Comic Picks By The Glick

Mangaka Akiko Higashimura has successfully mined the follies of female otaku for comedy and drama over in “Princess Jellyfish.”  Now she tries to do the same for Japanese career women of a certain age (read:  over 30) who have finally started to realize that their chance to get married has passed them by.  Rinko is a writer of scripts for web series and her world comes crashing down one day when the assistant director she works with, and whose advances she rejected a decade ago, asks her for advice on an important topic.  While Rinko thinks that this guy, who has become a more confident and refined gentleman over the years, is gearing up for another shot at her that turns out not to be the case.  When she commiserates with her friends over this matter, they all realize that their status as marriageable women has just about expired.  It’s an opinion that the classy, younger, and attractively blonde man who frequents their bar is only happy to rub in their faces.

You can mine just about any situation for comedic gold, even the aging fears of thirty-something women.  The problem with this first volume of “Tokyo Tarareba Girls” is that it fails to strike the right tone in order to do so.  It’s torn between wanting us to laugh at Rinko and her friends’ desire to settle down and find the right guy, and finding them sympathetic, even pitiable for the same reason.  Higashimura talks about in the after-comic that this series was born out of the constant complaints she heard from her friends about how they were getting old and would likely never find husbands for themselves.  While Higashimura also writes that she’s not the kind of person who believes that a woman needs to be married in order to be happy… she did just deliver a manga which says exactly all that, coming at the expense of her friends too.  I’ll admit that this first volume ends in an unexpected way that made me curious to see where that sexual development leads.  It’ll require me to get past the decidedly cynical tone this series currently has, as I’m not entirely sure it wants things to get better for Rinko and her friends.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I have to admit that this volume was a hard one to get through.  That’s because it starts off with the title character in such a good place:  She’s finally become a full-time member of the SuperHomeys and her relationship with Thugboy is downright shagadelic.  Yeah, her self-confidence and body-image issues are still a thing, but Emp is in a better place than she’s been in this series since ever.

The problem with all this goodness is that it creates a lot of unwelcome tension as you fully expect the other shoe to drop before the end of the volume.  Which it will because that’s always the way it is when things go great for a superhero protagonist (and it basically says as much on the back cover).  Even though creator Adam Warren does his best to throw the reader off with more good news about Emp’s CTS issues, Ninjette working out her own issues with the Caged Demonlord, and an (eventual) gratifying triump over a chauvanistic White Knight, you’re still left feeling that it’s all going to go away in an instant.

Does it happen?  Of course it does.  But to Warren’s credit it happens in a completely different manner than I was expecting.  Given the way the back cover text set things up, I was prepared for Emp to find out about Thugboy’s capekilling past.  That’s still a deep dark secret of his, but the threat that Warren replaces it with is arguably worse.  No, it’s not Willy Pete.  You’ll just have to read vol. 10 to find out and then brace for the shock at the end when the final double-page spread sets up something this series has never done before now.  Granted, there’s a really good reason for that.  I just hope that what Emp says about the progress of vol. 11 turns out to be true.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

Bendis’ first series with Michael Gaydos featuring self-destructive former-superhero-turned-P.I. Jessica Jones, known back then as just plain “Alias,” is easily one of the high points of the writer’s tenure at Marvel.  It provided a mature, grounded look at the underbelly of the Marvel Universe that not only still reads well today, but paved the way for one of the better Marvel Netflix shows.  It’s because of that show’s success that we’re getting this new series from the original creators which finds Jessica’s life in shambles once again.

With there being no major title announcements coming out of Comic-Con, I guess all I have to talk about here is Image’s variant theme for October.  This time around, it’s tribute covers for “The Walking Dead.”  As one of the longest-running and most successful Image titles, I think a stronger argument can be made for this being something the series has earned as opposed to navel-gazing on the part of one of its partners.  Smartly, on the part of whoever handles the images associated with these solicitations, none of the announced variants have been revealed yet.  So if you want to see what these variants will look like, you’ll have to ask your local comic shop to order them.  Or, just wait until Image actually reveals them closer to their release dates, I guess.

