News and reviews for the discerning manga fan
Would you still respect me as a critic if I admitted that I loved Honey Darling? Before you answer that question, consider the following evidence: Exhibit A: The Cover. One of the characters is wearing cat ears and holding a cat. Gotta cover all the bases, I guess. Exhibit B: Logic-Free Plotting. Chihiro rescues a [...]
In 2007, NBM Comics-Lit published Nicolas de Crecy’s Glacial Period, the first in a series of graphic novels commissioned by the Louvre Museum. The goal of Glacial Period — and the four books that followed it — was to introduce readers to the richness and complexity of the Louvre’s vast collections through a familiar medium: [...]
If you grew up in a small town, you probably knew someone like Takao Kusagi, the nebbish-hero of The Flowers of Evil. Kasuga is a precocious middle-schooler who copes with provincial life by burying his nose in a book. His peers tolerate him, but find him a little too smug and strange to be one [...]
Between the Manga Movable Feast and end-of-the-semester duties, I’ve fallen hopelessly behind in my reviewing. Today’s column is a first step towards conquering my towering pile of unread books. On the agenda are two new series: Durarara!! (Yen Press), a wacky comedy set in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district, and Kamen (Gen Manga), a martial-arts manga that’s [...]
The Apartments of Calle Feliz begins with a scene cribbed from an Audrey Tatou flick. Luca, a struggling writer, has a terrible day: he breaks up with his boyfriend, then fights with his editor, who chastises him for writing “dark” endings. (“Nobody wants to read your sad story during a recession,” he tells Luca.) Desperate [...]
Is it possible for the artwork in a kid-friendly comic to be… well, too good? I found myself wrestling with this question while reading Kitty & Dino, a playful, visually sophisticated graphic novel for young readers. The story is standard kid-lit fare, using animals to dramatize the dynamic between older and younger siblings. In this [...]
Meet Lydia Carlton: she’s a so-called “fairy doctor,” a healer who acts as an intermediary between the spirit and human worlds. The rapid advance of technology in Victorian England has made Lydia’s job obsolete; most people no longer seek magical remedies for their ailments, and view Lydia as a relic of a less enlightened time, [...]
Back in February, I went on “second dates” with Dawn of the Arcana and Gate 7, two series that made a strong first impression on me. That experiment was so successful I decided to go on a few more second dates — this time, with A Devil and Her Love Song, a shojo drama about a [...]
Of all the artists whose work appears in The New Yorker, Charles Barsotti is my favorite. His cartoons aren’t as edgy as Roz Chast’s, or as elegantly drawn as Harry Bliss’s, but Barsotti’s dog cartoons are an exquisite theme-and-variations on the same joke. That joke, of course, is that Barsotti’s dogs talk, walk, and do [...]
Around the age of ten, I had a brief but intense love affair with historical fiction. It began with Little House in the Big Woods — required reading for all American girls of a certain age — and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I then discovered Johnny Tremain, made an unsuccessful attempt to read [...]
I’m not a big fan of squirm-inducing comedies like The Office; it’s hard to root for a loser who … [Read More...]
Are you an adult reader new to manga? Or a librarian who's looking to add more graphic novels to … [Read More...]
Back in the 1990s, Matt Thorn labored hard to make Keiko Nishi a household name among American manga … [Read More...]
Between the Manga Movable Feast and end-of-the-semester duties, I've fallen hopelessly behind in my … [Read More...]
Below is a list of helpful English-language web resources about manga and manhwa. I update this page on a regular basis, so … [Read More...]
Since joining the Good Comics for Kids team in 2008, I've reviewed a variety of comics, graphic novels, and manga for younger … [Read More...]
Though Vertical has published two series by Keiko Takemiya, the Magnificent 49ers' work remains largely unavailable in … [Read More...]
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