Abandon the Old in Tokyo
Drawn & Quarterly
Last year Drawn & Quarterly released a Tatsumi collection, The Push Man and Other Stories, to great acclaim. It's followed this month by a second volume, Abandon the Old in Tokyo. Collecting eight unconnected short manga stories set in late '60s Japan, it's a nice primer on the work of Tatsumi and what exactly "gekiga" means. But beyond that, it shows the flexibility of manga, since so much of the manga coming into the States tends to be geared toward younger readers and/or broken into obvious genres, like action, fantasy, romantic comedy or horror. Tatsumi's stories, disturbing little human dramas with mundane characters, settings and events (made more disturbing still by their lack of the fantastic) don't fall into any obvious genres, and read something like a Raymond Carver short story starring a Takashi Miike protagonist.
The dark tone of the stories and psychological quirks of the characters are in stark contrast to Tatsumi's loose, cartoony art style, which, like most manga of the period, still showed a heavy influence from Tezuka, who was himself influenced by the Walt Disney animation style.
Sam Noir: Samurai Detective No. 1
Image Comics
The collision of the two discordant genres alluded to in the title, as well as the obviousness of it, might lead one to believe that this new series is some sort of lightweight parody. But Manny Trembley and Eric A. Anderson, refugees from the world of online comics, have done their homework so well, and can effect the voice of crime fiction, noir film and samurai comics and films so well, that the results are surprisingly heavyweight, and, though it's indeed funny, it's funny in a sophisticated, knowing way.
Our hero is a masterless samurai turned private dick who moved from Japan to the States, although he might as well have simply emigrated between genres. His narration is in the hard-boiled, Sam Spade/Raymond Chandler tradition, peppered with Asian references. "Plans are like rice paper," he says at one point. "Good for blocking sunlight. But apply a bit of pressure and you rip right through."
He heads back to the old country, which means similarly narrated sword fights, when a dame he was hired to keep tabs on comes into his office (prominent shadows from the blinds cast upon the wall, naturally) and is murdered there before his eyes with flying stars. "They say throwing stars don't kill," Sam narrates. "Tell that to her."
Civil War Files
Marvel Comics
Hardcore Marvel fans and newcomers drawn by the amount of mainstream press the Civil War storyline has gotten (like Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada's interview with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report) alike should be pleased with this special issue, a cheat sheet for the Byzantine backstory behind the series.
Technically, it's not really even a comic book, but a comic book-shaped work of prose. The conceit is that it's a collection of files on 40 of the prime players in the conflict at the heart of the Civil War. In the wake of a superhero version of 9/11, Congress passes the superhero version of the Patriot Act, forcing heroes to reveal their identities and register with the government. Those that refuse are branded criminals, and have to duke it out with those that comply, lead by Tony "Iron Man" Stark, now the Acting Chairman of the Presidential Super Hero Task Force.
The files are Iron Man's, and are thus written from his perspective. According to the intro, written as a letter to President Bush, the book is meant to be "part of your daily intelligence briefing." That virtually guarantees that he'll ignore it, doesn't it? At any rate, it's a valuable companion for Marvel's real-world audience—it contains so much of Marvel's 40-year history summarized that you can save hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on comics with this one purchase.