Batman 685
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Dini
Pencils: Dustin Nguyen
Inker: Derek Fridolfs

Capsule review: A Batman comic without Batman. Batman has disappeared and Catwoman is hot on his trail, the key word being "hot," since she's cornered her prey somewhere in Vietnam. Heat and humidity notwithstanding, she plays the cool hostess while narrating a lot of flashbacks, leaving about six pages left over for this issue's story.

The cover for this one is a beautifully rendered yet boringly “iconic” Alex Ross painting of Catwoman. Turn to the inside back cover and there’s an ad for the New York Comic Con illustrated by Neal Adams—lots of Green Lanterns leaping, punching, blasting their power rings every which way. Now that’s comic book excitement. Of course, not every cover should be so busy, but the static portrait with a black background is fast becoming my least favorite cover cliche. Yes, the Batman 685 cover is a strong graphic image, slappable on just about any book with Catwoman inside. And yes, Ross makes Catwoman look alluringly mysterious, but what does a giant diamond have to do with the "Last Rites" storyline? It’s creatively lazy, an advertisement for the inevitable art print.

The story inside, by Paul Dini, opens with a Hatari!-style action sequence starring a Vietnamese rhino (heck, I didn't even know there was such a beast) beating the beans out of some poor shlub in a sack. Catwoman is in Southeast Asia and, in Dini’s first person narration, identifies her rhinoscopy (I just made that word up!) victim as one “Thomas Elliot, a.k.a. Hush, the recurring thorn in my paw.” Ooh! A cat-based metaphor. Julie Newmar would be proud. I have no idea who Thomas Elliot, a.k.a. Hush is, but Dini quickly lets us know Catwoman has it in for the guy and that’s all I need to know.

The plot is simple, but shot through with a lot of flashbacks because-- as per all superhero comics these days-- it’s part of some massive storyline involving events taking place in other comics I haven’t read. "Last Rites," I suppose it's called, because that's what the cover copy tells me. And even though I'm not interested in it in the least, I do understand what's going on because most of the dialogue in Batman 685 references things that happened in other comics, which makes this issue seem more like... another commercial for a product not available for sale just yet. When it's collected into the inevitable trade paperback, isn't it going to seem repetitive? In one chapter, one group of characters will do something, and in the next another group will discuss and reiterate what the first group did.

Still, Dini has a way with all that background info and catches even a detached reader up pretty quickly. It just doesn’t leave much room for actual story developments. And haven’t the first person narrative captions run their course yet? Must every comic character carry on this kind of present-tense internal dialogue, as if they’re mentally composing their autobiographies? Makes me long for the days of Denny O’Neill and Marv Wolfman and their marvelously verbose third-person captions. Makes me long for Catwoman to shut the hell up with the inner monologues and just start hitting Thomas Elliot, a.k.a. Hush upside his head.

Dustin Nguyen’s art is jagged in that modern, edgy style and heavy on blacks, as if he couldn't choose whether to be Adam Hughes or Mike Mignola and decided to split the difference; check out Catwoman's Hughesian nose. Nguyen has a nice eye for silhouettes, but seems relatively uninterested in drawing vehicles. There's apparently a boat that looks borrowed from the set of Apocalypse Now in one panel, but it's difficult to tell because two figures almost completely cover it up. How convenient! Soon after, there's an itsy-bitsy helicopter, but it's also silhouetted and thus without detail.

On the plus side, Nguyen's Catwoman is sleek and sexy, especially when she's reclining in her torchlit tent. That latex or leather bodysuit? Not the best wardrobe choice while running around in the Southeast Asian jungles. I hope she brought a lot of anti-perspirant, and maybe some baby powder.

I wonder if, when Nguyen first dreamed of being a comic book penciller, he ever imagined he’d draw a guy in a sack being pummeled by a rhinoceros. Nguyen is an efficient match for Dini, but I wish they were telling a more self-contained story with a neat little plot. I do have to tell you the ending is completely illogical, especially given many of the villainous tropes in the superhero genre. I can’t tell you what it is or why it’s so stupid without giving away too much of the story. Let’s just say Nightwing and Robin must be delusionally optimistic, incredibly stupid or have some sort of brain-damage that prevents them from forming memories to even dare dream this idea would work.

Look how much I had to pay for this comic:


At the current exchange rate (as of March 11, 2009), that's $10USD! Ten bucks for a comic book! I could've gotten it for about six dollars at Blister in Harajuku, but then I'd have to add on the cost of the shinkansen ticket and possibly a night in a business hotel. But I doubt I would've bought it there; Blister has other choices, and I rarely buy mainstream super-monthlies anyway. This purchase was more or less an experiment. While I genuinely admire Paul Dini's work (even when he's hamstrung by having to participate in another one of those dumb superhero mega-storylines), I mainly wanted to see what it felt like to buy two of the only Western comic books available in Hamamatsu.

