Manga and Comic Reviews
With a title like that you’d think that we’d be in for some grade-A foreshadowing and setup for future volumes, right? Unfortunately, as “B.P.R.D.’s” main failing is that it can sometimes be too preoccupied in setting up stories to come that it forgets to tell interesting stories in the here and now, that appears to […]
It’s only natural that when you have a film like “Star Wars” that spawned an entire industry unto itself, there’s going to be a higher than normal level of interest in its origins. So when you start hearing apocryphal stories about the original “rough draft” of the very first film and what it contained — […]
I thought that “Insufficient Direction,” Moyoco Anno’s “essay manga” of her life with husband Hideaki Anno, was pretty enjoyable for what it was. This is actually an atypical reaction compared to the previous manga I’ve read from her. Titles like “Happy Mania,” “Flowers and Bees,” and “Sakuran” left me cold and not feeling much for […]
I’ve made my thoughts clear that the previous volumes of this title do not represent Fumi Yoshinaga’s best work. This volume, however, continues the trend of seeing the mangaka take baby steps towards giving this title more depth than it initially started out with. There’s a brief moment where Shiro, the serious attorney, is complaining […]
When we left off in the battle between Rick’s forces and Negan’s “Saviors,” things were not looking too good for the former’s side. Things had started off great with the zombie-driven assault on Negan’s fortress, but then the man’s forces rallied and staged a devastating attack on Rick’s home. In lesser hands, this downward trend […]
“Usagi Yojimbo” creator Stan Sakai lays out the origins of the title characters in his introduction to this collected edition. For what it’s worth, it sounds like he had a solid plan for it. The story of wandering rabbit swordsman Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy the guinea pig, his naif traveling companion, was to have been […]
What do you do to follow up a phenomenon like “Scott Pilgrim?” If you’re creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, then the answer is you take several years off to get your bearings and decide what your next move is. Then you pour all of your energy into creating a 300+-page graphic novel about a chef/restaurant owner […]
In this volume, Cyclops’ team finishes out their forced sojourn to Limbo, deal with one of their own quitting the team, lock horns with S.H.I.E.L.D., and take down a new-model Sentinel at a pro-mutant rally. So there’s a lot going on here in the six issues collected here even if their quality is somewhat uneven. […]
I can’t say that there was a whole lot of comics news that grabbed my attention coming out of Comic-Con this year. However, we were told in advance that Marvel would be unleashing their plans for “Star Wars” at the convention and they did not disappoint. Their announcements regarding the titles and the creative teams […]
That’s one more Comic-Con down. Even though the con was insanely packed as usual, it still felt pretty manageable to me. Maybe that’s because I’ve made it a habit to stay away from the craziness of the Hall H and Ballroom 20 lines and focus more on panels geared towards comic creators. Of course, it […]