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Post by sarapen on Sept 18, 2017 5:41:00 GMT -5
I finally got around to watching all of Silver Spoon. And there will be no more. So, it's time to read the manga. If not in the know, it's a slice of life manga by Hiromu Arakawa, who is most known for writing and illustrating Fullmetal Alchemist. Realizing that this is the manga thread, have you watched / read Azumanga Daioh? It's a nice, slice-of-life thing about a group of high-school girls. Passes the Bechdel test so hard you'll forget it was even a thing. It's funny, not pervy (except to call out some pervy teachers) and kinda charming. No romance plots, no horrible secrets, lots of weirdness but none of it supernatural. The 'manga' is a series of 4-panel comics, which are also pretty funny. I vastly preferred the anime, entirely due to the fact that the girls are much easier to tell apart. But yeah, it and Yotsuba are hilarious in a cute and heartwarming way. |
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Post by Celebith on Sept 18, 2017 8:36:23 GMT -5
Realizing that this is the manga thread, have you watched / read Azumanga Daioh? It's a nice, slice-of-life thing about a group of high-school girls. Passes the Bechdel test so hard you'll forget it was even a thing. It's funny, not pervy (except to call out some pervy teachers) and kinda charming. No romance plots, no horrible secrets, lots of weirdness but none of it supernatural. The 'manga' is a series of 4-panel comics, which are also pretty funny. I vastly preferred the anime, entirely due to the fact that the girls are much easier to tell apart. But yeah, it and Yotsuba are hilarious in a cute and heartwarming way. We liked both, but the anime definitely wins out. I can pretty much count on someone in the family doing the Osaka thing ( heeeengh) with their chopsticks about once a week. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 18, 2017 13:36:18 GMT -5
Amazon is doing their crazy Marvel ebook sale again. A lot of things are in the $2 range.
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Post by sarapen on Sept 21, 2017 20:15:04 GMT -5
You know how when you see a ridiculous situation in real life and your first thought is "Simpsons did it first"? Well . . .  Still waiting for Captain America to beat up Ronald Reagan, though. |
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Crash Test Dumbass
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Sept 26, 2017 8:18:19 GMT -5
I've started reading Yotsuba& after a friend lent me the series. It's kinda weird so far -- the titular character is very... 'space cadet', for lack of a better term. It's interesting to see Azuma's writing in a regular manga format as opposed to the four-panel strips that Azumanga Daioh was.
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Post by repulsionist on Feb 21, 2018 16:32:46 GMT -5
Mickey's Craziest Adventures, Lewis Trondheim and Keramidas (2016)
What would Mickey and Donald act like if they were, like, from an Asterix comic? Well, this little sortie answers that question. Done as a "lost" comic: the artwork superb; the story a function of putting Mickey and Donald into escalatingly strange situations while making meta-commentary of self-awareness. A very enjoyable 45-minute to 1-hour read.
Showa: A History of Japan (1953 - 1989), Shigeru Mizuki (1989)
Pretty powerful work of personal history placed against national/global history. I've started at the end, but I plan to work my way backwards.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Mar 9, 2018 10:37:11 GMT -5
Finished reading (partially rereading, but I think I only read a big chunk of the middle of the series originally) the Robinson run on Sandman. Really strong series, and a great model for how to do a legacy hero.
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Post by sarapen on Mar 9, 2018 12:55:56 GMT -5
Is it worth starting on Berserk or nah? From what I've read it seems like the writer has kind of moved on and has no plans to finish it. Y'all didn't stop me so I'm reading Berserk, starting with the first volume. I'm hoping someone will want to talk about it? I think we have more anime peeps than manga peeps. Berserk looks, from the outside, like one of the "manly men doing manly things alone in a hostile land surrounded by other men" series that were popular in the 80's, both in Japan and outside of it. You know, like Conan, Fist of the North Star, etc. Usually the series are full of blood and titties.
Anyway, I watched the Netflix Berserk prequel trilogy and that's all I got. I assume the series gets into the reason for Guts' strength and conspiracies and magic and stuff and maybe has a beach or hot springs episode later on.