Answer? It feels slightly like getting ripped off, but that's not to fault either Dini or Nguyen.

"...and many lovers at one time:" Nana 14 Review

Nana vol. 14
Publisher: Shojo Beat/Viz Media
Writer/Artist: Yazawa Ai
English Adaptation: Allison Wolfe
Translation: Tomo Kimura

Capsule review: Yazawa Ai introduces a mysterious new character and brings romantic turmoil to several of her castmembers-- including an unexpected one-- in this particularly busy volume of her hit manga series about two women named Nana. Gosurori cutie Misato consolidates her relationship with Blast even as she meets new challenges from within the fan community, Hachi has a major epiphany about her relationship with rock star Takumi, Nana's fiance Ren hits the road for a magical memory trip accompanied by pop chanteuse Reira... and Nobu has to deal with sketchy contract legalities because he's in love with a runaway porn star. Also, Ren snorts cocaine in the bathroom, Nana weathers a brutal hangover and Nobu has sex. Whew! Yazawa never gives her people a break. No wonder Junko closes Junko's Place for a breather this time out.

Blast has hit the road on a national tour in support of their first release. Everyone waits in suspense waiting for the weekly Oricon chart to see how high it debuts. Meanwhile, in Osaka, a gathering of Blast fans gather in a downpour just to catch a glimpse of the band, to share that certain special feeling that comes from being part of a group of like-minded obsessives, to feel the touch of Nana’s essence, to catch a glimpse of Yasu’s shiny bald head.

Enter professionalist superfan Shion, the self-appointed president of the Blast fan club. Her every word, relayed by an assistant, commands the faithful even if they're somewhat dubious as to her status in the herd. Shion is business-like, cool, totally self-possessed and she hates, hates, hates Misato Uehara, the cutest, most loyal little gosurori Blast fan there is for her friendship with Nana.

And in Tokyo, Hachi encounters more evidence that her relationship with Takumi is something of a sham. Is he really working late, the way he claims? Or does the fact he still keeps a separate apartment have a meaning all its own?

Desires of the heart have always propelled the various characters in Yazawa Ai’s Nana. Nana wants to sing, to be famous and free, to get her stupid family register so she and Ren can tie the knot at last. Hachi wants love and to believe she can make her life as Takumi’s wife work for her and their unborn child, but she's no longer kidding herself about his straying ways. Misato wants a job now that she’s finally flunked out of school. Ren wants drugs and a getaway with Reira. Takumi wants Hachi and any other woman he can get into bed. And Shion wants to be the queen of the Nana fans. Seldom has this much angst exploded in such a concentrated area; the collateral emotional damage will be truly horrific.

Yazawa uses the Osaka rain to visually symbolize the way reality sometimes dampens hopes and dreams. I don’t know if you know this, but Japan is one hellishly rainy country. It’s not just rainy season, which starts in June and lasts for at least a month. It might rain for six or seven days straight before you get even a day of broken clouds. But scarcely a week passes by the rest of the year without one or two gray, dreary days of mist or drizzle or torrents. It’s no wonder one of the most romantic images possible here in movies, animation or comic books is that of a young couple sharing an umbrella.

She also keeps up the steady stream of unbelievably stylish characters. Shion— her name a truncation of the word fashion itself-- sports chic businesswear, a little too dressy for any stultifying office but more adult than the sailor-style school uniforms the rank-and-file fans wear. It suits her imperiousness. Misato gets a makeover as she abandons her blond ringlets for a short, black bob. But, once she nabs her job, she’s right back to “wearing [her] little get-ups.” Fashion is so much the focus, Misato's new look gets a special panel-breaking image complete with gray-tone sparkles; I'm sure this is expressive of some sort of subjective manga visual vocabulary with some definite meaning or perhaps even a mental sound effect to Japanese readers, but it's just a pretty drawing to me. As Hachi marvels in disbelief, "But you look even more radical now."

Misato, Hachi, Nana and all the rest of Yazawa’s impossibly slender, angular figures wear their clothes well. Each page is a veritable fashion parade, an enchanting glimpse of the high class world of visual self-expression. Even Nana’s sexily dishevelled punk couture comes off as glitteringly glamorous-- one day strutting in front of the Osaka fan contingent in her aviator glasses and a leopard-fur jacket, by night smoking cigarettes and lounging on a sofa, then donning classic leather motorcycle/plaid mini/garters and thigh highs look.

