voice. Besides the money, Nico plans on parlaying her job and her talent into an eventual career in espionage, and she gets her chance when a mysterious old man in a café learns of Nico’s talents and hires her to solve a mystery for him… and one mystery is followed by another. As Nico becomes one of the mysterious man’s henchmen, hapless Robo becomes Nico’s henchman, mostly because his adultness provides Nico transportation and access to places she wouldn’t be able to get to otherwise.

The structure is pretty standard for a mystery (Kate Dacey compares it to the American novel Harriet the Spy, which also features a young girl sleuth), but executed well enough that it doesn’t feel stale or trite. In each chapter, a mystery presents itself, but by the end, Sexy Voice has cracked it owing mostly to her gift of gab. There’s a good variety to the stories presented. Though each chapter is independently episodic, there’s an overarching story involving the old man’s past which is revealed in stops and starts. The book’s ending has struck others as rather abrupt and left them calling for more, but I personally thought that the ending in relation to that overarching storyline is well-placed, and that the reader can draw their own conclusion as to where Nico’s spying career will go from there - I know I sure did.

The reactions to Kuroda’s art seems to be all over the board. Kuroda uses bold thick lines which appear to have been applied by brush, mostly sticking with simple black and white and using very little toning (to the point that it sometimes even looks out of place when he does); the look is very different from many modern Japanese comics, and rather refreshing. The look of the characters’ eyes in particular struck me as I started reading - and then I came across the chapter in which eyes play an important role. It’s rather cool how it unfolds, so I won’t say more than that, though unfortunately some of the other reviews you’ll find as part of this Feast spoil it a bit. However, it struck me initially that Kuroda was having some problems with perspective - things which should have been further back in his art didn’t look further back. Everything looked like it was on the same plane… It’s kind of hard to describe. In retrospect, I found this aspect of the art bothering me less as I got further into the book; whether the art improved in this regard or I just stopped noticing it, I’m not sure. There’s also the case where it can be sometimes difficult to discern just what the heck is happening in the more action-packed panels and you end up hoping that whatever happened will be explained later on in the chapter, but that seems to be an annoying fault of a whole lot of manga, so I won’t hold it against Sexy Voice and Robo uniquely.

The book itself is released by Viz and was originally printed in 2005. The pages’ dimensions are the same size as an anthology like Yen Plus (or, presumably, the one this series was initially serialized in), rather than being reduced in size for trade printing as is typical for manga; sorry, but if you have a “manga shelf,” this book may not fit on it. The book, which contains all chapters in one volume, runs almost 400 pages, starts with a note by Kuroda, and, interestingly, ends with an essay by one of Viz’s editors about Kuroda’s artistic rendition of Tokyo. Overall, it’s not a bad presentation, though I do want to fault Viz for leaving a lot of the text in Kuroda’s art untranslated, even when it was more than trivial in terms of the story. One part that struck me in particular was a note that one of the more important characters in the overall story arc finds. Viz doesn’t translate the note at all, though with my infantile Japanese skills, I was able to make out it was telling him to kill someone - rather a crucial plot element, I think. What other plot points did I miss because I couldn’t read them?

Kuroda’s unique and mostly pleasant art and strong stories come together to provide a cohesive whole which ends up as a rather fun read, particularly if you’re a fan of mysteries. It’s well done, but the whole is not more than the sum of its parts - I cannot unilaterally declare that you should “run out and buy [it] right now” as Christopher Butcher does, and I can see how it wouldn’t appeal to everyone - “Mehhhh,” says Sadie Mattox. You’re going to have to enjoy the mystery genre, and be at least tolerant of art which is well outside of the norm. But if that’s you, I think you’ll find something to like about Sexy Voice and Robo.

Okay, review ends there. I’m going to finish off this post by going a bit more in-depth into an issue brought up by other Feasters, and will maybe spoil the story a bit, so please only continue reading past the next paragraph if you’ve finished reading Sexy Voice and Robo yourself, lest you be spoiled. (If you’re on the front page right now, click the “Read more” link below.) To space things out, let me sell the site a bit for those visiting it for the first time.

