Friday, July 16, 2010

Review: Twin Spica vol. 1

Twin Spica vol. 1, by Kou Yaginuma, 2010, Vertical, 192 pages, $10.95

This sci-fi manga is about a young girl named Asumi who leaves home to attend the Tokyo Space School to become an astronaut.  If you only look at the cover and flip through the first few pages where Asumi interacts with a guy with a lion head, you might think this is some manga that would only interest tween girls and Matthew Brady.  (The cutesy-sounding title doesn't help, either.)  But it's actually pretty great.

It starts getting cool fairly quickly, as all the kids who want to go to space school are locked into rooms for several days straight and asked to line up thousands of dominoes as a sort of entrance exam.  Most of the story takes place with Asumi and two other girls stuck in their room, trying to overcome this test of smarts and willpower.  It reminded me of Ender's Game, a fantastic book about genius kids in space making tactical decisions in a zero-gravity battle simulator.  (Ender's Game was written by Orson Scott Bigot, in case you want to find it in your library.)

Twin Spica also has got some solid heart-wrenching going on:  Asumi has a tragic past and has had to deal with a lot even though she is so young.  Her new roommates also appear to have some issues, which helps to keep the drama cauldron bubbling.  I'm interested to see their relationships develop as they face new tests and hardships.  One can only hope that this reaches the same emotional highs that we experienced when Leaf "Joaquin" Phoenix became "friends for-ev-er" with the robot named Jinx.  Ah, Space Camp.

(Space Camp is a fine movie.  Yes, that's Lea Thompson and Lamar from Revenge of the Nerds floating in a space shuttle. Not pictured: Tom Skerritt.)

About the only downside is Yaginuma's odd penchant for occasionally only drawing one eye of a character, even though the character is standing at an angle where you should see both eyes.  Instead, Yaginuma leaves a blank spot.  I assume it is some kind of manga quirk that I haven't seen before, but it didn't seem to add anything and just distracted me. Other than that, the art is solid and there are some pretty lovely images in there.

In sum, at first I was a little worried, but I quickly came around and I really enjoyed reading this.  But don't just take my word for it -- tastemakers both real and fictional approve of this book! Retailer Christopher Butcher recently tweeted:
I'm handselling the hell out of Twin Spica! ... The covers make it a bit of a tough sale. :-/ But I persevere.
And fictional retailer Lydia from The Rack recommended volume two:
Uh. It's science fiction manga that's good.  Like, it's Planetes good.  That's really good.
I'm with Lydia on this one.  Give it a shot.

READ MORE: Vertical's website has an excerpt.

BUY IT: From Amazon here: Twin Spica vol. 1

RELATED: Vertical also publishes Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack, and I reviewed volumes 1 and 2 and volume 3.
Posted at 12:45 AM 1 comments
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Monday, June 21, 2010

Review: It Was the War of the Trenches

It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi, 2010, Fantagraphics, 120 pages, $24.99

This is a series of short stories about French soldiers during World War I.  It is the third book by French artist Jacques Tardi that Fantagraphics has translated and published in the U.S.  The first was West Coast Blues, a crime story about an everyman on the run from two hitmen that I quite liked.  The second was the surreal farce You Are There.  And due out in September is The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon, released to coincide with the new Luc Besson-directed movie.  This one seems to be a very personal work, one that occupied a large chunk of Tardi's time (it was begun in 1982 and completed in 1993).

A quick and easy way to get a handle on the book can be found in the fact that the two blurbs on the back cover are from Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco.  The book reminds me of Spiegelman's work because it draws from a similar well of aggressive unpleasantness: Spiegelman calls it a "devastating crater of a work . . . a kaleidoscope of war's dehumanizing brutality."  The book also is impeccably researched and puts the reader into the shoes of the soldiers in the war, not unlike how Sacco's non-fiction investigations unearth all of the buried details of his chosen topics: Sacco says that "it can be compared to the work of the artists who actually served in the trenches."


Everybody dies in this book.  It's sad, gory, brutal, depressing, visceral, and overwhelming.  It brings those poor soldiers back to life and, instead of celebrating any victories or glorifying any heroic acts, just shoots them in the gut all over again and leaves them to die in the mud and filth of no man's land.


It's an impressive work of art that floods the reader with a feeling of hopelessness.  How Tardi managed this feat without having participated in the first world war is really quite amazing.  It is worth reading.

READ MORE: Here is a ten-page excerpt, Tardi's foreword, and a video/slideshow preview.  Here is Tom Spurgeon's interview of publisher, editor, and translator Kim Thompson, and here is an Inkstuds podcast interview of Thompson.

BUY IT: From Fantagraphics here or from Amazon here: It Was the War of the Trenches

RELATED: My posts on other books published by Fantagraphics:
Disclaimer: Fantagraphics sent me a review copy of this book.
Posted at 12:16 AM 1 comments
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Friday, June 18, 2010

Comic Book Shopping List for the Second Half of 2010

Back in February, I posted a shopping list for the first half of the year.  Now, here's your shopping list for the rest of 2010.  Many of these books are prime candidates for membership in the Best Comics of 2010 Meta-List.

June

July

August

September

October

November

December:
Posted at 12:22 PM 3 comments
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