And then there's Yuri/Asami in her negligee and bunny ears...

Just as the Japanese rain soaks shoes and makes them cold and squishy, so to does it bog down these lovely characters. Into every rain some life must fall, and Yazawa never lets the Nana cast remain warm and dry for long. The Ren-Reira matching threatens to destroy Nana’s status quo, and and Hachi's puppy-dog drive for happiness somehow complements a growing pragmatism, a new-found understanding of her true status in Ren's world. We also get the further developments of Nobu‘s sweet yet slightly twisted relationship with porn star Yuri (or is it Asami?), and a peek behind the detached, businesslike façade of chrome dome Yasu; who knew he had a heart in there? Another cold, wet splash from the gloomy rain gods hits Nana right at the end, creating yet another of Yazawa’s emotional cliffhangers.

Bring on Nana 15!

What To Do, What To Do About Those Pesky Scanlators...

You love Japanese comics and want to read the lastest releases as soon as they're out in the motherland, but you don't read nihongo. Scarcely a problem, boku no otaku tomodachi! You can find them online, thanks the efforts of some people who are even more obsessed than you are, who offer for free sometimes professional quality translations of manga that may take months or years to reach America.

They're called "scanlators," one of those annoying Internet portmanteau words like "fanfic," "Spashley" and "Octomom." And now, according to an article in the Japan Times Online, Lee Hye-Kyung of the University of London has researched their... uh... helpful yet more than likely illegal ways. Lee cites the scanlators' "missionary zeal" as a motivating factor for what they're doing, and if the article is to be believed (and I don't see why not), what they're doing is some damned difficult and time-consuming work.

It must be love.

Slate Joins the Watchmen Hype

Slate has a slideshow feature called "What if Woody Allen Had Directed Watchmen?" which is more clever than actually funny. They posit various versions of the movie directed by Woody Allen, Sophia Coppola, Judd Apatow (Silk Specter is a "non-speaking role") and Pedro Almodovar. The Allen version seems like something he might've actually made back in the early 1970s as a parodic/satirical response to superhero movies if they'd been the big cinematic trend back then. Something like a cross between Take the Money and Run and Sleeper.

In fact, Woody Allen actually wrote a script for it in early 1976, but discarded it in favor of making Annie Hall. The Allen version was titled Dr. Manhattan Murder Mystery, and evidently, Alan Moore was able to get hold of a copy, which he then freely adapted into his groundbreaking graphic novel. Here are some excerpts:

DR. MANHATTAN (voice over)

After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her, and after half an hour I completely gave up the idea that, despite her intelligence, she meant no more to me than the world's smartest termite.

SILK SPECTRE

You are the greatest lover I've ever had.

DR. MANHATTAN

Well, I practice a lot when I'm alone on Mars.

The Almodovar one is my favorite, if only because it casts Michelle Yeoh as Ozymandias.

Mmm... Michelle Yeoh as Ozymandias. If only Zack Snyder truly were visionary!

"Batman vs. Superman"

Wow! I think I really captured the true essence of Batman in this one, which took about ten minutes to draw. I forgot to put Superman in it, though.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold 1 Review

Batman: The Brave and the Bold 1
Publisher: DC ComicsWriter: Matt Wayne
Pencils: Andy Suriano
Inker: Dan Davis

A huge Yajimaya bookstore opened on the eighth floor of May One here in Hamamatsu. MayOne is part of the train station, and train stations in the larger Japanese cities tend to be more than just transportation hubs; they're downtown central and major shopping destinations. People call May One a department store, but it's made up of a lot of semi-independent shops with individual names. Upscale clothing shops, an import goods place called Plaza (it used to be called Sony Plaza), an art/stationery store, and now a sort of Japanese Borders, complete with an Excelsior coffee shop attached. And shelf after shelf of manga. You never see anything like this in big American bookstores. Sure, you get a shelf of graphic novels and then one of translated manga. Here, there were five or six... maybe more... complete shelves of comics, arranged by age and gender demographics. They tend to be more upfront about the gender stuff here. Shojo manga and shonen manga. Girl's comics and boy's comics.

The world's economy may be tanking, but you'd never know it by the crowd at Yajimaya. The employees worked at least four registers, and buyers lined up five and six people deep to take part in a personal economic stimulus.

Yajimaya lured me with the promise of English-language books and magazines. First I grabbed Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson (a longtime fave), 1984 by some guy named Eric Arthur Blair (that's George Orwell to you and me, Russ) and Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami Haruki. Then it was periodical time.