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Post by sarapen on Mar 9, 2018 13:43:19 GMT -5
I got interested in it due to Hawkshaw's video pointing out that literally everything I liked about the aesthetics and themes of Dark Souls was evidently stolen wholesale from Berserk. I also watched The Egg of the King but stopped there since that's actually a later manga arc--while, chronologically, those are the earliest events, the manga begins in media res an unspecified amount of time later and the prequel material is told in extended flashback, so it seemed to me that narrative structure might supply some important context I'd miss by watching the movies first. I've heard the same thing about Dragon's Dogma. Every time I went online there were like 20 Cascas hanging around in that game.
I watched the first couple of episodes of the new Berserk anime and was wondering if there was a prequel I'd missed. I guess this is just an in medias res reboot? I'll have to look it up.
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Post by repulsionist on Mar 13, 2018 2:10:37 GMT -5
Showa: 1926 - 1933, Shigeru Mizuki
I've worked my way back to the beginning of The Showa Period as related by eminent artist Mizuki. It's been a harrowing ride. His privations experienced in Rabaul, New Britain as detailed in the second and third volumes were legion, and all terrifying. The man wrote an incredible series of recollections. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in Japanese history.
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fab
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Post by fab on Mar 21, 2018 11:22:50 GMT -5
somebody I play boardgames with sometimes started up a really loose "let's read some manga" thing, and the consensus was that we'd read Deadman Wonderland to start. (we loosely voted to pick one out of 4 and if majority didn't care for it after a week, we'd rotate to another.)
as a novice with all this manga stuff, I have a hard time telling if it's... good? I mean, it's kinda batshit crazy. the art has some really good splash panels and such.
I'm not familiar enough with the form or any genre stuff or w/e to know if some of it is intended to be parodical, but damn. it's pretty bonkers.
I'd say it's entertaining, but I wouldn't necessarily call it good...
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Post by repulsionist on Mar 28, 2018 18:27:41 GMT -5
Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story, Peter Bagge (2013)
I last left the glassine, Bagge-scripted Reset, also published in 2013, at the bus stop after quickly using its contents and finding that kind of stuff didn't get me high anymore. I reckon this will have more horsepower under the hood. After this one I'm probably gonna look for his Zora Neale Hurston comic biography to rekindle hoodoo/voodoo mysteries I maintained last year with completely awesome and compelling The Abominable Mr. Seabrook and text-based The Serpent and The Rainbow.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2018 8:07:05 GMT -5
I had the pleasure of reading My Favorite Thing is Monsters over the weekend. I could have read it all in one sitting, but my neighbors were having a raucous party on Saturday and the noise distracted me enough to get out of the house. I liked the nebulous ending, and I loved the notebook doodle-style illustration. The story absolutely captivated me. The author, Emil Ferris, is a newcomer to the comics industry. She worked as a freelancer and toy designer for most of her career. Her story is overall kind of amazing, and I can't wait for the second volume of her story. |
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Post by sarapen on Apr 9, 2018 9:16:27 GMT -5
I've started reading the manga for The Devil is a Part-Timer, which basically answers the question of what if, after being defeated, Sauron escaped to modern Japan and had to make ends meet by working at McDonald's. It speaks to all of us who have ever been overeducated and underemployed.
I found the anime quite funny but am unsure if a second season is ever getting made so I had tried the light novels, but they wouldn't quite click with me. Maybe the whole thing works better in a visual medium as I'm enjoying the comic book version more.
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Post by fab on Apr 9, 2018 12:32:50 GMT -5
The author, Emil Ferris, is a newcomer to the comics industry. She worked as a freelancer and toy designer for most of her career. Her story is overall kind of amazing, and I can't wait for the second volume of her story. damn. it's bloody impressive when some people go through hard experiences like that but press onwards and push through it. I can't imagine how difficult and frustrating it would be to relearn abilities after an accident of that magnitude. oh, and the graphic novel sounded great too  I've started reading the manga for The Devil is a Part-Timer, which basically answers the question of what if, after being defeated, Sauron escaped to modern Japan and had to make ends meet by working at McDonald's. It speaks to all of us who have ever been overeducated and underemployed.
I found the anime quite funny but am unsure if a second season is ever getting made so I had tried the light novels, but they wouldn't quite click with me. Maybe the whole thing works better in a visual medium as I'm enjoying the comic book version more.
yeah, I really enjoyed the first season of that show, as per your (or Tea Rex's?) mention of it in the anime thread, IIRC. light-hearted and a bit off kilter, but not so over the top that a baffled novice like myself can't appreciate its charms. (I don't really know where to start with anime and manga. I do okay with comics though, perhaps since they mostly gel with my pre-existing encultured experiences? shrug.) |
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Post by repulsionist on Apr 9, 2018 17:43:41 GMT -5
Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story, Peter Bagge (2013)
Quite engrossing. The most disruptive portion so far is reading/viewing the part where Margaret becomes a DC lobbyist in 1920s USA. She encounters a number of attitudes that are prominent to this day. Really worth a look-see, folks.
