Dear Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and Todd Klein,

Black Orchid – Neil Gaiman, art by Dave McKean, lettering by Todd Klein – 144 pages

“After being viciously murdered, Susan is reborn fully grown as the Black Orchid, a hybrid of plant and human, in order to avenge her own death. Now as this demigoddess attempts to reconcile her human memories and botanical origins, she must also untangle the webs of deception and secrets that led to her murder. Beginning in the cold streets of a heartless metropolis and ending in the lavish heartland of the thriving Amazon, this book takes the reader through a journey of secrets, suffering, and self-rediscovery.”  –from DCComics.com/Vertigo

I picked up a Black Orchid comic quite some time ago because I love female crimefighters, and I find orchids to be both visually pleasing and symbolically appealing, so the combination seemed like the kind of thing I’d enjoy.  When I discovered the Gaiman/McKean version of Black Orchid, I knew I’d hit paydirt.

Mr. Gaiman, anybody who reads this blog knows I’m a huge fan, but for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading Sandman–so my experience of your writing in comics is limited to graphic novels or guest writing of single arcs in continuous series.  I’ve liked all the graphia of yours that I’ve read, though, and this trade is no exception.  Somehow you managed to write something that captures and keeps my attention, but is so dreamlike that I’ve forgotten what it was about almost as soon as I’ve finished reading it–I’m just left with this really pleasant sense that some kind of fascinating journey has occurred, and I got to go along for the ride.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it’s meant as one.

Part of the dreaminess, though, is the incredible art.  Mr. McKean, I love your work no matter what style you’re using, but this gritty-yet-ethereal sort of photorealism works so well with the strange story, and you do such a lovely job making the orchids seem so alien without being frightening.  The juxtaposition of color palettes, of gray city and red violence versus the orchids and verdant jungles and things…well, it was fantastic.

Also, I don’t know if the excellent placement and coloration of the text boxes and speech bubbles were part of the art or went with the lettering work, but either way, it was brilliant.  Mr. Klein, never let it be said that I don’t appreciate excellent lettering–you make the whole thing readable, and yet it never looked out of place with the art style.  Awesome.

Four enthusiastic stars for Black Orchid!

Love,

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Dear A. David Lewis, mpMann and Jennifer Rodgers,

The Lone and Level Sands – A. David Lewis, mpMann and Jennifer Rodgers – 160 pages

“Pharaoh Ramses II hasn’t seen his long-lost cousin Moses in nearly forty years. Yet while pressed by the Hittites to the North and construction delays in the South, Ramses must make time for this ancient desert rascal, the long-ago mystery he represents, and the impossible demands of an alien deity. Drawing on the Bible, the Qur’an, and historical sources, writer A. David Lewis (Mortal Coils) and artist Marvin Perry Mann (Arcana Jayne) present a retelling of the Book of Exodus through the eyes of the man who is either its greatest leader or its worst villain: a man trying to rule wisely, love his family well, and deal justly in the face of a divine wrath.” – taken from the publisher’s website.

The Lone and Level Sands is an odd but well-woven mix of extrapolation, Biblical storytelling, and murky ancient history.  I’m not entirely sure how much of the story of Moses, or at least of Ramses II, is actually historical, but I’m sure that anything documented somehow wound up in this graphic novel.  You’ve got an intriguing political story set alongside the more familiar spiritual one, and it’s a perspective I don’t think I’ve quite seen before.  Clearly it’s all reminiscent to me of The Prince of Egypt, because I love that movie and have seen it a million times, and the basic story is the same.  You take less license with appearance, which I appreciated–though it’s cool to see Moses as a heroic young man, it’s probably more accurate to portray him in the aged way you do, and it changes the dynamic between Moses and Ramses dramatically.  I also enjoyed the focus on Ramses’ family, his relationship with Nefertari and with his son made the whole thing more emotionally gripping.

I agree with what a reviewer quoted on the publisher’s website said, in that this is an “intelligent book.”  I think, though, that it’s a little dense–both in plot, which might have been easier to follow if taken at a slower pace, and in art, which was interestingly stylized but difficult to “read” in such volume and in a relatively small size.  That said, you’ve done something really interesting here, and I found it enlightening though not completely engrossing.  Four stars!

