Pam's Book Log

29 February, 2004

Last month's comic mania technique worked well for me, so I decided to do all of this month's in one big log entry, as well. (Exceptions being FAKE and Confession, about which I had more to say.) So, here goes.

This is actually the first Astro City collection, although it is the second I've read. Unlike Confession, this is not a novel, it is a collection of unrelated stories about various people who live in Astro City--both superheroes and normal folk. I liked them to various degrees: I thought "In Dreams" was a nice look at the inner workings of a guy who's like Superman squared. He has super-duper powers, and a psychological compulsion to do everything he can to help as many people he can--a serious workaholic superhero. The second story, "The Scoop," is a humorous look at the difficulties of journalism in a place where real events look like something out of the Weekly World News. One story I did not like was "Safeguards," about a woman from the spooky Eastern European part of town who's trying to make it in the world outside the insular community she was born into. I didn't dislike it because it was badly-written or anything; it's that the conclusion the main character draws from her experience really rubs me the wrong way--it's backward-looking, defeatist, and cowardly. I conceived an immense dislike for a character whose dreams are so easily given up.

Something that bugged me more than it should have is the anatomical incorrectness of the Samaritan in the first story. I understand the need to be age-appropriate or whatever, but look: if you're going to feature a naked guy in a story, don't make him look like a Ken doll. If you're worried about depicting fiddly bits, don't show that area.

The introduction in this volume is by Busiek himself, and he does a nice job of summing up the concept behind Astro City:

I've long been fascinated by the question of what else happens in the worlds the superheroes inhabit; what life is like for the guy who points upward and declaims, "Look! Up in the sky!"; what celebrity posters are on the walls of 13-year-old girls in the Human Torch's world; what it's like for a lawyer to go into court and argue that his client is not guilty of murder because the killer was in fact his evil twin (and trot out all the precedents for such an event). this seemed to be a perfect chance to do both--to wander off the main thoroughfares of a superhero world and see what stories have been waiting in the shadows to be told, what chords can be struck, what we can discover if we stop heeding the siren song of What Happens Next and start wondering What Else Is There? I like What Happens Next stories just fine, as it happens, and I have plenty of venues to tell those--but not many in which I can pick out an innocent bystander at a slugfest between a superhero and a super-criminal, follow him or her home and see what's worth examining about this particular life.

The first Trigun book established the setting and the characters of Vash, Meryl, and Millie. In this second book, we start getting into what I think is the main plot of the series. We're told that Vash is looking for a guy called Knives. Vash and Knives were kids together on the colony ship which brought humans to Trigun-world over a century ago, and Vash (rightfully) blames Knives for the death of their pseudo-mom, Rem. (She died while repairing Knives' sabotage of the colony fleet; Knives tried to kill all the humans by making the ships crash, or something like that. But really, what did she expect, naming a kid "Knives"? With a name like that, he was destined to grow up bad.) Furthermore, Knives is out for Vash; he's arranged for a dozen of Trigun-world's baddest bounty hunters and assassins to hunt Vash down and try to kill him.

We also meet Wolfwood, my favorite character from the anime. His situation is somewhat different in the manga; for one thing, his true purpose is made clear from the start. (On second thought, I'm not sure about that being his "true" purpose at all. Rather, I'll just say that his secret identity isn't secret--to the reader at any rate--in the manga.) It remains to be seen if this different take on his character will affect my opinion of him.

I've read other reviews of the Trigun manga which criticised it for being confusing and hard-to-follow. I don't have this problem myself, but I can see how somebody could, especially if they haven't seen the anime. Nightow throws a lot of stuff at the reader, without much in the way of exposition. I expect that everything will be explained, eventually; the anime was confusing at first (or at least mysterious, the difference being that the latter is purposeful, while the former is bad presentation).

After spending way too much time thinking about how to categorize this book, here's what I came up with: Phillip Marlowe crossed with the X-Files set in 1950s Hawaii.