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Post by repulsionist on Apr 12, 2018 19:38:14 GMT -5
Kimble Bent: Malcontent – The Wild Adventures of a Runaway Soldier in Old-Time New Zealand, Chris Grosz (2011) Graphic novel summarising the early 20th Century novel by James Cowan. I happen to like the brutish scraperboard etching technique employed here. Definitely getting a schooling in te reo Maori alongside a cram session re. specifically temporal aspects of their culture. I don't suppose any of you have caught the recent new story about the Wellington Hurricanes' faux pas respective of their recent match in Taranaki that references the land wars in Taranaki? No? I figured. Maybe the news feature about Taika Waititi stating that NZ is "racist as f***"? No? Weel, it's a bit of a hoo-ha here at the mo' at the bottom of the human world. Also, I just heard this Commonwealth-Kiwi Chorale judiciously, yet ironically, side-eyed on ye olde RadioActive radio station. Still zeitgeistin' down in this hemisphere, folks. Just not yours anymore.
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Post by repulsionist on Apr 25, 2018 20:47:20 GMT -5
Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Peter Bagge (2017) Awesome tour, most especially in the end notes, of the bad boys and women of the Harlem Renaissance in addition to a critical overview of a very important artist's life. I'd use the outré term they gave themselves, but that'd be a touch too transgressive. There wasn't as much about Hurston's anthropological studies of hoodoo and voodoo, as I'd hoped to encounter. Guess I'll just hafta read her words on the subjects. Bagge strives to maintain some kind of journalistic integrity, some ethical boundary. This is a great read, folks. Also, many shout-outs to Hurston's time in Jacksonville, FL, which I'd been somewhat aware of thirty years ago when I actively chose to read Eyes without it being high school or university curriculum - but now in the light of "mature" adulthood has a stronger bearing on how I regard parts of Central and North Florida. Ol' Dr. Rumak is just a stone's throw from Eau Gailie (Melbourne), Eatonville, and Sanford. You're in the midst of vibrant history, bub.
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Apr 26, 2018 10:17:24 GMT -5
1) Yehudi Mercado's Sci-Fu. I used to work at a comic store with the guy who grew up to become the EIC and now publisher of Oni Press, and I still see him at cons, and he pretty much demanded I read this book. It's about a young DJ/rapper from the 80s who gets sucked into an alternate dimension along with his family, best friend, and crush, where he has to fight evil rapping robots and master the musical martial art of Sci-Fu. The art is very good, and the story is fairly interesting, but dag, yo, the rhymes are wack. I mean seriously almost painful to read. At least nobody was here to say that they like fighting robots in a major way, but there was no obvious flow. Sort of recommended?
2) Sarah Graley's Kim Reaper. Cute title, cute concept (a girl in university has a major crush on another girl in her class, who turns out to be a part-time grim reaper), but I wasn't really a fan. The art style was cartoony and weird, the characters were barely fleshed out, and I'm not sure what anyone's motivation was besides "let's get makey outy". The only thing I could say that I really liked was the mainstreaming of the same-gender relationship, because even five years ago it still would have been OH HEY LOOK EVERYONE THEY ARE GAY and the comic didn't make a deal of it at all, which is comforting to see. Not really recommended.
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Post by repulsionist on May 6, 2018 3:15:08 GMT -5
Trashed, John "Derf" Backderf (2015) I flash-read his Dahmer recollection a few weeks back. I saw this in the new issues section of the Graphic Novels cache at the library. I picked it up. Took it home. Later that evening I finished it in about 2 hours. Fun read. Other blogposts and reviews found the dialog a bit forced and stilted, but I thought it gelled well and plausibly sounded like over-educated young men cynically evaluating their underemployment. The central theme is a wallop to the brain that forces one to consider how much rubbish, trash, garbage, refuse, and other words meaning disused items we as a "civilsed" humanity manage to discard without a care. Yes, I admit: "How is it easy to think about this when all other systems appear to be in a mode of brinksmanship in all parts of the planet?" Personally, I await a Walter Sobchak moment whereupon the Gaia Principle decides to show us (humans) what happens when one...well, I'll just let Walter show-say it for me. 