Love,

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Books this year: 90

Pages this year: 17,253

Dear Chris Allan, Dean Clarrain, Mike Kazaleh…

…the rest of the TMNT Adventures team and Mirage at large,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Future Tense – Allan, Clarrain, Kazaleh, et al.

This trade collects eight issues of the early 90′s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures title published by Archie Comics, along with one issue of a spinoff title from the same time.  These nine issues provide the setup for a soon-to-come continuation of a plotline dropped along with the TMNTA title in 1995.  Part of the 25th anniversary celebration, this collection follows the Turtles on an adventure to a dark future where their sensei is dead, the polar ice caps have melted and flooded the streets of New York, their future selves are in peril, and a team of three villains plot to wreak havoc with future-Donatello’s time machine.

Oh man, guys, where to I start?  I grew up on TMNTA, and grew with it–I was six when the first issue came out, and enjoyed the silly old cartoon-based plotlines.  Then slowly the stories veered away from the cartoon, started getting darker, more emotionally complex, more expansive in scope.  I was going on thirteen by the time Mikey got almost blown up by a Molotov cocktail in a Jerusalem riot, Donnie struggled with the immorality of keeping aliens locked in cells at a secret base in Area 51, and Raph-of-the-future went back in time to punch Hitler in the face.  Well, okay, he didn’t go back in time just to do that.  But that moment remains one of my favorite panels in a comic book ever:

Then all of a sudden the issues stopped coming out on a reliable monthly schedule.  I waited and hoped and prayed as they petered out, seeing ads in each issue for “The Forever War,” a story arc that promised to be epic in proportions.  The title was canceled before that arc could ever see print, and I’ve been waiting fifteen years to read it.  Given all that, I’m sure you can imagine my indescribable glee when I heard that “The Forever War” was finally going to be produced, and my absolute delight at this awesome trade that precedes it.

Though I’ve read the single issues that make up TMNT: Future Tense many, many times, it was wonderful to read them again, and try to guess at what might be coming based on what you guys thought was critical to include.  The stories are crazy fantastic, full of Dean Clarrain’s awesome witty dialogue, occasional Gundam-esque battle armor, and of course my favorite art out of all the TMNT artists and universes.  Chris Allan, you are totally my hero.  I love how even in black and white I can always tell which Turtle is which, even when there are eight of them on the page.  The little wrinkles and liver-spotty-things you use to distinguish the Turtles-of-the-future make me so disproportionately happy!  And the inks!  Oh, Brian Thomas and Jon D’Agostino, you both rock my world with your awesome inkage.  I’m also quite fond of this vision of the Turtles’ future, as people; Mike as an artist, Don making dough off his crazy inventions, Leo running a dojo, and Raph running a bar.  Seriously, it doesn’t get better than that.

I also loved the extra stuff that got added in between issues in the collection–the rejected cover art and other such things were few, but AWESOME.  It’s fun to be an adult now and learn what was going on behind the scenes of these comics that felt so totally real and magical to me when I was younger.  There is one little problem, though–one page gets repeated.  Maybe it’s just in my book, in which case, cool, that makes it a little unique.  But it would be sad if it were in all the books–people who have never read these stories before will miss out on Raph-of-the-future telling Raph-of-the-present not to screw things up with his girlfriend.  Hilarious!  Young Raph is such a jerk, you just know he could benefit from some professional therapy to work out his issues.

Anyway, I think this is one of the longer and more rambling letters I’ve written in this blog so far, and also perhaps the least review-like and the most like a love-fest.  Let me sum it up by saying that I think you chose which issues to include very cleverly, and that all your work from back in 1994-5 remains spectacular, and that I love you all with startling intensity.  I’m dancing in my chair in anticipation of “The Forever War” arc–what will happen?  Will Raph get over himself enough for Ninjara to take him back?  Will Shredder finally be defeated?  Will Butter Dog have a return engagement at the Turtle Island bar??  (I take only partial responsibility for the Butter Dog album cover–I added the text to an already-existing ridiculous photo of some of the TMNT guys back when they had wicked bad hair.)

