Staff Pick of the Week 7/5/18

• Tokyo Tarareba Girls - Volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura

For those lamenting the end of Princess Jellyfish, never fear - the over 30 lady squad is here! A bit of a departure from the otaku women of Jellyfish, Tarareba Girls captures the essence of women who are feeling cornered by societal expectations and in this case, it’s getting married before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Rinko, script writer and protagonist, doesn’t want to see her career and marriage prospects taken over by 20 somethings and decides to become proactive about finding a husband before 2020.  Along with her friends Koyuki and Kaori, Rinko starts going to disastrous dating mixers and begins to question whether her self-worth should be tied up with her job or with her ability to be in a relationship.

I love this manga for tackling the hard adult questions I don’t feel most manga or even American comics get to very often. What is love and does it matter if you already love your job? Does someone need someone else to feel complete or can they just throw themselves into work and hope they don’t get aged out by younger competitors? I think Higashimura has a great story to work with and I can’t wait for more volumes!

Staff Pick of the Week 4/18

Inio Asano is a creator that has a long history of making some of the most effecting comics I have ever been lucky enough to come by. First discovering SOLANIN when I was working at a different book store and having it absolutely destroy me with it's subtly and genuine depictions of it's characters and a twist that comes from nowhere, just as it would it reality.

Following Asano's career has been one of the most rewarding in my long life of following comics. The range is staggering, shifting effortlessly from the psychological horror of NIJIGHARA HOLOGRAPH to the absurd yet genuine depiction of surviving trauma in GOODNIGHT PUNPUN. Anytime someone tales the time to translate the work to English is an occasion to celebrate.

Luckily, this week, we are blessed with the first installment of one of the longer works in Asano's oeuvre, DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION. While not as heavy as some if their previous work, it still is just as meaningful in the world we experience day to day.

We see a world where Japan has been invaded by an alien force, and after four years everything is juast as different as it has not changed at all. While the Self Defense Force try's futility to retake their home, a group of high school kids does what they can while also living their lives like everything is normal. A grand metaphor for having the end of everything looming but you still have to live your life like it the end will never come.

The TL;DR/Elevator Pitch is if TREES were also a high school drama.

Staff Pick of the Week 3/28/18

Mike Carey and Peter Gross, who previously worked together on THE UNWRITTEN over at Vertigo after pretty illustrative careers independently, join forces once again for a brand new dark fantasy.

There is a fair number of similarities between this and UNWRITTEN, both are the stories of young people with destinies larger than they can fathom at the outset and a connection to a world separate from their own that the series will spend the length of it's run exploring.

Highest House finds it's own identity in leaning into the creators strengths. Mike Carey writes a dense and rewarding script with lavish fantasy flourishes in a world that feels fully formed the moment we walk in to it. The fullness of the setting lays equally at the feet for Peter Gross who gets to do the best work of his career afforded by the larger format of the book, plus Gross seems to have been holding out in the past on his layouts as this is some top tier design happening on these pages.

Issue #2 released this week if you are looking to have a longer read and want to get into some thoughtful, gorgeous fantasy work.

Staff Pick of the Week 3/14/18

• Comic: Eternity Girl #1 by Magdalene Visaggio and Sonny Liew
• Staff: Julie

I’m already a huge sucker for Gerard Way’s Young Animal Line so it was no surprise that I enjoyed the heck out of Eternity Girl #1. Liew’s vibrant brush work combined with Visaggio’s story of an unhinged superheroine trying to get her life back on track is just the comic Young Animal promised me. The comic and character were actually introduced during the recent Milk Wars crossover event and subsequently got me pumped for the series. Using an entirely new character, Eternity Girl is giving us the horror story that is silver age superheroes that’ve been given powers thru government experimentation, been brought back to comics every other decade in an attempt to give that person a good storyline, and then cast away again once they’re outlived their usefulness. Superheroes are always fading in and out of the limelight and Eternity Girl is literally fading in and out of her reality (not to mention attempting to end her life over and over again to no avail because what character ever actually dies?). This series is getting into superhero mental health much like Black Hammer and Mister Miracle does, so I’m extremely excited what this comic is going to do next and hope it can stand the test of comic book time.