Ah, it’s one of THOSE first weeks of the month. Well, according to Midtown. Generally I’ve found that when the 1st comes on a Wednesday, publishers regard it as an unofficial 5th week. That seems to be the case here, as Midtown lists no Viz. Luckily, we have some other neat stuff.

Vertical has Chi’s Sweet Home, which I reviewed earlier today. KITTY!

Dark Horse has Volume 15 of Oh My Goddess, another in their series of re-releases in unflipped style. If I recall, this wraps up the ‘Queen Sayoko’ arc. They’ve also got another Evangelion spinoff starting, this one a shoujo horror tale that ran in Kadokawa’s otaku-girl-oriented Asuka. If you want your Evangelion with lots more Shinji and Kaworu, this is for you.

I know little about DMP’s yaoi release of the week, The Tyrant Falls In Love, except that it apparently appears in a BL magazine in Japan called ‘Gush’. Nothing else to add except I love the idea of a BL magazine called Gush. For one thing, it keeps the title away from Ero magazines…

And then there’s a brace of Tokyopop. A new series called Witch of Artemis, from Mag Garden’s Comic Blade. More Hakusensha shoujo to keep me happy, with Karakuri Odette 4, Happy Cafe 4, and Portrait of M & N 3. Fans of Karin, aka Chibi Vampire, will enjoy a one-shot spinoff called Airmail, featuring short stories with the same cast. And there’s a new Alice in the Country of Hearts, which I keep not getting around to reviewing. I sort of put it in the Vampire Knight category. Yes, I know its flaws are obvious and blatant, but OMNOMNOM what a fast and addicting read!

Easiest list I’ve ever had to do, but it deserves its own post.

Midtown says that it is getting in A Drunken Dream And Other Stories from Fantagraphics next week. This collection of Moto Hagio’s shoujo work is eagerly anticipated by many, including me. This is Fantagraphics’ new manga imprint, and they’ve apparently gone all out in making it a handsome, attractive volume. And the stories, hand picked by Matt Thorn with the author’s approval, run the gamut from the 1960s to the present day. Seriously, everyone who reads my blog should already have preordered this. If not, get it.

You should also get the new Complete Peanuts 1977-1978. And the first volume of Bob Montana’s Archie strips (1946-1948) is also out.

At last, a quiet week! Most of the Viz stuff I’m mentioning actually shipped this week to comic shops, and as always Midtown Comics is getting it a week later. But a week where 30-40 books aren’t all coming out at once is a GOOD week.

Oh yes, we also have Kodansha’s Western arm, who are putting out Ghost in the Shell 2. I presume this will be a simple reprint of the Dark Horse version, like Kodansha’s other releases to date. I will admit they did announce a new title for January of next year that seems to be a non-reprint, a manga version of Hagakure: The Code of the Samurai. I’d still like to see Sailor Moon, though. :)

As for Viz, this week is traditionally the week when they release their ‘Signature’ titles, the ones with good reviews and bad sales. Or maybe not, as Vagabond 32 is coming out, and Matt Blind’s excellent post here shows that it sells OK. We also get new 20th Century Boys for you Urasawa fans, and more Ooku for those who like to rage against the adaptation.

Gestalt, the fantasy manga that came out in the 1990s from Square Enix’s GFantasy magazine, is ending after 8 volumes.

The two I’m most interested in this week are Dorohedoro Volume 2, as I found Volume 1 to be far more interesting than I’d expected from a grim, gritty, ultraviolence title, and Volume 1 of Gente, the ‘prequel’ to Ristorante Paradiso that goes into how the restaurant came to be. Both are titles that I very much consider ‘subsidized by Naruto’, i.e. they’d never be licensed were it not for Viz’s success with the ninja boy allowing them to take more risks. At the same time, I always love when titles like this come out. These two especially have art that’s fascinating and great to analyze, albeit in totally different ways.