Manga the week of 11/24

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Midtown’s new list for next week, as ever bearing little relation to Diamond’s, is now out. Apologies to anyone who expected K-On! this week from my post last week. This is the danger of using a store that buys from multiple distributors. :)

Dark Horse is releasing another volume of Gantz, which judging by the fast release schedule may be their sole remaining hit (well, not counting Berserk, which has caught up with Japan). It’s really coming out fast, and no doubt will feature plenty of blood and boobs. I’d hope that if it does well some company might take a chance on either Hen or HEN – two different but interconnected series with gay and lesbian relationships – but doubt it, as neither have sadistic gore.

Del Rey has the 4th (and presumably final for some time) volume of Ninja Girls, the ecchi harem series about… well, an ecchi ninja harem. Never let it be said some titles don’t tell you the plot… all it lacks is cover copy saying “Look! Tits!’, and really that’s what the cover art is for.

Tokyopo has the 8th and final volume of Gatcha Gacha. I realize this is not on Midtown’s list, but for all I know they simply decided not to carry it. Heck, it’s only a few days ago that Amazon deigned to make it available to pre-order. I don’t care, it’s one of the bestest shoujo manga ever. I’ve waited almost 3 years for this volume and YOU WILL ALL BUY IT OR I AM TURNING THIS CAR RIGHT AROUND. Speaking of series that have long seemed to be abandoned, we also have the final volume of Bt’X, a series from the creator of Knights of the Zodiac/Saint Seiya, which may have rivaled Saint Seiya for lowest sales in North America when it came out in the mid-00s.

We also get a couple of shoujo debuts. I’ve heard many people ask about the long-running late 90s manga Tea Prince. Well, it’s still not licensed. However, you may enjoy Sky-Blue Shore, a 6-volume series by the same artist that ran in BetsuHana in 2007. And there’s also a short (2 volume) series by the author of Kare Kano, Eensy Weensy Monster (don’t get mad at TP, that is the Japanese title as well), the first of which is out next week.

In non-debuts or ending volumes, we see more of the fast-track scheduled Gakuen Alice (I still need to read 13 – I suck), the we’re-not-sure-if-this-is-bad-or-just-insane Demon Sacred, The best-selling tsundere hit Maid-sama!, the possibly worn-out-its-welcome but still cute Sgt. Frog, the vaguely gay but not enough to call it yaoi Togainu no Chi, and the gender bender comedy antics of Your & My Secret.

Viz has the 9th volume of its VIZBIG Collection of Vagabond, and must be nearly caught up by now.

And Yen has the debut of a soccer manga with overtones of melancholy, Sasameke, which ran in Kadokawa’s Shonen Ace back around 2001. Don’t expect it to be much like Ace’s current crop, though. Like Dragon Girl, this 5-volume series will come out in 2 massive omnibuses. In Japan, it was followed by a 1-volume spinoff, Sasameki, also from Shonen Ace. We also see the 2nd volume of My Girlfriend’s a Geek, which I liked far more than was possibly justified, and the 5th volume of Nabari no Ou, which I had actually forgotten was still coming out, and which has ninjas. RELUCTANT ninjas.

What appeals to you this week?

Archie Firsts

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Created by Bob Montana. Art by Bob Montana and George Frese, Story by Vic Bloom (the first story) and other unknown writers. Initially published by MLJ Magazines, later Archie Comics. This edition released by Dark Horse.

I will admit I was buying this volume out of more pure nostalgia and a desire to support an archive collection of Archie Comics more than an expectation that it would be any good. I’ve read the first Archie story from Pep Comics before, and it struck me then as it does now – an aggressively mediocre take on Andy Hardy that is very reliant on ridiculous sight gags. Imagine my surprise, then, when I not only got a lot out of this collection of the initial appearances of the main cast of Archie, but also found myself laughing hard several times.

I laughed least at the Archie part of the collection, though. While I do appreciate Bob Montana’s creation of the Archie characters, and his making of the template that would follow, his 1940s art grates on me a great deal. Jughead in particular is almost ridiculously laughable, looking about 55 years old in his initial appearances, making one wonder how he possibly can be in high school, unless he stayed back about 19 grades. (Indeed, one of the initial gags has Archie making fun of Jughead’s intelligence. This wouldn’t last long – by the Jughead comic later in the collection, he’s already tops in his class.) The two best stories in this part of the collection were a Christmas story where Archie and Jughead get invited (separately) to a party by twin girls, and mistaken identity gags follow. There’s then a Jughead-focused story where he’s dragooned into being a hockey goalie, and after getting clobbered has a surreal fantasy where Archie appears in every aspect of his life to ruin it.

I do note that Jughead, despite going on about how he hates dames, seems to be involved with women as much as Archie does in these comics. One of the twins describes his elderly looks in these early Archies as ‘so manly!’, and in his hockey-induced dream sequence, he’s actually on a boat trying to serenade a beautiful girl (who turns out to be Archie, but I’ll leave that for psychologists). Indeed, the ad for Jughead’s title that’s seen later in the volume shows his indifference to many and varied varieties of girls (including Betty), all of whom seem fascinated by HIM. For those who think the ‘Jughead likes girls after all’ plot was just brought out in the late 80s, think again.