Byrd (no first name provided) is a Chandler-esque (i.e. kinda seedy, but with a good heart) detective working in post-War, pre-statehood Hawaii. He's hired by a small-time hood to find and retrieve a stolen car. As usually happens in this sort of story, things rapidly become more complicated and dangerous, and Byrd finds himself caught up in a situation involving the local crime boss and his murdered girlfriend. Who is not just dead--she's a zombie.

Review-wise, there's some good and some bad. The art is fabulous; it's got a kind of retro, tiki vibe going on. (Sample art here.) It's one of the best stylistic matches of art to story that I've seen. The story is decent, but suffers from being less than it had the potential to be. It's pretty short (the main plot only takes up 2/3 of the book), and Moore just tries to cram too much into it--hard-boiled detective-ing, supernatural horror, Byrd's less-than-stellar past... I'm guessing that the crammed nature of the story comes from the original publishing schedule (three monthly installments). It's a shame, because the writer and artist obviously could have expanded the story to fit another 20-30 pages, and thereby taken the time to really explore all the different things they wanted to.

The rest of the book is made up of a variety of "extras." There's the usual concept art and cover art gallery, as well as several one-page Hawaiian Dick comics, a prose story about how Byrd met his buddy, Mo Kalama, during the War (the story is not particularly well-written; Moore needs to stick to comics). I'm pretty sure that one of the extras is unique among comic collections: a mini recipe book of tiki drinks! So now I know how to make a Mai Tai. And they say nobody ever learned anything from comics!

This is the second collection of the popular webcomic Megatokyo. Comparing the work in this volume to that at the start of Vol. 1, one can really see how Fred Gallagher has matured as both an artist and a writer. In this book, he's doing real professional-quality work, employing complex storytelling techniques.

This is a webcomic which is definitely worth buying in dead-tree format. The art is much sharper and detailed in the hi-res print version, and the story is complex enough that the ease of flipping back and forth through the book, compared to clicking around a few hundred web pages, is well worth the $10.

As bonus material, the book includes a short prose story about the main characters' alter egos in a fantasy-adventure online game. The story there is actually relevant to the main plot. Gallagher isn't as good a prose writer as he is a comic-writer, but it's not terrible, and it's a good sight better than the corresponding story in Hawaiian Dick.

I'd just like to say that the Internet is way cool. It can take an amateur artist, get him a fan following, and eventually a publishing contract with the U.S.'s third largest(?) comic publisher.

The problem with reading long series is that one tends to run out of new things to say about each installment, especially when the installment in question is mostly episodic in nature, and doesn't do much to advance the series' meta-plot. But, I'll try.

Volume 8 is, like I said, episodic. There are six chapters in here, which comprise five stories. In the first, Haru's girlfriend (Who knew he had a girlfriend? Not me.), who is in the hospital, dumps him, and he goes nuts. For once, it's not Tohru who extends a helping, compassionate hand to a moody Sohma, but Yuki. Next, we're introduced to yet another cursed Sohma (there are 13 of them, remember), Ritsu the Monkey. Like most of the others, he's a complete freak. In this case, a neurotic transvestite with no self-esteem. (We met his mom in a previous chapter, and I can say with certainty that in this case, the neurosis isn't due to the stress of being cursed. It's hereditary.) Next chapter, the kids have an assignment to write up their personal plans for life after high school, in preparation for a meeting with their parents and the school guidance counselor (must be a Japanese thing). All three of the main characters--Kyo, Tohru, and Yuki--worry because none of them have given the matter much thought, and they're all worried about their futures, for various reasons. In the next bit, Yuki's bro Ayame comes to visit and offers to take Yuki's estranged parents' place at the impending guidance counselor meeting. This chapter actually gives the reader a lot of insight into the two siblings' troubled childhood, and the reasons behind their strained relationship. We (and they) also learn that the two of them have some things in common, after all. Finally, the kids have their first day of summer vacation, and all go visit a haunted house. (Why is there a haunted house in a department store in the middle of summer? I dunno. Must be a Japanese thing.)

So, yay, plot summary. The volume ends with some foreshadowing of troubles to come, with a very gothy depressed-looking girl in a hospital (Haru's girlfriend?), as she vows that she'll "never give up."

(Previous volumes of Fruits Basket)