Manga/Comics/Bandes Dessinée

[Kathy Li]

Since the old thread has apparently gone to that great bit bucket in the sky, I begin a new one.

I was looking through Amazon and noticed that the author of Marmalade Boy, Wataru Yoshizumi, has had another title published through Viz. Does anybody know if Ultra Maniac is worth getting?

Also, waaaah. First book of Astro City: The Dark Age has ended!

[AlidaART]

Hmm. I got a preview of Ultra Maniac via my subscription to Shoujo Beat (which I am now getting because Animerica died), and it didn't seem particularly stellar. Meaning, I don't feel like Yoshizumi's writing/art skills have...matured at all since Marmalade Boy. Which is not to say that I didn't like MB--it was the first manga I read!--but just be wary: Ultra Maniac is certainly not anything beyond MB. It might even be a little less impressive. A sort of Inuyasha to MB's Ranma, I'd say. (Okay, maybe not that bad, but still, not as good.)

...So yeah. If you absolutely adore Yoshizumi, go for it. If you're so-so on her or looking for something even better than Marmalade Boy, don't bother.

-------

Anyways, this would be a topic for general discussion of manga/comics ect, right? Okay. Then I'll just put this out there: Immortal Rain, by Kaori Ozaki, is an amazing manga. Read it.

[Kathy Li]

What you say makes sense, since Ultra Maniac is her first try at a fantasy manga ever, and wouldn't feel as natural as Marmalade Boy (which I did adore, so it sounds as if it's worth it for me to at least get a single volume to play with).

You might want to describe Immortal Rain and why you like it so much, or link to a website with a review or samples or something just to give other folks a clue.

Myself, I'm just sitting about waiting until the cheaper paperback editions of Tezuka's Buddha are done.

[AlidaART]

Ah, kli, you want me to do the Googling for people huh? Kidding, kidding. Here's a link to a fansite that ought to help: Angel Reaper.

And then, a personal description of the series:

Well, it's a sort of apocalyptic fantasy that straddles, as many great mangas do, shoujo and shounen genres. Machika Balfaltin is an assasin who's main goal in life is to kill the immortal Methuselah, or as he likes to be called, Rain. When she and Rain finally meet up though, they form a strange relationship, mostly because Rain is sick of living, and Machika pities him. Together they search for an end to Rain's immortality, and Machika declares that she will be Rain's "Grim Reaper". The first volume seems a little cliched, but the series continues on to become a deep and complicated story about immortality and the lengths people will go for it. It also manages to be quite humorous at some points as well, so it's appealingly well-rounded (not all angst!). One warning however: some volumes are pretty violent (and I really should have said this before; I'm very sorry). However, overall, great story, great art, and great characters.

So, yeah. And um, kli, if you want me to delete this post and add all this stuff to my previous post, just say the word/go ahead.

-----

Re Buddha: Never read that. Probably should look at it, though. I've seen it around a lot.

[Kathy Li]

No worries, Alida. It sounds like an interesting story. It reminds me a bit of Galaxy 999, but without the train.

Buddha is definitely also an R-rated kind of piece, and Tezuka can sometimes creep me out without doing anything creepy if that makes any sense. Astro Boy was just a bit too weird for me to read. His style, both in writing and in art, is also very very different from that of most current manga-ka. But he is definitely one of the "classics" that needs to be read, given that he more or less single-handedly began the entire anime/manga industry in Japan. I'm woefully under-read where he's concerned. I think that aside from the Americanized versions of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, the only real exposure I've had to Tezuka is Adolf.

Speaking of classic comics, I also find myself reading a lot of Windsor McCay these days. There's something about the Victorian illustration quality combined with the sheer genius in panel-layout that still manages to smack me right between the eyes whenever I pick up Little Nemo in Slumberland. Not sure if I'm gonna blow the big bucks on the full-size reprint that just got issued, though.

[kaiba4ever]

Death Note. Since someone decided to revive this thread, I've decided to mention this excellent manga. It's just been released in English by VIZ, so I guess I should recommend it now that more people have access to it (I read the entire series illegally scanlated >_> ). Anyway, this manga is really emotional and deep for a shounen manga. And the art is excellent, considering that its the same artist from the popular series called Hikari no Go. But this series is as FAR from Go as anything can possibly be. It's about a teenage boy, top student, role model than finds a notebook, possessed by a shinigami (death god from Japanese legend). When you write a name in the Note, the person dies. Light decides to use the Note to purify the world and kill off all the criminals and bad people, and be "god" of his new utopia.

This series is like a horror manga. The hero is someone who is a mass murderer, but claims to be using the Note to save and purify the world. It makes you really think; what really IS good, and what's actually bad? This series has made be question the morals of humanity. If you want a good deep manga, I highly recommend this series! ^_~

[AlidaART]

Re Deathnote: AGH, I've been meaning to pick this up for forever, but my bookstore only has volume two and I am really mad about it. GAH.

