Graphic Novel » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

REVIEW: Magic Knight Rayearth vol. 1-3 by CLAMP

Posted by Anastasia on November 7, 2011 6 Responses »

Nov 072011

124.-126. Magic Knight Rayearth vol. 1-3 by CLAMP
Publication: TOKYOPOP (June 12, 2007), originally published 1993-1995, Paperback, 588pp / ISBN 0760793530
Genre: Fantasy, Graphic Novel (YA?)

Read: October 22, 2011
Source: Bought

Summary from Amazon:

Umi, Hikaru, and Fuu are three schoolgirls out on a field trip to Tokyo Tower, whisked suddenly away by a strange voice and light to Cephiro, a world full of spirits and sorcery. They were summoned here through the last remaining strength of the Princess Emeraude, who hopes that they are the trio destined to become the magic knights legend says can save her realm! But how are a bunch of junior-high-school kids supposed to defeat the dark might of the sinister Lord Zagato… with only an exceedingly strange bunny creature named Mokona as their guide?

Review

I’ve been wanting to read the Magic Knight Rayearth series for several years now, mostly because I’d seen an ad for the anime series on some DVD somewhere a while back and became intrigued. Women with huge swords kicking butt and being awesome! That’s what I thought Magic Knight Rayearth was about– and it IS about that, sort of. It’s also about the power of friendship and love and loyalty and stuff.

The butt-kicking is the best part, though. Continue reading »

MINI-REVIEWS: The 14th Dalai Lama and Gandhi manga biographies

Posted by Anastasia on October 5, 2011 4 Responses »

Oct 052011

Click on the book cover to go to its Amazon page.

116. The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography by Tetsu Saiwai
Publication: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (September 28, 2010), Paperback, 208pp / ISBN 0143118153
Genre: Children’s/MG Graphic Novel, Biography

Read: September 29, 2011
Source: Publisher (thank you!)

Review

It’s always difficult to compress a person’s life story into a book that’s less than 200 pages, but The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography made a decent effort. It highlights the important parts of the Dalai Lama’s life, from childhood to adulthood, and it gives a good overview of the situation with Tibet and China. The art was nice, if not overly detailed, and the writing was pretty compelling. Maybe some scenes were a little melodramatic, but they kept the story from getting boring.

I do have some issues with other aspects of the book, though. There’s no info on who translated the book, there are no page numbers, and the pages have been flipped. I’m guessing the flipping happened because it’s easier for people who aren’t familiar with manga to read, but why the exclusion of the page numbers? Why no translator info? It’s just weird.

Rating

Not the best manga ever, but it’s pretty good.

117. Gandhi: A Manga Biography by Kazuki Ebine
Publication: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 27, 2011), Paperback, 192pp / ISBN 0143120247
Genre: Children’s/MG Graphic Novel, Biography

Read: September 29, 2011
Source: Publisher (thank you!)

Review

Since I enjoyed The 14th Dalai Lama I was hoping for something similar with this one, but unfortunately it’s not that good. There’s still the same issue with compressing 70 or so years into less than 200 pages, but I think The 14th Dalai Lama‘s author did a better job at doing it. Gandhi‘s author put emphasis on the world-changing parts of Gandhi’s life, sure, but he skipped over a lot of the personally important parts. The 14th Dalai Lama has bits with the Dalai Lama’s family, and his friends, etc., and it makes for a more compelling story. With Gandhi, almost all that personal stuff is either skipped over or visualized with maybe one page, and it made his story feel very cold. I don’t think the stilted dialogue helped, either.

Like The 14th Dalai Lama, there are no page numbers or info about the translator, and the pages are flipped. Even worse, however, are the multiple errors in the text, including a misspelling of “perhaps.” There also isn’t any punctuation except for exclamation and question marks, which makes reading it pretty terrible. The art is also less interesting than in The 14th Dalai Lama, which, considering how light on the details that one was, is saying something.

Rating

Good for the very basics of Gandhi’s life, but it’s got mediocre art and questionable copy-editing.

Mini-Reivews: Othello vol. 1 & I-Doll vol. 1

Posted by Anastasia on May 3, 2010 No Responses »

May 032010

88. Othello vol. 1 by Satomi Ikezawa
Publication: Del Rey (October 12, 2004), Paperback, 208pp / ISBN 0345479130
Genre: Graphic Novel, Humor
Rating:
Read: April 8, 2010
Source: BookMooch
Summary from Amazon:

Yaya’s high school friends haven’t been very nice. They call her “Yaya the cry-ya! Yaya the misfi-ya!” But no matter how badly they act, Yaya is just too naïve and trusting to believe the worst of her friends. Hard-rocking, butt-kicking Nana is just the girl to grab hold of Yaya’s timid demeanor and turn it upside down. Nana exposes Yaya’s “friends” as slime bags, doles out punishment, and does it all with style. Can there be anything that terminally shy Yaya and hyper-confident Nana have in common? Well, for one thing, they’re the same person…

