On Tuesday, Publisher’s Weekly posted an interesting profile of Kelly Sue DeConnick. Her name may not ring a bell with you, but you know her work if you’ve read Tokyopop titles such as Fruits Basket, Girl Got Game, Demon Diary, or Slayers or Viz series Sensual Phrase. The interview has drawn considerable interest from the [...]

It’s official—the blogosphere is having a Tezuka moment, with manga pundits posting rapturous reviews of Ode to Kirihito, Buddha, and Phoenix at a fearsome rate. With so much favorable attention being directed at the late great manga-ka, now seems like an ideal time to ask if Viz will reissue the master’s other offbeat doc-udrama, Black [...]

Phoenix: Civil War, Vols. 7-8 By Osamu Tezuka Published by Viz Do you have a friend who won’t touch a comic book unless a New York Times critic pronounces it a “brilliant graphic novel” by a “major artist”? Well, I have the manga for you: Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix: Civil War. A quick glance through its [...]

The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 2 By Kazuo Umezu Viz, 188 pp. Rating: Mature (18+) The premise of The Drifting Classrroom will resonate with fans of H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, or Star Trek: The Next Generation. A freak accident causes a localized rift in the space-time continuum of present-day Tokyo, sending an elementary school and [...]

Kurogane, Vol. 2 By Kei Toume Del Rey, 249 pp. At first glance, Kurogane seems like yet another series about a ronin with a violent past. Reading volume one, however, we quickly realize that manga-ka Kei Toume is indebted to Frankenstein as much as Vagabond for his characters and plot twists. The series opens with [...]

Banya the Explosive Delivery Man, Vol. 1 By Kim Young-Oh Dark Horse, 176 pp. Rating: 16+ If you like your manhwa with a healthy dose of pow! and splat!, then Banya The Explosive Delivery Man is for you. This shamelessly entertaining story plays like a cross between Dune, Mad Max, and Lord of the Rings, [...]

Omukae Desu, Vol. 1 By Meca Tanaka CMX, 192 pp. Eighteen-year-old Madoka Tsutsumi, the protagonist of Omukae desu, suffers from a full-blown case of “I see dead people.” When he isn’t cramming for his university entrance exams, Madoka puts his sixth sense to work for the G.S.G., a mysterious agency that ferries the recently departed [...]