Hi there. I’m your humble editor, Garrett Albright. This is Yen Plus Info, a fan site primarily providing news and info about the Yen Plus comics anthology published by Yen Press, though lately I’ve been sharing my experiences with other comics both foreign and domestic. Why not check out the front page and browse a while?

You should be reading: Swallowing the Earth

Albright — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:33:18 +0000

I just recently finished Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth - just yesterday, in fact. I don’t think it’s going to be something that I’m going to forget about soon.

Beginning serialization in 1968, Swallowing the Earth was Tezuka’s first “adult” work, after a series of kid-friendly successes like Astro-Boy and Kimba the White Lion. And if you’re looking for violence, sex, and even drugs, you’ll find it here in R-rated levels, but you’ll also find one heck of a mind-twisting story to give it reason.

Swallowing the Earth’s generation-spanning story centers around Zephyrus, the ultimate woman scorned. Stunningly beautiful and magnetically charming, she’s capable of seducing any man, making him obsessed to the point of his own destruction. Nobody knows where this enigmatic woman came from or why she’s wielding her womanly wiles (alliteration is awesome!) like this, but all is revealed to us the reader after the happy-go-lucky Gohonmatsu Seki is hired by one of Zephyrus’s former victims to investigate her. Gohonmatsu is a simple young man who cares mostly about drinking and little else, and he turns out to be the perfect foil for Zephyrus, as it turns out he’s immune to her supernatural powers of seduction. However, as he starts to discover more about Zephyrus’s mysterious causes and effects, even he soon finds himself well over his head…

Actually, that only covers about the first few chapters of this lengthy 514-page tome, but I’ll refrain from going further to avoid exposing any surprises. And that’s one of Swallowing the Earth’s greatest strengths; it kept surprising me straight through to the end, as each layer of Zephyrus’s history and scheme is revealed. It ends up being a very complex story, and it doesn’t strike me as something that could have been made up as Tezuka was going along - he must have had this whole thing planned out from the start. Unfortunately, the last couple of chapters seem to bring things around to a rather abrupt end - I’m not quite sure yet if I was satisfied with it or not.

Let’s talk about art. I imagine some manga fans more familiar with newer works may be perplexed by it; in both design and movement, characters bear a stronger resemblance to the rounded, rubbery characters of American gag comics and cartoons from the 1930s and ’40s than they do modern manga characters. Gohonmatsu is almost always shown waking with his legs akimbo in a goofy manner, and his fistfights (which he tends to get into quite often) involve slapstick fisticuffs which wouldn’t be at all out of place in a Laurel and Hardy skit. Heck, the way Gohonmatsu seeks and reacts to alcohol is not at all unlike how Popeye handles his cans of spinach. It’s a far cry from the over-muscular guys and ultraviolent fight scenes more common in manga today. And yet, I personally found it all quite charming and fun art-wise. Sometimes there’s just no skool like the old skool.

Swallowing the Earth is a genuinely complex and mature story told in an exacting way. You, the reader, are along for the ride as Zephyrus’s secrets are laid bare, and it ends up being one unforgettable ride. If you’re ready for a grown-up graphic novel, Swallowing the Earth will satisfy up to - if perhaps not including - the end.

You should be reading: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

Albright — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:43:30 +0000

Humans have a habit of thinking of history as a series of profound isolated events in disparate places. In reality, history is the embodiment of causality; a fluid wave of downs and ups all throughout the world, each one with an effect on the ones after it, both locally and globally. Let’s take the current state of North Korea as an example. A college class could be built on how it came to be in its current state; the Juche ideology, a result of chilling relations with China and the USSR during the Cold War, which initially were warm due to its acceptance of Socialist politics, seeded by Soviet ideology and Chinese money and materiel during the Korean War, itself a result of political stability after the expulsion of the Japanese after the end of the Pacific front of World War II, which was the result of Japanese imperialism in eastern Asia, itself a result of Japanese politicians realizing their nation had missed out on the riches granted to European nations as a result of their imperialism in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of Asia… how much further back would you like to go?