This Yajimaya actually carries Wizard magazine. I'm not sure how well that's going to go over with the English reading population here. I'm probably the only foreigner in town who would actually even consider buying it, and even I've long since given up on Wizard. This issue slightly tempted me because it has a Watchmen movie cover feature, but I haven't been part of Wizard's fart-joke loving/hetero-panic target audience since about 1997, and I can't imagine the writing or copy editing has improved to anything close to professional standards after all the Wizard staffing turmoil. And with an import price tag of around 2300 yen (that's about $23USD!), I just couldn't see myself buying it.

Just to the left of Wizard, Yajimaya actually had a few American comics on sale. X-Men Legacy, which didn't interest me in the least (if it had been Astonishing X-Men, I probably would've bought it), a Superman issue with the Parasite (don't know who that is, don't care) and a couple of Batman titles. These I bought just as an experiment. One was Batman: The Brave and the Bold number one.

Check out the price I paid:

Talk about sticker shock! I paid 798 yen, or about $8.12USD! Notice what it says on the price tag, though: Blave & Bold. You try learning kanji and see how easy that is.

Anyway, here endeth my digression and here beginneth my review of this neat little find. I so rarely get to read first issues of anything. As the cover copy says, this Batman comic is based on the “new hit cartoon,” which I haven’t seen. Old school Batman with the yellow oval around his bat-symbol and capsules on his utility belt. Remember that Batman, when he was merely serious and determined, rather than a teeth-gritting, “grim avenger of the night” jerkface with a Batmobile stuck up his Bat-ass?

This is a colorful kid’s comic with some of our favorite heroes given slightly sillier characterizations. Take Aquaman, for instance. He has a regal beard and countenance, but writer Matt Wayne turns him into a pompous windbag fond of giving on-the-nose titles to his adventures. And unashamedly sharing them with Batman.

Batman then jets off to London to help a conveniently located Power Girl (here sporting a costume minus the boob-window, creating a successful visual argument for its gratuitous nature) battle a giant monster amalgamated from innocent Britishers by Lex Luthor. I can’t imagine why the Prime Minister of the UK would ask for Batman, when this is obviously more a Superman-style caper. But he wants Batman, so Batman he gets.

In this more cartoony Bat-world, Batman cracks a few jokes and Lex Luthor has a nose like an unsuccessful boxer’s. He’s also one of the dimmest geniuses you’ll likely to encounter and loves to pontificate at length about his evil schemes: “One blast of my concatenation ray let me shape every human within six city blocks to the form of my choosing! Soon, it will break your pathetic bonds, complete its task and return to me! And then I’ll have it deal with you!”

Quite an optimist, to boot. Wayne’s attempt at British dialect? I’m guessing it’s meant to be part of the humor-oriented approach. Towards the end, there are a couple of really cute moments, one of which is a clever call back to an aphorism Batman coins early in the issue: “Every criminal makes one mistake.” Seems like a hasty generalization or some foolish absolutism on first blush, but not so fast my eager young friend!

Suriano’s and Davis’ art is clean and easy to follow, but has organic curvilinear lines mixing uneasily with square fingers out of a Powerpuff Girls episode. These harsh angular moves are the current trend and work fine with the hyper-stylized and geometrical Powerpuffs; I mean, their heads are almost perfectly round, so why not have people with square hands as their friends and neighbors? Here the elements are in collision and the pointy knees and shoulders seem like a lazy attempt to add "edginess" or "style" when solid drawing dynamics should suffice. Certainly the art team had to hew to the animation model sheets, so it’s difficult to fault them for matching the show's creaky designs. However, compare the interior art to James Tucker’s livelier, looser cover art, which looks like the dynamic love child of a three-way marriage between Jack Kirby, Gilberto Hernandez and Bruce Timm.

All in all, this Batman-via-Cartoon-Network vibe is bright fun for the wee lads and lasses; they're not going to share my nitpicking qualms. What matters is, there's lots of action, both Power Girl and Lex Luthor learn valuable lessons and there’s a plea for actual mail to a physical address in the back. How retro! Do they even make envelopes anymore? And despite its being printed on cheaper paper with flatter, less modeled coloring, I don’t feel much has been lost in the way of overall quality. It looks completely fine to me and just proves glossy colors and all that computer painting and rendering stuff is completely unnecessary. More grown-up comics should be formatted this way.

I still think the American suggested retail price of $2.50 is a bit steep for any flimsy monthly comic, though. And this is coming from a person who paid eight dollars for it!

"Hey Kids! It's Batman vs. Robin!"

A serious post, then a ridiculous one. That's the When Comic Books Ruled the Earth Way! This is another five minute page. In my previous post, I asked why we couldn't have a non-asshole Batman, but there's a lot to be said for a complete asshole Batman, too. Sadly, I think my version is about equal in charm to the official one.