Sunday, September 25, 2005

Trying again. I'm going to keep comments short in hopes that I can finish before my browser crashes again.

  1. Negima!, vol. 4 by Ken Akamatsu. There are some pretty deeply creepy aspects to this manga, but I enjoy the humor. As Kaja Foglio says, it helps to imagine that the characters are 4 to 6 years older than they say they are.
  2. Pet Shop of Horrors, vol. 2 by Mutsuri Akina. I have the feeling that eventually, this may turn into yaoi manga. (Checked out of the library.)
  3. Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate by Paul Guinan & Anina Bennet.
  4. Iron Wok Jan!, v.2 by Shinji Saijyo. I'm not going to rant about the difficulty of finding particular manga volumes at Amazon, because I have gathered that the publisher who put out the first volumes of this series has since gone out of business. (Library.)
  5. Deadman: Lost Souls by Mike Baron & Kelley Jones.
  6. Frumpy the Clown, vol. 1: Freaking Out the Neighbors by Judd Winick. Collection of a short-lived daily strip.
  7. Frumpy the Clown, vol. 2: The Fat Lady Sings by Judd Winick. I think I am contractually obligated to point out that the creator for this strip appeared on the San Francisco season of The Real World.
  8. Mermaid Saga, vol. 2 by Rumiko Takahashi. I know manga artists work with assistants, but there must be an awful lot of people who can draw in Takahashi's style, because she has an awful lot of series. (Yes, we're probably getting her stuff at a faster rate than it appeared in Japan, but there does seem to be a lot of it. (Library.)
  9. Punch & Judy: Twice Told Tales by Christopher P. Reilly & Darron Laessig.
  10. Shaman King, vol. 7: Clash at Mata Cemetery by Hiroyuki Takei.
  11. CMX Preview 2005 by various.
  12. Empire by Mark Waid & Barry Kitson.
  13. Little Lulu: My Dinner with Lulu by John Stanley & Irving Tripp. (Library.)
  14. Aria, vol. 1 by Kozue Amano. (Library.)
  15. The Best of Spider-Man, vol. 4 by J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr., & Mike Deodato Jr. (Why does Amazon have the cover for volume one up for this book?) I've read a lot of negative things about one of the stories collected in this book, and while I didn't think it was all that good, it also didn't strike me as the travesty that a lot of people said it was.
  16. Coyote, vol. 1 by Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers. It's looking like more & more great comics from the 80s are being collected. This is a very good thing.
  17. Thor: Son of Asgard: The Warriors Teen by Akira Yoshida & Greg Tocchini. (Library.)
  18. Ex Machina, vol 2: Tag by Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris. I'm really enjoying this series. It seems to be doing fairly well in sales, so I don't feel too guilty for only buying the collections.
  19. The Complete Jon Sable, Freelance, vol. 1 by Mike Grell. Another 80s series being collected. (Library.)
  20. Pet Shop of Horrors, vol. 3 by Matsuri Akino. (Library.)
  21. Spider-Man/Human Torch: I'm with Stupid by Dan Slott & Ty Templeton. This was a delight. Five stories (set at various points in Marvel Universe history) about two heroes & how they (don't) get along. Funny, but not at the expense of the characters. Lots of fun.
  22. Mermaid Saga, vol. 3 by Rumiko Takahashi. You know the drill by now. Please insert one of my previous complaints about how difficult it is to find particular manga volumes at Amazon. (Library.)
  23. Sgt. Rock's Combat Tales, vol. 1 by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, et al. Finally, cheap reprints of DC's war comics. The manga explosion has been good not only because it has brought some great Japanese comics to the U.S., but because it's forcing Marvel & DC to look beyond superheroes.
  24. Point Blank by Ed Brubaker & Colin Wilson. With the recent publication of Sleeper, vol. 4, the entire series has been collected. I'll be reading the whole thing (sometimes re-reading), and I started with this prelude volume.


I'm back up to date. Let's see how long that lasts.

And I promise, a post about Serenity before Friday.

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