I personally find North Korea’s story rather fascinating, in a somewhat startling and depressing kind of way. I’ve read several stories about foreigners who have traveled in North Korea, and they all tend to have similar memes and emotions: surprise at the volume of idolization of the political system and its leaders; frustration at the seeming single-mindedness of the people, completely unable to show any doubt or make any self-judgements about the things they’re told; shock at the ostentatiousness of the monuments and performances praising the glory of the Worker’s Paradise while people go hungry and the lights don’t stay on all night; and most of all, a pervasive melancholy and a desire to get back home as soon as possible. The best stories I’ve read even give me dreams (nightmares?) about visiting or living in North Korea; no joke. Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea must be a good one, because it gave me such a dream.

Pyongyang is an autobiographical comic based on the journey of Québécois artist and animator Guy Delisle, who lived in the titular city for two months as a checker for outsourced tweening animation for a French cartoon series. It’s fairly standard as a North Korean travel story, covering all the familiar places and emotions; if you’re not new to such stories, as I’m not, you probably won’t vicariously “see” anything new in this book. However, the length of Delisle’s stay is a bit unique, and gives him the chance to do a few things we don’t read about in other stories, such as meet several other foreigners, visit several bad restaurants instead of just one, and maybe even make an acquaintance or two among the locals.

Of course, the other unique thing here is the comic format. Delisle’s art is competent, done in a clearly hand-drawn and -shaded style; the cartoony style is occasionally offset by strikingly detailed renditions of propaganda artwork and monuments. (Delisle’s depiction of almost all his Korean characters as short and slit-eyed may upset the politically correct, but such is the nature of caricature.) The comic tends to be text-heavy, with plenty of monologuing, but Delisle knows how to sometimes shut up and let his art alone do the talking. With expert pacing, Delisle is wonderful at capturing all the absurdity and awkwardness possible on a North Korean stay in comic form. It is the encapsulation of a relatively peaceful and calm moment in North Korea’s dynamic history; one which won’t be written about in textbooks, but one that was a result of all the history before it, and one that defined the result of all the history after.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea contains a fresh presentation and perspective which long-time North Korea watchers will find interesting, yet is still accessible to those who don’t know kimchee from Kim Il-Sung. Hunt it down and give it a read.

You should be reading: The Incredibles: Family Matters

Albright — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:39:57 +0000

Though it often seems like many of their other movies get more attention, my favorite Pixar movie, far and away, is Brad Bird’s The Incredibles. It is so many things; a family-friendly comedy that’s genuinely funny, a coming-of-middle-age drama, and, of course, a tribute to the cape and cowl antics of comic book superheroes - the muscles, the gadgetry, the outlandish villains. It’s even kind of politically subversive for a Hollywood movie, if you think about it… though maybe I shouldn’t go there.

If you haven’t seen it… well, you should. I understand that part of my audience of this site is of the “oh, I only watch anime, American cartoons are just for kids” mindset, but I really think you’re doing yourself a disservice, and The Incredibles may be the movie that changes your mind. It basically address the question, “What if Superman and Wonder Woman got hitched, settled down and had a couple of kids?” After vigilante heroism is outlawed by the government, super strong Mr Incredible and stretchy shapeshifter Elastigirl settle down in the suburbs and start a family. But Mr Incredible doesn’t find the domestic life fulfilling, so he continues his heroism covertly, without cluing in his increasingly suspicious wife and kids. However, he soon finds himself over his head…