You are all awesome!  Future Tense gets five happy glowy radical stars!

Love,

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Dear Derek Kirk Kim,

Same Difference and Other Stories – Derek Kirk Kim

In a series of short graphic stories, Kim takes on young adulthood, morality and racism with some autobiography mixed in.  “Same Difference,” the longest story of the collection, follows two friends as they try to figure out what to do about a host of mis-delivered (and possibly stalker-ish) love letters.

After reading The Eternal Smile and really enjoying it, I thought I’d give Same Difference and Other Stories a try.  I was really into it at the start–”Same Difference” was a great story, and I also really liked “Hurdles” and “Pulling.”  Your art in this book has a fluid yet solid quality to it that I really enjoy.  After “Pulling,” though, it seemed like the stories took a turn.  They got much shorter, more angry, looser–not to mention more vulgar–and though I could have enjoyed them on their own, I was thrown off by the dissimilarity of that angry tone compared with the earlier stories.  The thematic shift was a little too drastic to make the whole thing cohere as a collection–the shorter first-person stories felt like they were just tossed on to add page length.

That said, I do appreciate the honesty, and sometimes brutality, of those first-person stories.  Racial discrimination and young adulthood confusion aren’t always pretty or poetic or comfortable, and you certainly captured that (along with an almost disturbing lack of self-worth).  Still, I wish the collection had flowed as a whole.  Four stars!

Love,

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Dear Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá,

Ursula – Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

Ursula, Miro and Boris are childhood friends, playing together in the middle of a city where Miro’s father is king.  As Miro tells Ursula about a dream he had, where stars come down to sit in trees and magical eggs hatch into birds that talk, they slowly fall in love.  Then suddenly Ursula’s family moves away for vague and mysterious reasons, and Miro fears he’ll never see her again.  Many years later, as Miro prepares to take over rulership of the city, his father encourages him to marry–but there’s only one girl he wants for his wife.  He and Ursula (and Boris too!) must journey through the land of Miro’s dream and find their way home again to their happily ever after.

I’ve heard your names bandied about in the comic book world for a while now, but hadn’t yet read anything either of you had worked on.  I remedied that today with Ursula, and I’m so glad I did!  What a spectacular little book!  You’ve got the kinda-urban/kinda-not thing going on, with kings and helicopters and little peeping birds that talk, which is a lovely setting in any case.  Then you’ve got this really poetic, lyrical text that absolutely sings; it feels old and timeless at the same time, without ever seeming out of place.  Then of course there’s the art, loose and emotive, and full of little details that make it perfect.  Ursula’s perpetually rosy cheeks, Miro’s cute cornrows, the heart-dragon’s square-framed glasses…it’s never too much or too little, always just right.  Put that all together, and you’ve got a five-star love story that I just can’t resist!

Love,

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Dear Gene Luen Yang,

American Born Chinese – Gene Luen Yang

Three interconnected stories explore the ins and outs of racism, loyalty, and trying to be someone you’re not.  Jin Wang wants to be an all-American boy, and shuns his fresh-off-the-boat classmate who doesn’t understand how to fit in.  Danny is cool and popular, but his over-the-top stereotypical cousin Chin-Kee’s annual visit threatens to ruin Danny’s reputation at school.  The Monkey King thinks he’s ready to join the immortal gods in heaven, but discovers he’s still got a lot to learn.  When all these stories intersect, the characters must find ways to repair the damage they’ve done to their lives–and must rely on each other to do it.