Re Little Nemo: LOVE THAT. Also, did you know that Hayao Miyazaki was involved in some sort of animation for that? I'm a mite confused about the details, but I know he had something to do with something related to that (ehhehe, excuse the vague references). Arg, my garbled memory. But I'm sure if you look it up you'll find some sort of connection.

-----

Oh, yes, and strangely enough kli--Immortal Rain does have a train in a couple of the stories

[Kathy Li]

I actually didn't enjoy the recentish animated Little Nemo film nearly as much as Windsor McCay's silent originals. But it wouldn't surprise me that Miyazaki was involved--he's done a LOT of work over the decades. I think my favorite Miyazaki is still one of the pre-Ghibli films (and thus, not part of the Disney distribution deal): Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Spielberg is quoted as having once said it had the best action sequence of any film ever made.

I'm also not surprised about the train in Immortal Rain. Any culture that can make video games out of driving bullet trains would include them in movies/tv.

BTW, I've just ploughed my way through a pile of comics: Astro City, Wonder Woman, Gotham Central, Adventures of Superman, and B.P.R.D.. All of it pretty good reading. I really love Greg Rucka's writing, but I'm not sure I want to buy the new Q&C novel in hardcover. But I do have to say I love what he's doing with Wonder Woman.

[AlidaART]

Actually, I think it was an older animated "Little Nemo" that Miyazaki was involved with, but maybe my mind is going. (Scratch that, it is going--and at such a tender age, too!)

Wonder Woman...I need to get myself into American comics. I loved Hellboy, though, even if it took me forever to read the ones my friend Charlie lent me.

[Peter Murray]

An "older" animated Little Nemo? When Winsor McCay did his animated Little Nemo that Kathy mentioned, nobody knew who that guy Disney was. Not surprising really, he was only seven: the film was made in 1908.

Winsor McCay was one of the pioneers of animation.

[AlidaART]

Then perhaps it was the "recentish" one--I don't exactly know how recentish kli means, you see, being a good bit younger

[Kathy Li]

Ah, yes. Good point--I forget how slowly time is moving for you who have yet to reach your thirties. By "recentish," I mean the 1992 one by Masanori Hata with some design/writing work from Moebius, iirc.

Hey, 1992 is when DD's last Door book was published. If I didn't think of it as recentish, I might start getting frustrated.

B.P.R.D. is interesting, because it's a Hellboy story sans Hellboy. But if you want the pure vein, I'd actually recommend picking up one of the trade paperbacks instead. B.P.R.D. is being drawn by Guy Davis (of Baker Street fame), which isn't a bad thing, but is still different from the original stories which were, of course, written and drawn by Mike Mignola. I thought the movie version did an insanely good job of bringing the characters to life, but not-so-good a job of depicting the folktale ambience that imbues the Hellboy stories.

But of course, I'd recommend Sandman before Hellboy.

[AlidaART]

Yes, that is a bit of a gap (though I'm not as young as some on these boards). And I think the 1992 is the one, but Miyazaki did work on it back in the eighties I believe, and then it ended being done by Disney later...or something along those lines. Perhaps it was a TV show? I really can't remember.

Hm. The Hellboy movie was...okay, I thought. Definitely not as good as the comics. It seemed to be going in a really great direction at the beginning of the movie, and then ended up kind of far from where I thought it was going (it had less of the Oh Em Gee Nazi Conspiracy stuff, I think, and that felt like it would really work at the beginning and then it kind of...died.) Then again, I saw the movie before I read the comics (I know, I'm terrible), so it probably held less WOW factor for me than if I had done the reverse.

[Kathy Li]

Ok, I went and looked up the Little Nemo (1992) film on the net and it looks like both Miyazaki and Takahata were involved in some early development, but it did end up getting done by another studio (not Disney, though). A lot of different people apparently put their hands to it, only to have their work thrown out (Ray Bradbury being another).

I've also been loaned a DVD of the Windsor McCay 1911 version, and it's amazing. Then again, McCay was a genius. To see Little Nemo come to life like that is really something else.

I almost always read books after seeing movies, because about 90% of the time, the book is better than the movie, and I get to enjoy both that way. If I read the book right before seeing a movie, I tend to creeb a lot about how they changed things around.

OTOH, the film versions of From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, well I can amuse myself creebing for hours about how much they got wrong. In those cases, stick with the comic--the comic is far superior, and not even the tragically miscast Johnny Depp can save From Hell from the morass of hollowness that film became. I sincerely hope that V for Vendetta will break the streak of Alan Moore comics being completely screwed up when brought to film.

[AlidaART]

I've been intending to see From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for a while now...I suppose I should go out and do that during vacation. Strangely enough, I am enough of a movie freak that I really tend to like film adaptations more than the average book/comic fiend. So, hopefully I will enjoy all the aforemenioned works, though probably not all equally.

(I've never heard the word "creeb" before...must be a west coast thing )