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Clubbing

Written by Andi Watson
Art by Josh Howard
176 pages, black and white
Published by Minx/DC Comics

With DC Comics’s new Minx line, the closest the imprint seems to get to a trade dress is having covers be a mixture of photographs and drawn art. Looking closely at Clubbing, the book mixes the London club scene with the pastoral hills of England’s Lake District. It’s a bit of a mish-mash of a cover, the two pictures and the piece of Josh Howard art not working very well together, looking like it’s trying for several different feels and not succeeding at any of them. And, unfortunately, that’s also a pretty good synopsis for the book itself.

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Re-Gifters

Written by Mike Carey
Penciled by Sonny Liew
Inked by Marc Hempel
176 pages, black and white
Published by Minx/DC Comics

One of my absolute favorite books of 2004 was My Faith in Frankie by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew, and Marc Hempel, a fun story about friendship, love, and personal gods. When I’d heard that they were teaming up to create Re-Gifters, a graphic novel about martial arts and crushes, I was cautiously optimistic. It’s easy to get one’s hopes up a little too high based on past successes; after my large expectations were created, would a book about a girl living in Los Angeles studying hapkido still be able to make me happy?

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Plain Janes

Written by Cecil Castellucci
Art by Jim Rugg
176 pages, black and white
Published by Minx/DC Comics

There’s a big difference between a plot synopsis and the actual finished product. So often, the two end up mismatched, with one of them being lackluster and the other being fantastic. Ideally, you want the two to be on equal footing, but in the case of books like Cecil Castellucci’s and Jim Rugg’s The Plain Janes that’s not always the end result. For what was the big initial launch book for DC Comics’s new Minx line, that can be a little worrisome, because no matter if it was the idea or the execution that fell down, somewhere along the way you run the risk of scaring off potential readers.

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Miki Falls Vol. 1: Spring

By Mark Crilley
176 pages, black and white
Published by HarperTeen

Some might say that Mark Crilley’s been poised for success for over a decade now. His break-out comic series Akiko always showed those rare qualities in English-language comics that ultimately made Japanese imports so popular: a female protagonist, adventure, and a certain level of a delicate sensibility. His new series for HarperTeen, Miki Falls, takes that one step further—and while it may not have been his explicit goal, I can’t help but think that this book is probably the closest I’ve seen in a domestic release that fits seamlessly into the Japanese comic book culture while still maintaining the creator’s own unique voice.

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Yotsuba&! Vol. 4

By Kiyohiko Azuma
200 pages, black and white
Published by ADV Manga

There are few books that, to coin a phrase, are worth the wait. It’s with that in mind that I have to mention the return of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&!. After three volumes were released in English back in mid-2005, it’s been a long, cold 20 months since we’ve seen anything new. Except now, the drought is over. The fourth volume hit stores this week, and a fifth is scheduled for later in the year. And if you’ve never read Yotsuba&! before, trust me when I say that you are absolutely missing out on a series that could best be described as the celebration of pure joy.

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First in Space

By James Vining
96 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press

I have vague memories of seeing Ham at the National Zoo. Having moved to the DC area in 1974, trips there were very common, and the chimpanzees were no exception. I can sort of recall seeing him on display along with the mention that he was the first chimpanzee in space, and being fascinated by the idea that we’d sent animals into orbit. (I was distinctly less excited upon hearing about the fate of the Russian-sent dog Laika.) James Vining’s First in Space is a book that made me instantly wish it existed 30 years ago. It’s exactly what I would have wanted to read then, but fortunately it was also worth the wait.

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Phoenix Vol. 9: Strange Beings/Life

By Osamu Tezuka
256 pages, black and white
Published by Viz

Strange Beings/Life is one of the final volumes in Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix saga, a series spanning over 3000 years of history, alternating stories set in the past and the future. The two stories in this book at a glance seem united only by the inclusion of the being known as the Phoenix, but a closer investigation proves otherwise. Strange Beings/Life shows Tezuka not only creating an uncanny prediction of the 21st century, but a larger statement on the nature of humanity in general, one that connects both of these stories together quite neatly. Some things, be it in our distant past or near future, apparently never change.

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Alias the Cat

By Kim Deitch
136 pages, black and white
Published by Pantheon Books

I’m not entirely sure why I hadn’t read anything by Kim Deitch up until now. Maybe it was a bad first impression, glancing at his scratchy, slightly blocky art and not giving it a chance. Maybe it was just a lack of finding a book that seemed to instantly appeal. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t until Alias the Cat showed up that I sat down and gave Deitch’s comics the respect they deserved. Collecting Deitch’s The Stuff of Dreams mini-series, it’s a remarkably clever piece of metafiction that blurs the lines of reality and make-believe in a way that works far better than any description could even begin to try and tackle.

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Age of Bronze #20-25

By Eric Shanower
24 pages, black and white
Published by Image Comics

People who say that history is boring merely aren’t experiencing it very well. Be it a better teacher, or book, or movie, or some other form that it’s being told, historical stories can in fact be quite enthralling. Some events are more interesting than others, of course, and you’ve got to pick and choose carefully. When you’ve got an extremely talented creator like Eric Shanower recounting the story of the Trojan War? Now that is truly the fabled gift from the gods.

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Professor’s Daughter

Written by Joann Sfar
Art by Emmanuel Guibert
80 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

One of the great things about so many foreign language comics not yet being translated means that there’s forever a wealth of comics that may be old to its original audience, but about to become new to someone else. Joann Sfar and Emmanual Guibert’s The Professor’s Daughter is one of those books; it may be relegated to little more than a footnote in France, but in its new English-language edition it’s something to get excited about. Having seen Guibert and Sfar team up for Sardine in Outer Space already, I figured this would be another silly but fun romp. The end product, though, was something a little more peculiar and intriguing, almost determined to keep itself from being pigeon-holed in any one genre.

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