Given that The Incredibles is basically about comic book-style heroes, I guess it’s little surprise that when Boom! Studios’ Boom! Kids imprint brought the franchise to actual comic book pages, it would feel very much in place. The Incredibles is still ongoing as a comic series; Family Matters collects the first story arc into one paperback. In the story, Mr Incredible discovers he is gradually losing his super strength powers for some reason, and tries to find out why without letting his family find out (old habits die hard, apparently) or, of course, being clobbered in his weakened state. Taking place some point after the movie, where implicitly the Incredible family is apparently able to superhero with impunity (to verb a noun), The Incredibles: Family Matters features many of the same characters as the movie while introducing a few new ones, both heroic and villainous. But more than just the characters, the story maintains a certain The Incredibles feel in such things as how the characters interact; a battle against baddies is interspersed with typical family bickering. Though the traditionally drawn comic necessitates a different look than the 3D animation of the movie, the characters are still instantly recognizable and the same visual gags involving Mr Incredible’s freakish upper body proportions or Elastigirl’s, well, elasticity still “work.”

Bonus pages in the back show off the cover art used for the issues the volume compiles; some of them are done in an absolutely brilliant “golden age” style, with flat, faded colors and bold outlines. Very cool. There’s also a few pages of layout and character development sketches. All in all, the volume may feel a bit on the thin side, but I feel it’s a good value for the $10 price tag. Yes, it’s kiddie, but it won’t insult your intelligence like certain “adult” comics, and it’s definitely a fun read - and isn’t that what it’s all about?

You should be reading: Children of the Sea

Albright — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:55:29 +0000

I’ve decided to post a short series of articles of non-Yen Press-related comics that I’ve enjoyed in recent years. I guess you can say that I’ve only recently started taking comics “seriously,” so I’m probably missing quite a few good ones, but I hope that I can at least offer some suggestions of things to read while you’re waiting for the next issue to arrive. Like many of the comics in Yen Plus (more so earlier in its run than now, I suppose), I’ll try to focus on comics which may fly under the radar of many typical manga fans, though I suppose most such fans would have at least heard whispers about this first title… Tonight, I start with Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea.

Children of the Sea is a contemporary fairy tale about Umi and Sora, two boys who were raised in the sea by dugongs (manatee-like sea mammals), and Ruka, the troubled girl from a broken home who befriends them after meeting them at the aquarium where her father works. The mysteries of the boys’ lives makes them subjects of interest to researchers, especially after news and rumors of odd happenings involving undersea life start making the rounds in oceanographical circles - but the boys are content with keeping a few if their secrets, and are really just trying to get along by getting along. Children of the Sea is being released by Viz on this side of the Pacific by Viz. It’s still being serialized in Japan, and so far has seen four collected volumes released over there, of which two have been released by Viz thus far.

CotS’s plot is slow-paced and wandering, and I can see how some readers would get frustrated at it. I must admit also at times being confounded by the plot, wondering why certain events have happened and where things could be leading - the standard plot arc doesn’t seem to be in play here, and instead we’re just exposed to a series of mysterious occurrences interspersed by back story which doesn’t do much to explain the present.

But put the story aside for a bit and let’s talk art, because this is where I feel that Igarashi really delivers. His sketchy style is in stark contrast to the heavily polished and toned look of modern comics both domestic and imported. At a glance, you might feel tempted to write it off as amateur-looking, but that would be your loss. I think this especially comes into play when Igarashi draws what is arguably another character itself, the ocean. Perhaps those in the flyover states who have never been on a seashore won’t be able to relate, but it’s often hard for me to see Igarashi’s oceans without hearing the familiar hiss-roar of the ocean ringing in my ears; tasting the salty air; feeling the sand give way beneath my feet with every step. The various rainstorm and underwater scenes offer a similar tingle, and give evidence to the fact that art doesn’t need to be “accurate” to be powerfully evocative.

If you’d like to give Children of the Sea a try, you can check out several chapters for free, on Viz’s SigIkki site, which they seem to be using as sort of a web-based anthology magazine to test the reaction for titles for which commercial success of print versions is far from a given; the reaction for CotS was good, so now we have it in print. It’s a good thing, too, because, as I’ve ranted about on this site before, reading comics which were originally designed for print on a computer screen - and especially in a Flash app inside of a browser window - really, really, really, really sucks. But at least the try-before-you-buy factor is there. Give it a look, then give it a buy.