Review

I’ve heard good things about this series from other fans of graphic novels, and I can see why. It was really fun! I really enjoyed reading it: the story was quirky, the art was refreshingly simple and even kinda realistic, and it was very entertaining. Unfortunately I got the sense from this volume that the series is probably spectacularly long, which mean I won’t ever see the end of it because I don’t have enough patience to get through a graphic novel series longer than 10 volumes, actually. And I’m also kind of thinking the other volumes are probably formulaic and repetitive. I mean, the chapters in this volume alone are pretty repetitive, so I don’t have much hope for any variety in the other volumes. Nevertheless, I’m interested in seeing where the storyline is going, and I did really enjoy reading this volume, so I’ll probably try reading the next few volumes and hope it’ll turn out for the best.

89. I-Doll vol. 1 by Mi-ae Choi
Publication: TokyoPop (April 1, 2008), Paperback, 184pp / ISBN 1427805865
Genre: Graphic Novel, Action?
Rating:
Read: April 8, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:

When four troublemakers are arrested for a variety of crimes, the judge hands down the ultimate sentence: The quartet must form a band! Ji-Yoo Lee, the top student at school, is arrested for gambling with gangsters. Woong Jung, a gang leader, is busted for allegedly beating up innocent bystanders. And Eugene Kim, the Goddess of Argument, is being held for fighting with another girl over a plush toy. As punishment, they have to unite with a Hyuun-Goo Kang, Woong Jung’s rival gang leader, and form the definitive boy band! Will these menaces to society find out what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? Global manga-ka Mi-Ae Choi spotlights the ultimate menaces to society–who are on a journey to find out what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?

Review

Okay, this was a boring book. It’s focused mainly on setting up the characters and the situation, which is fine, but a) the story moved so slowly that the band aspect of the plot wasn’t even mentioned until the end (and the subplots were so convoluted they didn’t hold my interest, either) and b) I had considerable trouble telling the characters apart because the designs were so similar. So at the conclusion of this volume I’m not really interested in the characters and the plot didn’t even catch my interest until the very end, and that’s not real conducive to me wanting to read any more of the series. While I’m assuming the second volume will move quicker (and actually have something of them being the band) I don’t particularly want to bother tracking it down to read it. Oh well.

Review: Preacher vol. 1-9 by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Posted by Anastasia on March 20, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 202010

42-50. Preacher vol. 1-9 by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Publication: Vertigo (1995-2000), Paperback (all), ~1856pp total / ISBN 9781563892615 (vol. 1)
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Rating:
Read: February 27-28, 2010
Source: Borrowed
Summary from Amazon:

Here’s a book guaranteed to offend a bunch of people, not only because of its profuse profanity and graphic violence, but because it’s the epitome of iconoclasm. Like a brutal accident, you can’t watch but you can’t turn away. The story follows an ex-preacher man, Jesse, who has become disgusted with God’s abandoning of His responsibilities. So Jesse starts off into the wilds of Texas with his hitman girlfriend and new best friend (a vampire) to find God so that he can give Him a piece of his mind. Despite its superficial perversity, this book contains what may be the most moral character in mainstream comics. A cult hit in the making. Fans of Quentin Tarantino take note.

Review

How can I review something like Preacher? I can’t, really. For one thing it’s too long. For another it’s too awesome. And for a third thing you really just need to read it for yourself because it is just that good.

I could go on for ages and ages about what I liked, let alone the themes and messages and so on, but I’ll break it down to a few points and hope they’ll be enough to convince you to read Preacher. So, what I liked:

1. The characters. Not just Jesse, who’s a likable protagonist with flaws and other human traits, but also his girlfriend, Tulip, who’s strong and interesting and GREAT, and Cassidy, the vampire who tags along with them for a while. I even liked the villains, especially Herr Starr, a bald bad-ass motherfucker who starts out sort of a baddie and ends up as an object of ridicule (and some seriously funny sidestories).

2. The plot. It gets a little weird in some parts, and I don’t entirely see the point of hunting down God and making him take responsibility for His actions (because what do you do after that? You spank God, and then what?), but I liked the rest of it. The character development is really great, though, and for sure by the end I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next.

3. The writing. Besides the stuff that could be considered plot holes, the writing was top-notch. Every volume was full of great stuff, love and anger and fighting! And excitement! And heartbreak. Reading the whole series over a weekend was a real rollercoaster, a fun one. At the end I could only sit back and think “wow.” It was great!