Jughead’s title itself is pretty good – he’s drawn here by George Frese, and has evolved so that he merely looks in his mid-30s rather than the elderly Jughead of Bob Montana. One of the odder things here is seeing not one but two weird old guys who give Jughead super secret formulas – both related to football. We also meet an early version of Moose Mason, who is dating Lottie rather than Midge, but is still just as jealous of anyone who even looks at her – especially Jughead, who is even MORE suspicious as he doesn’t like girls. (Again, as in the Archie title, Jughead’s hatred of girls is made light of several times. We even see him trying to instruct his cousin Soupy in the art of being gallant to a lady.) This was a decent title, but I noted that Jughead’s luck seemed far worse than it does in later titles from the 70s and 80s – here he’s very much a hard-luck victim much of the time.

As for the Reggie title, I’ve always felt he worked better as a foil than as the star, so wasn’t as bowled over. Still, they did a good job of keeping things varied here, with a few stories about his reputation for pranks and practical jokes. Most of the issue, though, tended to focus on Reggie’s colossal ego, and how it keeps getting him into hot water. I did note that out of all the issues we see here, Reggie’s comes closest to looking like the ‘modern’ style – Reggie hasn’t changed much over the years, barring that first issue of Jackpot comics where he seems to be called Scotty).

The highlight of the book for me was the Betty and Veronica issue. First off, George Frese’s art is at his best here, showing the girls looking very attractive long before Dan DeCarlo came along to streamline their design. The girls’ friendship is shown very well, with a great story that has Betty sleeping over at Veronica’s house, and realizing that the money to buy whatever you want does not translate into a happy and loving home. (It also has Betty and Veronica in sexy nightwear, for those who like that sort of thing.) Veronica’s persona is somewhat similar to her modern one, but Betty is quite different – in fact, a few of these titles could have been rewritten as Melody from the Pussycats without changing much of anything. Betty has a very perky ‘dumb blonde’ attitude throughout here, which is a change from her modern persona, but also hilarious in its own way.

This does not mean that those who hunt through comics looking for ‘Betty Cooper Is Insane’ stories (see http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2009/06/03/it-puts-the-lotion-on-its-skin/ for details) are out of luck, for we have here The Rainmaker, easily my favorite story of the collection. The premise has Betty trying to get a date with Archie, but she’s asked to pick up her father’s shotgun from the shop before she does. She then decides she can ‘play the jealousy angle’ by threatening to murder him if he doesn’t go out with her. He points out, however, that this time it’s not Veronica that’s in the way, but his father – it’s a nice day, so he has to clean out the garage. This prompts Betty to try to force rain by shooting dry ice into the air with her father’s shotgun. The whole story has to be seen to be believed, and is worth the price alone.

All in all, this is a good example of early Archie stories, and despite some flaws shows us why the series is still going even after 70 years. Slapstick comedy, misunderstandings, likeable characters, and sex appeal. But mostly the comedy. Any comics fan, especially if they grew up with Archie, would like this as a Christmas gift. And it’s apparently the start of a series; Dark Horse will put out Archie Archives Volume 1, with more Bob Montana stories from 1941 and 1942, in April 2011.

Twin Spica Volume 4

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By Kou Yaginuma. Released in Japan as “Futatsu no Spica” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Vertical.

This volume of Twin Spica, while still starring Asumi, does flare out a little more to show the others in the ensemble cast. Asumi’s main role here is to once again find that things are not going to be as easy as 1-2-3, as we find that as physically powerful as she is, she has a weak left hand grip as a result of the accident with the spaceship. This, of course, is a problem when you are trying to maneuver through space. We also meet a young man from a different school, who not only despises the space school for unstated reasons (though it’s suggested it’s because the school gets tons of funding that people feel would be better spent elsewhere), but also reminds her of her middle school ‘boyfriend’ whose death we saw in the previous volume.

Of the other characters we see in depth, Mr. Lion was the one that most surprised me. Dead mentors generally don’t get many opportunities to grow and change, but as Mr. Lion is thinking about who Marika reminds him of, he is reminded of a time right after he died, when he helps his estranged father on a long hike (and, as it turns out, it’s the beginning to an even longer journey – this flashback is clearly meant to evoke Asumi and her mother in Volume 1). His father, of course, is heartbroken at his son’s death, and even though he doesn’t know who Mr. Lion is, he still pours his heart out. Having Mr. Lion as a regular in the series allows us to take a very interesting look at death and those left behind, which so far is one of the main themes of Twin Spica.

The other character we see more of here is Marika, and while we don’t get a complete backstory, we do see a few things that show us there’s a lot more going on here than just a lonely rich girl and her overprotective dad. The dad is back here, offering her medicine which she refuses to take. I’m trying not to spoil the revelations here, but clearly they point to something bigger than I was expecting, and intrigued to see how it gets handled. That said, Marika is still, at heart, a lonely rich girl, and the scene of her trying to ask Asumi if she wants to go to the New Year’s temples is adorable.

After a short 6-page side story showing a young Fuchuya being told to watch over the middle-school Asumi, who has trouble making friends, we get what may be the first unrelated short story of the series, about a man and woman who dated years ago meeting in Tokyo as adults. Of course, it has themes of spaceflight as well, and I had briefly wondered if the hero was meant to be Mr. Lion at a younger age. Certainly the heroine looks a lot like I suspect Asumi will as an adult. As with most of Twin Spica, the story evokes bittersweet yet sentimental nostalgia.

This series is never going to be full of big gosh wow moments, but I doubt anyone reads it for that. It’s a peaceful, understated look at spaceflight, with appealing characters and a good sense of pacing. While it may drown in its sentiment a bit much sometimes, honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.