American Born Chinese is one of my favorite graphic novels EVER, and reading The Eternal Smile recently made me want to go back and re-read this one.  Not only is your art bright, simple and funny, but your grasp of storytelling blows me away.  The dialogue is hilarious and sincere by turns, and you’ve woven these three stories together with extremely subtle skill.  You’re really fantastic at keeping secrets, and at giving a big reveal at just the right moment.  This holds true in your visual storytelling, too–it’s quite a talent, and I enjoyed your use of it thoroughly.  I also found your skillful use of racism and stereotypes to be both amazing and upsetting at once–Chin-Kee made me really uncomfortable, until I understood what was going on–and I think you’ve pitched everything just right, walking the line between too much discomfort and not enough to get the point across.  My very favorite part, though, is the secret surprise last panel on the very last page, half-hidden by the jacket flap.  You’re just full of visual cleverness!  But you don’t need me to tell you all that–you won about a billion awards for this book, and rightly so.  Five stars!

Love,

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Dear Kim Dong Hwa,

The Color of Water – Kim Dong Hwa

In this second volume of a coming-of-age manwha trilogy, Ehwa hopes that her third romance will be the charm.  When she catches the eye of a young wrestler named Duksam, she begins to think he may be the right one for her–but she still has some growing up to do, and learns that love is always complicated.

It seems like not very long ago at all that I was reading The Color of Earth, and wishing fervently for the next book, and now here it is!  The Color of Water has that sort of slow flowing quality that many middle books in a trilogy have; the story is neither beginning nor ending, but must support the weight of those two opposites.  You’ve done that quite steadily in this book; Ehwa is growing up, and we see her mother in a new light now–less the wise older woman and more an older sister, someone who knows what love is, but pines for her picture-man just as Ehwa pines for Duksam.  You also hint at the future, making me think that perhaps Duksam will be the one that she marries, though there is clearly adversity to be overcome before that can happen.

As with the first book, I loved your fluid artwork and the peaceful, simple setting of the story.  I found, though, that as Ehwa gets older, I became a little more aware of my own displeasure with the role of women in her time and place.  There’s nothing to be done about it–it’s a cultural difference, in an older time, and since it’s based on a real person, there’s not much you can do but tell the story true.  You do make it beautiful, and you certainly appeal to my femme side with the flower fragrances and delicate prose, but my feminist side was still more bothered by this book than the previous one.  Still, there’s nothing to be done about it, and I’m still extremely fond of both books and can’t wait for the third.  Five stars again, for beautiful art and a lovely story, and for making me think.

Love,

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Dear Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim,

The Eternal Smile – Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim

Three stories collected in one volume, this collaboration spans knights with swords, frog cartoon shows, and internet scams–but they’re all connected by the common thread of illusion.  Things aren’t always what they seem, and seeing through the illusion will change everything.

I completely loved American Born Chinese, so it seemed like a logical next step to pick up The Eternal Smile–and I’m really glad I did!  It’s a totally odd assortment of stories, but after a while I started to see that they went really well together, thematically.  The first story was actually a little bit Kelly Link-esque, dropping the reader in the middle of a fairly odd fantasy setting that had the appearance of depth without being particularly lengthy, pagewise.  I think that’s what I liked best about it–the assumption that I would, and could, just go with the flow until the big twist at the end.  The second story might actually be my favorite, though at first I wasn’t sure I’d like it at all, but I’m enough of a Disney fan and have enough good humor to appreciate a clever and kind of freaky satire.  I also liked the art best in the middle story, bright and cute to offset the bizarre.  The third story was a total departure, even from stardard white to off-white paper, but I really enjoyed it.  The blurring of lines between reality and fantasy, the sweetness of the art style and the clever story were all fantastic.  It made me want to check out Same Difference and Other Stories, too!  Overall, this is the kind of graphic work that I like best–it’s more than what it seems to be.  Well done, you guys, five stars.

Love,

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Dear Hitoshi Okuda,

No Need for Tenchi! and The All New Tenchi Muyo! – Hitoshi Okuda

Seventeen-year-old Tenchi Masaki used to have a normal, quiet life–until he woke up a sleeping demon who turned out to be from outer space.  One by one, five more alien women show up on his doorstep to complicate his once peaceful life.  These manga series are a continuation of a classic anime from the early 90′s, originally published in Japan as short monthly installments and collected into trade paperback format for American readers.

