Reviews I Agree With
Once again, too lazy to do my own comic reviews, so here are some good
reviews I've run across recently:
Greg
McElhatton on Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book One:
Greg reviews the latest anthology from Drawn & Quarterly.
I've read it, and I think I basically agree with Greg's final thoughts
on the book: "Does
Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book One
succeed in showcasing two up-and-coming comic creators? Very much so.
After reading this book you'll definitely want to buy more comics from
Huizenga sight unseen, and certainly want to see more of Robel's works
as well." I qualify my agreement because Greg may be a little
more enthusiastic about wanting to see Robel's future work than I
am. I think Greg's earlier statement about Robel's piece was
fitting: "It hammers its points home a little too much, though,
and what could have been a powerful shorter story seems to overstay its
welcome by just a little too much." I definitely agree that Kevin
Huizenga's three-chapter tale is a winner, though: Alternately
mundane and mystical, it's an engaging, powerfully-presented story.
Christopher
Butcher on Naruto vol. 2: I like this so
much I'm just going to reproduce the whole bit:
Meanwhile,
back at ENERGY! Along with its fellow Shonen JUMP serialized title ONE
PIECE, NARUTO is leading the way in the high-energy-comics sweepstakes!
Every illustration and emotion leaps off the page, making for some
bloody visceral comics reading. It’s interesting to
compare-and-contrast with North American Comics’ best-selling “High
Energy” title, THE ULTIMATES. Last week’s ULTIMATES issue featured
Thunder Gods tearing space ships out of the sky, lightning strikes and
robots and all that. Very pretty, very BIG stuff. But it was all… It
was very much as if you were looking at the motion as a series of
stills from a movie. Lovely, impressive, even dynamic to a certain
degree, but it was only screen-captures of what must be a hell of a
movie. Something like NARUTO or ONE PIECE, the characters dance across
the page. There’s speed and motion and energy, you’re watching the
movie, you’re playing the videogame, you ARE the protagonist, that
barrier is removed. It’s a hell of a big difference and I think it’s
phenomenal, and I think that’s one of the primary reasons that manga’s
rising-popularity in North America is so popular. We’ve got
big-budget-blockbuster movies already, we don’t need to see
single-frames from them blown up and turned into a comic. What we need
is comics that use being comics to their full advantage, and it
seems the vast majority of the books delivering on that are coming to
us from overseas.
I felt the same way when I read
Akira not too long
ago:
This was how to convey kinetic, high-energy
action.
Naruto, while not one of my favorite
serials from
Shonen Jump, definitely succeeds in
capturing a similar sense of motion.
(Aside: In his comments on
Walking Dead, Chris
comments that he can't think of any other zombie comics out there to
exploit the untapped SURVIVAL HORROR market. Here are some recent
ones that came to mind:
Lone,
Goon,
and several recent issues of
Metal Hurlant.)
Chad
Boudreau on Club 9 vol. 1: In reviewing
Club 9, one of my favorite manga, Chad captures part of
what I think
makes this series so appealing (at least from my heterosexual
perspective):
The
women of Club 9 have real-life sensuality to
them, something that is missing in a lot of comics, whether North
American or Japanese....The women that work in the club are not your
stereotypical manga women. Sure, they have the wide eyes but these
women are pleasantly plump and curvaceous, not muscled, long-legged and
disproportionately endowed in boobs.
No wonder I'm so drawn to this manga: I'm being subtly seduced by
the charming, non-conventional beauty of Makoto Kobayashi's characters!
Closing Thoughts: It should be obvious, but I'll come
right out and say it just in case there was any doubt. Because I
agree with these reviewers, they are therefore
RIGHT. QED.
