November 2006 Comics
This month’s by mail arrivals:
Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical): This is huge, over 800 pages, and I read it in one sitting. A great counterpoint to the other available (in English) of Tezuka’s works–Buddha and Phoenix, this modern day (well for when it was made) tale of a doctor and strange regressive disease is filled with religious/spiritual metaphors (as are many of Tezuka’s works). This’ll require a reread before I say too much about it. It is darker than the other two manga I mentioned, but still shares all of Tezuka’s usual stylistics and themes.
Lucky by Gabrielle Bell (Drawn & Quarterly): A collection of Bell’s autobiographical series, Lucky. Bell is a cartoonist that I find I like more the further along she gets in her career. I was unimpressed with her previous collection When I’m Old, but I’ve really been enjoying her most recent anthology work. This book falls somewhere inbetween. Her minimal rendering is enjoyable, but the autobiographical stories aren’t always very… I don’t know… they are enjoyable for the moment of their reading, but leave no lasting impression. Still, I’ll be looking forward to the next collection or series.
Daybreak 1 by Brian Ralph (Bodega): I’ve been reading this on the Bodega blog, and didn’t realize it would be an ongoing series. Anyway, what interested me in this comic is that is uses first person perspective through out. The reader is the protagonist in a way. All the characters talk at you, everything is seen from a first person perspective. This has a certain narrative limitation, and it’s interesting to see how Ralph works through it. Unfortunately, the setting is so far fairly banal: a post-apocalyptic world with some kind of unseen monsters, which the story does not do anything to make new or terrible interesting.
Tags: Pre-Orders
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