4. The art. It’s not revolutionary but it is very well done, entirely consistent throughout the series and sometimes it even borders on beautiful. That was such a nice thing to have, especially after what happened in other series like The Books of Magic and its sequels (starts out with great art that quickly deteriorates into crap). Sometimes I think it’s trying to get too realistic (does a 20-something really have as many wrinkles as Jesse does?), but it’s definitely not bad.

Have I convinced you yet? I hope so, because this series has turned out to be one of my favorites, right after the all-mighty Transmetropolitan. Which, if you knew how much I loved that series, you’d know it’s a compliment. Do at least get the first volume of Preacher! It’ll be enough to tell you if you like it or not, and it’s really worth giving it at least that much of a chance. Go into it with an open mind, and you may even surprise yourself with how much you’ll like it!

(It is pretty violent and full of swear words and possibly offensive, but if you can handle Quentin Tarantino’s movies, you can handle this. No prob.)

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: The 11th Hour | Procrastination Station
Have you reviewed this series? Let me know, and I’ll link to your post from mine!

It seriously took me, like, two weeks to figure out how to write this post. I hope it wasn’t a total wash!

Also I found this post from Garth Ennis: 4 Titles to Read After Preacher

Review: Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis

Posted by Anastasia on February 8, 2010 No Responses »

Feb 082010

24. Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis
Publication: Elea Press (October 2009), Paperback, 168pp / ISBN 9780982343739
Genre: Graphic Novel, Humor, Horror?
Rating:
Read: January 30, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary:

Vampires! In the French Revolution! With funny bits put in!

Review

Through a long and complicated process of clicking on random links in the search for historically-based funnies, I found Dylan Meconis’ Family Man, a webcomic about a dude in Germany in the olden days. With werewolves! And I loved it. (It’s still ongoing, by the way.) Once I was done with currently available offerings, I decided to check out DM’s first webcomic, Bite Me!, which was written between 2000-2004, when DM was first starting out as a Professional Artist Person.

I read the synopsis, I saw she had a store, I found the super awesome Bite Me! extra package that came with buttons and stickers and an AUTOGRAPH and I decided, what the heck, I like the author’s work, and I love funny historical comics (and vampire farces)– I’ll just buy the book instead of reading it online. So I did!

Anyway, to make a long rambling post short like I meant it to be originally: I loved it. It’s hilarious! You can see Ms Meconis growing into her style through the course of the book, getting her writing style down pat, and so on. I laughed more than a few times out loud, and I pretty much just grinned maniacally at the pages the entire time I read it. And while the print quality is a little bit fuzzy (because the originals were drawn on printer paper, which is, uh. Not good for reprinting, unfortunately), it’s not horrible and by the end I didn’t even notice it.

So: check out the website. You can read the whole thing online for free, or you can buy the paper version and support a wonderful artist. It’s worth it either way!

And

Find your own copy here!

Review: Barefoot Gen Vol. 1 & 2 by Keiji Nakazawa

Posted by Anastasia on February 4, 2010 No Responses »

Feb 042010

13. & 21. Barefoot Gen Vol. 1 & 2 by Keiji Nakazawa
Publication: Last Gasp (September 2004) (originally published 1973), Paperback, 288pp / ISBN 0867196025 | Last Gasp (September 2004), Paperback, 240pp / ISBN 086719619X
Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novel, WWII
Rating:
Read: January 2010
Source: Library
Summary from Amazon:

Volume one of this ten-part series details the events leading up to and immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Volume two, The Day After, focuses on the days following the bombing of Hiroshima, as the living victims struggle to survive in the aftermath.

Review

Don’t be fooled by the cover(s): this isn’t a happy-go-lucky story. It’s about the time immediately before, during, and after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima during WWII, and it’s graphic. It’s graphic in the art, yeah, but also in the emotions portrayed and the experiences held within.

See, Keiji Nakazawa has first-hand experience of atomic bombs and their effects because he was there when it happened. I’ll quote something from Wikipedia:

He was born in Hiroshima [in 1939] and was in the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. All of his family members who had not been evacuated died in the bombing except for his mother and an infant sister who died several weeks after the bombing.

Barefoot Gen is his story, even more than just being the author/artist, and his emotions come through quite clearly. It’s a story about the bombing of Hiroshima, yes, but it’s also a story about the people that survived it (or didn’t), about family and war and everything else tied up into WWII. It’s horrifying and it’s heartbreaking, and I don’t think I’ve been this affected by a WWII story since reading Anne Frank’s diary. There’s something about seeing what happened to people during WWII that’s more effective than just words are. It was like being constantly punched in the gut.

It’s not all depressing, however (although it gets pretty freakin’ depressing). One of the themes is to not give up, even if you’ve been trampled on and pushed down. (The final volume is actually called “Never Give Up”.) There’s some wonderful scenes with Gen’s family in the first volume, especially with Gen’s father who’s an anti-war protester. And watching Gen staying courageous and hopeful even after everything that’s happened to him kept my heart warm, when otherwise I think I would have been sobbing after every page. The emotions in Barefoot Gen aren’t superficial, they’re deep and real, and they speak volumes.