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 12, 2018 17:34:54 GMT -5
The Arab of the Future 3, Riad Sattouf (2018)
Riad's aged 7 - 9 in this portion of the memoir. He's accurately portraying his memory of youth as being a bit of a prick back then. He's got vivid memories of both important and mundane events going on in Syria ca. 1985 - 1987. The mundanities are the most intriguing. Still a fascinating document of a life very different to that in the West. Recommended to be read in brightly lit rooms, as the black, and sometimes white, cursive text on the red backgrounds is nearly impossible to read at night by lamp or headlamp. Thanks, smartphone! Thanks for intensifying my loss of vision acuity. Really appreciate this Golden Age I'm repeatedly told we're living in. Can't wait to get to the Platinum Age then move on to the most rare heights of the Osmium Age.
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 13, 2018 15:29:08 GMT -5
The Arab of the Future 3, Sattouf (2018)
Finished this in two evenings. Very compelling as I've noted recently. I need to have a look at his films, or even his articles in L'Obs. Volume 4 of this memoir published last month in France. Envious.
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 15, 2018 16:57:06 GMT -5
California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & the Papas, Pénélope Bagieu (2017)
I've heard of Exquisite Corpse, maybe even thumbed through a volume. I like Bagieu's linework and ability to tell a story with movement in and out of panels after making it halfway through this on the bus yesterday afternoon. The bus sucks. Word. Though the guy next to me was reading Harari's Sapiens, so I felt in good company at least: a comic about a human life, comic life of humans. You get it, right? I don't have to s-p-e-l-l this o-u-t, yes?
Science Tales, Darryl Cunningham (2012)
Got this because I heartily enjoyed his gutting, skewering, and roasting of Objectivism. Didn't skim through to see if this edition contains the bits about fracking.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Dec 11, 2018 9:20:20 GMT -5
Saga Vol. 9 TPB
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Crash Test Dumbass
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Dec 11, 2018 11:07:22 GMT -5
Saga Vol. 9 TPB
I just finished it this morning, and was coming here to post something similar. What the hell, Staples and K. Vaughan? |
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 7, 2019 16:44:07 GMT -5
Mighty Samson Archives Volume 4 (2011)
Who is Mighty Samson? Answer: A sort-of precursor to Thundarr the Barbarian. Certainly, there was a slew of this sort of "apocalypse survival" stuff in the late 60s to 70s comics. These Otto Binder-scripted stories don't reach the heights of the intricately connected ones of Jack Kirby, for example. The characterisation is flat. With transparent hero names like Sharmaine (Main She), Mindor (Minder), there is a lack of subtlety. Some of the art and layout is good. However, it is perfect fluff to read at night before drifting off to sleep.
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Post by patbat on Jan 22, 2019 22:59:11 GMT -5
I was reading Berserk and made it through the “Lost Children” arc...Jesus, that was some dark shit. I lost my taste for it after that entirely.
I picked up trade paperbacks of Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory the other day. Very cool.
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 25, 2019 2:39:55 GMT -5
Invisible Ink - My Mother's Secret Love Affair With A Famous Cartoonist, Bill Griffith (2015)
Zippy's creator discovers a whopping skeleton in the closet. Excellent linework and panel layout. Awesome personal memoir.
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Post by repulsionist on Feb 11, 2019 19:21:54 GMT -5
Is This Guy For Real? The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman, Box Brown (2018)
Comic about a comic.
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Post by sarapen on Feb 11, 2019 19:46:36 GMT -5
Finally got Volume 1 and 2 of Annihilation - the mega-crossover that finally did something decent with Marvel's cosmic characters and was mostly the seed for what became the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The stories are presented by character, but I kind of miss reading it chronologically when the whole thing was originally coming out. It was kind of neat to be going back and forth between what Quasar was doing one week and then moving to the Super-Skrull's hijinks in the Negative Zone before seeing the Kree assembling a Dirty Dozen to fight the invading Annihilation Wave. It's hard for me to say how well this collection stands alone, since while I wasn't overly familiar with a lot of Marvel's space adventures, I did already know what the deal was with the Silver Surfer and the Kree/Skrull rivalry and whatnot. But the whole thing is pretty neat and boy howdy I got like a giant crap ton of comics but neatly arranged in two volumes.
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