Sunday Sundry

Sorry I haven't been able to post more often, but things here at work especially have been hectic as we are just beginning a new computer system which means longer hours.

Recent reads:

Video Girl Ai #1-2 - Is an amusing little romantic comedy series so far, about a quite immature young male who because of his good heart is awarded a kind of guardian angel named Video Girl Ai to help him get the girl of his dreams.

The lead is such a nice guy at heart that Ai falls for him though, which causes some trouble because the Video Girls aren't supposed to develop feelings for their charges and thus get in the way of their mission to help him find his true love.

The setup reminds me a little of the movie Xanadu with Ai's feelings of being trapped between her duties and her own feelings and the powers above who seem more concerned about their own rules than the people involved.

Which makes the series slightly more than just a typical romance story, which I'm glad to see.

I didn't think I'd ever say it, but I'm burned out on the typical romance stories so many manga series seem to focus on. At first they were like water to a drowning man who only had superheroes to read. Yet now I want just a little more in my reading than just a typical by the numbers romance story with no other story elements or themes around it to explore.

Target Marvel Age Avengers TPB - This is a horrible sampler for new readers, as there isn't a truly complete story in the entire book. Plus there are no less than 60 footnotes of "read Avengers/Defenders/... #.." all over it that make even the parts seem less whole than they should be.

Plus if you want the continuation of the story you have to hunt up Avengers comics from the 1970s! I don't think it is a good idea to have a sampler that tells readers "If you want to know whether those four Avengers are really dead or not, hunt up a comic from nearly 30 years ago!"

Plus my head scratching disbelievement at how much of Marvel's Golden Age heroes are ripoffs of DC version is gaining with every new turn. I thought things were bad enough that one of Marvel's biggest sellers right now is a skewered version of DC's Classic Justice League series.

Now I see a character known as the Whizzer, who is an apparent ripoff of DC's Johnny Quick, complete with former membership in something called the All Star Companions. (rather than DC's All Star Squadron)

Yet then again this is the company who set up their schedule so their miniseries Identity Disc happens to come out at the same time as DC's Identity Crisis series.

Manga to Anime Watching

As I said earlier in the week I've been watching a number of Anime series that are based on some of the manga books I read. One of the better things about doing so was finding out how to pronounce names right. For example with Ai Yori Aoshi, finding out that the female lead's first name of Aoi is pronounced "Owe" rather than what I thought was "Eh-ohwe".

It was also nice to find out that Chi from Chobits sounds exactly like I thought she would in my head. And that Peach the little "laptop" persocom, is even funnier in cartoon form than in comics!

Today's comics shopping

I'm looking at a number of DC's Humanoids GNs and I am beginning to understand why a number of European creators styles are what they are if they grew up on this stuff. Things that are labeled as classics, seem to involve "gloppy" art, with ultra violence all through out.

I did pick up Marvel's Emma Frost digest, which I'm thrilled to see does not contain any of the "porno" covers that Greg Horn drew for most of the series. Does make one wonder though. With 6 issues for $7.99, why buy the single issues?

I also picked up the latest issue of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, one of the few pamphlet comics I continue to pick up on a monthly basis at book chain stores.

I also saw a manga series that had me laughing hysterically at its very title, Ultimate Muscle. Which just had me rolling when I see its title, that brings up a different image than the one they probably want a reader to have.

That's it, I'll be back later in the week.