The art isn’t overwhelmingly wonderful (it’s that weird 1970′s thing where everyone’s constantly sweating for some reason) and sometimes the dialogue takes right turns into soap opera territory. However, that’s pretty much the way manga was back then: done in a completely different way than we’re used to now. You just have to adjust for the differing sensibilities, I think. And since it’s the story that matters I think we all can look past Barefoot Gen‘s faults. It’s a really upsetting story, but one that’s important, and though I think it’ll be a while until I can make myself read the next volume (there’s ten total), I feel obligated as a human to read it, and to learn.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: Saffron Tree | Panel Patter | Read About Comics

Two things I kept thinking while reading Barefoot Gen (besides “this art kinda sucks”):
1. How the hell could we have let this happen?
2. We must never let it happen again.

I also thought it was really illuminating to be reading about what happened in other countries besides Germany/America/England/etc during WWII. For all the history classes I was forced to take in high school, I don’t think we ever learned anything about what was going on in Japan, why they joined the war, what happened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, etc. Nothing about China or Korea. It was all just kind of “Pearl Harbor-D-Day-Allies-and then we bombed the crap out of them and won the war!” It just seems sort of…blinding.

Review: Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

Posted by Anastasia on November 16, 2009 No Responses »

Nov 162009

Castle Waiting big Castle Waiting by Linda Medley
Publication: Fantagraphics Books (May 31, 2006), Hardback, 472pp / ISBN 1560977477
Genre: Fantasy, Graphic Novel
Rating:
Find @ Amazon
Read: November 2009
Source: Library

I recently discovered a whole shelf full of graphic novels at the library where I work. I had no idea it was there! It’s hidden by comic book theory/nonfiction/etc books and I tend to skim over those kind of books, so I’m not too surprised I didn’t notice before…but I’m totally going to be haunting that section of the floor now. There’s a ton of good graphic novels there, including Castle Waiting.

(I’m getting much better at segueing into a review, don’t ya think? Maybe?)

Summary from Amazon:

A fable for modern times, Castle Waiting is a fairy tale that’s not about rescuing the princess, saving the kingdom, or fighting the ultimate war between Good and Evil — but about being a hero in your own home. The opening story, “The Brambly Hedge,” tells the origin of the castle itself, which is abandoned by its princess in a comic twist on “Sleeping Beauty” when she rides off into the sunset with her Prince Charming. The castle becomes a refuge for misfits, outcasts, and others seeking sanctuary, playing host to a lively and colorful cast of characters that inhabits the subsequent stories, including a talking anthropomorphic horse, a mysteriously pregnant Lady on the run, and a bearded nun.

The art in Castle Waiting is almost minimalist, but it’s extremely well-done and very pleasing on the eye. And there are lots of little things to notice if you pay a little bit of attention! For instance:
100_1362-cropped
Love the little smile!

Even better than the art, though, is the writing! It’s extremely fun, and I love the references to other fairy tales and books. Like! Green Eggs and Ham, Puss in Boots…bearded ladies! Though that last one isn’t really a fairy tale. But it’s still awesome! I don’t ever remember reading a story featuring a bearded women before, and Castle Waiting features several of them. The other characters are just as fun, especially Jain, a former Lady-with-a-capital-L who runs away to the castle to escape her horrid husband. She’s sassy and determined and brave, as are all of the women in Castle Waiting, actually.

My only complaint is that it doesn’t feel like a complete book. Each story in Castle Waiting is like a tiny glimpse into the overall world, and so they don’t necessarily have to follow a straight line from start to finish. That’s why it can start with a Sleeping Beauty story in pre-Castle Waiting times and then skip forward 100+ years, change main characters, and no one minds (or, at least I didn’t mind). But! Jain’s story seemed cut off. It starts with her running away, follows her to the castle where she gives birth to her kid, and then shows her life in the castle from then on. We get a bit of her background in a flashback sequence, but where’s the rest of her story? Her baby wasn’t her husband’s– so who’s the father? I’m really itching to know, and to not have that explanation in this volume is really irritating.

I THINK there’s more issues out there, but I’m not sure where to get them. This collection of Castle Waiting issues was published in 2006, and according to Wikipedia Ms Medley has been putting out more issues as of 2008. I’m for sure going to have to track them down, though, because I seriously want to know what else happens in the world of Castle Waiting!

If you like the sort of alternate take on fairy tales that people like Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean do, then you’ll really like this book.

Other reviews: Not Approved By the Comics Code Authority | Rebbeca Reads | Das Ubernerd