Bleeding Cool Rumermonger-In-Chief Rich Johnston seems to think that someone high up at Marvel is up for the chop as a result of all the bad press they’ve been getting lately.  Now this is clearly one of Johnston’s less-journalistic efforts as he notes that this is based on whispers he’s heard at Comic-Con and the London Film and Comic-Con.  Honestly, he’s done better.  The reason I’m bringing it up is because if nothing else it’s an eminently plausible bit of rumormongering.  You’d think that at least one head would roll because of what’s been going on with the company, and if I had to guess current editor-in-chief Axel Alonso seems like a (regrettably) solid bet.  Not only was he involved in the retailer press conference where appeared to express regrets in regards to diversity in Marvel’s titles, but his recent statement that all of this mainstream bad press indicates that the company’s comics are reaching a wider audience before comes off as tone-deaf.  I say “regrettably” because after being brought over from DC/Vertigo by Joe Quesada, Alonso has been one of the key factors in Marvel becoming a more writer-driven company.  It’d be sad to see him go if he does get the chop, but maybe that’ll just free him to come back to DC and do something cool like get Vertigo back on track.

Yeah… this arrived much, much sooner than I was expecting.  It was even part of a Kodansha “Digital First” sale at ComiXology so I was able to pick it up at a discount.  As glad as I am that I was able to read vol. 4 of this series, it does cast some shade on the answer I got from the reps at the Kodansha panel at Comic-Con.  I doubt that they were trolling me because why pass up the chance to make one of your fans really, really happy by giving them an exact answer to their question.  Much more likely is that none of them knew this would be coming out the following Tuesday.  Given the volume of titles that Kodansha releases on a monthly basis, I guess that’s understandable.  It can’t help but look just the tiniest bit unprofessional on their part, however.

As for the volume itself, it’s another very solid entry in the series.  Vol. 4 kicks off the start of the Kanto Tournament which sees the title character and fighting comrade/rival Yudai taking part.  The thing is that Yudai is entering the tournament at a disadvantage after Meguru tore a ligament in his right arm during a practice fight in the previous volume.  Yudai thinks he has enough skill to compensate, which gives his matches a dramatic edge.  Meguru, on the other hand, has to deal with his own lack of skill and strength.  The former issue is front-and-center in his fight with an opponent who specializes in boxing and has enough speed to counter everything Meguru’s trained for.  Fortunately our protagonist’s ability to think on his feet (and on his back while pinned to the ground) makes the fight a compelling experience right up to the final bell.

Mangaka Hiroki Endo continues to draw a lot of engaging drama from the strategizing before and during the fights as well as the battles themselves.  While this means the subsequent tournament fights should be a lot of fun to take in, I have noticed a weakness in his style here.  In this title he draws a lot of his male characters with the same facial and body type so it can be hard to tell them apart when the fists and the kicks start flying.  It’s an issue that I’m willing to deal with in order to get to the quality action and drama this series has consistently offered.

jason@glickscomicpicks.com

I must’ve missed this when it came out but one of the covers to “Dark Nights:  Metal” #1 had this fittingly badass illustration of the Justice League posed together in a way that made it look like they were throwing the horns.  It’s very metal and Greg Capullo deserves major props for having it come off as well as it does.  Much to my surprise, it seems that those at DC were not as appreciative of this image and considered it an affront to everything the company stood for.  Fortunately for us the “Metal” creative team of Capullo and Scott Snyder have enough clout to say, “No, we’re doing it this way!” thanks to their extraordinarily successful run on “Batman.”  Even better is that the buzz is building in their favor thanks to positive reviews and big sales for the two “Dark Days” one-shots leading into the event.  For an image that comes off as “Just so crazy it might work” it’s great to see that it already has.

Also, I want to give Capullo another shout-out for having what is easily one of the best line-cap signs ever at this year’s Comic-Con.  If you don’t get what song the text on the sign is referring to, then you’re honestly just not metal enough.

Dark Horse had some notable media announcements during Comic-Con this year with three of its titles receiving TV adaptations.  One of them, “Flutter” about a shapeshifting girl who turns into a boy to pursue a girl she likes, I haven’t read.  Another, “Mind MGMT,” is one I’m very familiar with and kind of surprised to see it receive an adaptation.  While it was said to be in development with Tony Scott before he passed away several years back, Matt Kindt’s experimental approach to the series was its main appeal for me.  I honestly can’t imagine how they’re going to translate that to television.

The biggest news of all was that “The Umbrella Academy” will be getting a ten-episode Netflix series.  While a date has not been specified for its debut, it’s entirely possible that it could come out during the run of the all-new miniseries from creators Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba.  Yes, that’s right, after it was originally announced way back in 2009 “The Umbrella Academy:  Hotel Oblivion” will finally come out next year.  It’s honestly been too damn long of a wait for this after how great the first two miniseries were.  Better late than never as they say, so long as Way took all this time to make sure he’s written a worthy follow-up.