I’m a huge fan of the whole Tenchi Muyo! franchise–I did the research to make sense of its many continuities, hunted down English translations of novels, and of course watched every episode, spinoff and movie both subbed and dubbed for the full effect.  Aside from the original 13 episodes of the anime OVA, which precede your storyline, I like your No Need for Tenchi! and The All New Tenchi Muyo! the best out of all that Tenchi stuff.  Which, of course, means I like it a whole lot, and I re-read the volumes at random at least once a week.  So where do I start?  There are so many volumes that it seemed easier to review your run as a whole rather than one at a time, and yet I love them so much that I want to give them the attention they deserve.  Still, pragmatism won out, so here I am reviewing a total of 22 volumes of awesome Tenchi-ness.

Let me start with the storytelling.  Tenchi Muyo! is inherently kind of absurd–I mean, all these lunatic women from outer space somehow manage to fall in with a kid living in the remote mountains of Japan?  And then they all fall in love with him?  And THEN he turns out to be part alien himself?  Come on.  But that absurdity is one of the great things about the show, and one of the aspects you embraced so fully.  From little Sasami thinking she’ll die if she hiccups too much to bubblehead Mihoshi trying to learn to drive an Earth car to genius Washu designing an artificial intelligence that plays ridiculous pranks on her–not to mention all the one-time characters and bizarre situations that happen throughout your run–you’ve got more than just a touch of the absurd here.  The reason it works so well is that it’s tempered with delicious melodrama.  Ryoko, in all her hot alien/demon/space pirate splendor, is one of my favorite characters, tied with her mother Washu.  You seem to agree with me, because your books are Ryoko- and Washu-heavy, and you bring out the most hidden warmth and softness in both of them that I could hope for.  Of course, you write the other characters with tender skill, as well–even prissy princess Ayeka, who I generally could take or leave, blossoms into a woman who’s not only courageous and caring to save the man she loves, but also to save her friends.  Swoon!  Of course, the best part is the relationship between Tenchi, Ryoko and Ayeka.  Since they’re the two main rivals for his love, fans inevitably pick some kind of side–I myself think Tenchi belongs with Ryoko, and you give me enough amazing stories of connection and emotion between them that I can imagine he’ll choose her when he grows up a little.  Of course, you give Ayeka her limelight too, and don’t do any more than imply a future outcome, which is just as it should be.  Tenchi choosing a girl would be like…Charlie Brown finally kicking that football.

Then there’s the art.  You’ve got this fluid style that’s ostensibly cuter than the anime–the eyes are bigger, and the noses sometimes disappear in their little kawaii faces even when they’re angry–but you’ve got a command of page layout that I covet and envy.  You always know when to zoom in or out, how much of someone’s face or body to show in order to get the emotional effect across.  Like how you know I’m gonna cheer out loud when, in a dire situation, at the bottom just before the page turn you give me a glimpse of Ryoko’s foot or Tenchi’s sword or something else I recognize right away, and tadaa!  The drama of the page turn!  You’ve also got a way with silhouettes that makes me want to paper my walls with them.  Like your writing, your art is a mix of absurd and dramatic, and it serves the story well.

Ok, this is just turning into a long-winded love-fest, and clearly I think about Tenchi Muyo! and your manga a lot, so I’ll wrap it up.  You’ve got it all here–a little campy, a little corny, a little hyperdramatic–and in the end, it’s all about love.  Five happy happy stars.

Love,

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Dear Kim Dong Hwa,

I heard about The Color of Earth some time ago, and decided after I saw the beautiful cover that it would go on my list of highly anticipated things to read.  So, when it appeared at the bookstore, I picked it up, and was quite happy I did!  I loved the languid pace of the story, and the sort of…dreamlike quality of the whole setting.  I loved the moments of intimacy between mother and daughter, and I laughed out loud at all the misinformation passed around by the village children as they’re pre-pubescing.  Then, of course, there’s the art–it’s incredibly beautiful.  Simple, delicate, flowing, and there was always a lot of restful white space for my eyes.  That the story is biographical was icing on the whole wonderful cake, bringing a very pleasant sense of nostalgia to the story.  Five stars, and I can’t wait to read the next one.

Love,

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