March 2006 Comics

Last month’s comics arrivals:

Phoenix Vol. 6 “Nostalgia” by Osamu Tezuka (Viz): Yeah! Viz finally brings back this series that alternates between past and future, telling stories of people and their (often very small) interactions with the mythical phoenix, the bird that is resurrected. Themes of birth, death, and rebirth are prominent as is the echoing of stories between volumes. This particular volume takes place in the future and is one of the oddest in the series so far, involving a couple that colonizes a barren planet. What follows is unusual on many levels and spans decades in time and vast distances. This is also the largest volume in the series so far, a monster.

Concrete Vol. 4: Killer Smile by Paul Chadwick (Dark Horse): Concrete’s pal Larry is kidnapped and Chadwick tells a crime/suspense story that I never really got into. This veers from the normal Concrete style and feels a little out of place.

Crickets #1 by Sammy Harkham (Drawn & Quarterly): The new series by Kramer’s Ergot founder Sammy Harkham. Should be an interesting series to follow. In brown, white, and a pale green that I really like. This one is all about pacing, slow moving. The art is worth lingering over. Harkham draws wonderful characters, reminiscent (like Huizenga) of older comic strip styles.

Big Questions #8 by Anders Nilsen (Drawn & Quarterly): Continuing a story that started some issues ago, unfortunately most of those issues are unavailable since D&Q only started publishing this series last issue. This means that any reader of the new version is starting in at the middle… I managed to find a copy of issue 6 and I’m still not caught up. Why even bother, when I’ll have to pick up the collected version anyway?

Following Cerebus #7: A TV issue, which in itself is kind of anti-Sim to begin with. Even an article of Dave watching his first Buffy episode did not save this one, the first issue of this book that I found almost completely lacking.

Darling Cheri by Walter Minus (Fantagraphics): This was not what I expected. I expected a comic with a story, and instead got a bunch of cheescake drawings with some text added to give the appearance of a story. Many of the images are reused, cropped and zoomed differently, and the text doesn’t really fit all that great with the images. Skip it.

Tags: tezuka

Related posts

• Phoenix End (0)
• Phoenix 7 and 8 (4)
• Clouds 6 (1)
• Buddha 5: Deer Park by Osamu Tezuka (0)
• April 2006 Comics (0)