Manga and Comic Reviews
Above-the-Board Recommendation What’s Michael? Fatcat Collection vol. 1 Wow. I had just about forgotten that Dark Horse had published this series. This series, about the wacky adventures of a cat named Michael, was just a bit ahead of its time. It wasn’t published in pamphlet form, but in slim 60-100-page graphic novels for around $7 […]
I don’t know how I wound up with two volumes of manga from different series by mangaka Shuzo Oshimi in my “To Review” pile. I wasn’t planning on reviewing both of them in one go either. Except some of the manga titles in my “To Review” pile are coming up on a month old and […]
This is one of the most satisfying volumes I’ve read in this series after a while. Not because of any one thing it does. No, this volume is a case of mangaka Satoru Noda throwing a lot of stuff at the wall, plot-wise, and having it all turn out pretty well. I’m talking about bits […]
Well, um, you see… About “‘Prison School’s’ darkest secret” I mentioned in my last review: Somehow I had heard and/or gotten it into my head that the main storyline with Kiyoshi, Gackt, Shingo, Joe, and Andre was going to wrap up here. It would have them leaving the school only to be replaced by a […]
The farm life isn’t all wacky fun as Hachiken learns in vol. 8. It’s here that he finds out the reason why Komaba won’t be coming back to Ezo Ag: His family farm has gone under and now he has to help take it apart before he starts working full-time to help pay off the […]
On its own terms, this is probably the most entertaining “Mars Chronicle” has been so far. It starts off with a thrilling and creative fight between bounty hunters Dass and Gillum before segueing into the inevitably tragic end of Yoko’s mom/nanny Kyoko. There’s a bit there that chillingly illustrates how much of a psychopath Erica […]
Above-the-Board Recommendation: Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey #1 (of 8) I didn’t expect this: Matt Wagner is returning to his other signature creation to push it forward. After the prose/illustrated novel “Past Prime” took “Grendel” to its farthest point in the future, Wagner left it there for a decade. He spent that decade looking into the past […]
Marvel’s “Endgame” victory lap and its unveiling of “Phase 4.” The future of “The Walking Dead” on TV and on film. The final “Game of Thrones” panel with the cast. I went to none of the panels that featured these things. As is the case with all of the Comic-Cons that I attend, my focus […]
You know, I think you’ve got to go all the way back to the reign of Yoshimune — maybe Ieshige if you’re being generous — to find a time when it felt like the good women and men of this series weren’t constantly behind the eightball. Since then it’s felt like things have steadily become […]
Our long national nightmare is over! No, not that one. I’m talking about how it’s been almost three years since we’ve had any new “Jojo’s” stories in print. The last volume of “Battle Tendency” came out in August 2016 and since then Viz has been dutifully reprinting the entirety of “Stardust Crusaders” in the now-standard […]