My friend Melissa is a professional singer and a lover of opera. I’m not a professional singer, but I am a liker of opera. A few years ago I saw the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Carmen. It was my first time and I was transported. When I told her about my experience, Melissa sighed. Carmen,…
Durarara!! Cover Stories: Judge a Book on Whether You’d Buy It
Manga! Those lovely small-sized books of satisfactory thickness. They’re a compelling buy, if perhaps higher priced than is strictly desirable. Especially as volumes in a series are far less skippable than your average cape comic. Weigh it up: long-form story by one creative team (or creator!) But how do you find out what’s good? You…
Ethics in Manga Fandom: I Was a Teenage Scanlator
It all began in ninth grade with Gravitation. While I was worrying over my sexuality and identity as a young woman, I found how easy and sexy it was to escape into the pages of yaoi manga. A good friend of mine had a lot of it on her shelves and I scheduled back-to-back sleepovers…
Spoilers: EVERYBODY STAND UP: Naruto Has Left The Building
Spoilers Naruto is over. Long live Bolt, son of Naruto. Yup, friends and readers of a certain age: Naruto is finally done. The Masashi Kishimoto manga, Naruto, has concluded, leading straight into a sequel featuring the original characters’ kids. The anime, I don’t know, it’s probably eternal. But the point is that series-prime, the divining rod…
I’m Loving: Harlequin Manga Adaptation Previews
I’m loving — I mean I am LOVING — the existence of Harlequin Josei manga. Good grief! I’m loving it with all the passion and fire of a green-eyed shipping magnate! I’m trembling with anger like a handsome golden-eyed playboy at the thought of his brother’s beautiful ex-wife with a common teacher and at the thought of…
Short & Sweet: Halloween Candy! Five Creator-Owned Feminist Horror Comics
iZombie Chris Roberson and Mark Allred Vertigo Even though it’s got a zombie leading lady and lots of brain eating, iZombie doesn’t really feel like a typical horror comic. It’s less gruesome darkness and more spooky fun, sort of like a comic version of the Monster Mash. The story is all about Gwen, a dead…
Spiritual Gender-Bending in Solanin
SPOILER WARNING: This essay contains spoilers pertaining to Inio Asano’s Solanin
New to Manga: Trying Monster by Naoki Urasawa
When I decided to dip my toe into the manga pond, I heard one name over and over: Naoki Urasawa. He was the best of the best, an Eisner-winner multiple years in a row for his sci-fi epic 20th Century Boys. Interested as I was, manga’s tendency toward long-running, epic stories scared me off for…
New to Manga: Trying Pluto by Naoki Urasawa
As the title of this post suggests, I am a relative newcomer to manga. I’ve seen my fair share of anime and devoured every volume of Sailor Moon and Full Metal Alchemist, but I’ve never really attempted to explore the great body of work that is Japanese comics—which in hindsight seems rather silly, given how much…
Moonie Musings: Revisiting the Sailor Moon Manga Volume 5
Fighting evil by moonlight? You’re not alone. Sailor Moon made history as one of the most popular shoujo (traditionally, manga and anime targeted towards a younger female audience) manga ever released, and 2014 is shaping up to be the year of the Senshi.
Ghost in the Shell the Live: Our Fancasting
I hate the idea of a liveaction Ghost in the Shell! It has no business being live or using human actors; it’s about augmented bodies of the future. They don’t exist yet, so they can’t be filmed — and if they did the concept art would have to push things further. It’s science fiction. Centre of…
From Scouts to Superheroes: My Manga Journey
Our middle school years are ones we either look back on fondly, cringe away from, or hold with some combination of both. For me, the blurry memories of prepubescence are a mix of both, but they also marked my initiation into the world of manga.