Comics and More

Sorry, but I've been busy moving to my home in New Berlin, WI, so I haven't been updating, which means no Manga Monday until next week. I should resume my normal posting patterns shortly this week. But in the meantime, here are this week's entertainment release highlights... DVD Releases (Tues, 1/30) The Big Valley: Season Two, Volume 1 Catch a Fire Dallas: Season 6 Farce of the Penguins Flyboys I Dream of Jeannie: Season 3 Lucky Louie: Season 1 Open Season Previous Week: IMDb Top DVD Rental: Employee of the Month Billboard Top DVD Sales: Crank Music Releases (Tues, 1/30) Celtic Woman - A New Journey Harry Connick Jr. - Oh, My Nola Katharine McPhee - Katharine McPhee Madonna - The Confessions Tour Norah Jones - Not Too Late Previous Week: Billboard Top 200 #1: Daughtry - Daughtry Comic Releases (Wed, 1/31) Astonishing X-Men (Volume 3): Torn Beasts HC Defenders: Indefensible TP Doom Patrol (Volume 5): Magic Bus Essential Ghost Rider (Volume 2) Ion (Volume 1): The Torchbea...

The week's entertainment release highlights... DVD Releases (Tues, 1/23) Avatar: Book Two, Volume One The Guardian The Invincible Iron Man Jesus Camp Monsters and Madmen: Criterion Collection The Puffy Chair Sanjuro: Criterion Collection Saw 3 Sherrybaby This Film Is Not Yet Rated Yojimbo: Criterion Collection Previous Week: IMDb Top DVD Rental: Crank Billboard Top DVD Sales: Snakes On a Plane Music Releases (Tues, 1/23) 2007 Grammy Nominees Gipsy Kings - Pasajero John Mellancamp - Freedom's Road Kenny Wayne Shepherd - 10 Days Out (Blues From the Backroads) The Shins - Wincing the Night Away Previous Week: Billboard Top 200 #1: Dreamgirls O.S.T. Comic Releases (Wed, 1/24) Civil War: The Return Claws: Wolverine and Black Cat HC Drips Lucifer (Volume 11): Evensong Marvel Masterworks: Warlock (Volume 1) Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups (Vol. 1) Silent War #1 (of 6) Tanpenshu (Volume 1) X-Factor: Life and Death Matters HC Theatrical Releases (Fri, 1/26) Blo...

Mail (Volume 1) Housui Yamazaki Mail is a new manga series from Dark Horse, one that sports the original Japanese cover in all its Nintendo-ish glory. It's strange how the Japanese sometimes put English on their covers to make them seem hip, when we, in turn, try to emulate the Japanese designs much of the time. But anyways, this book is packaged in an eye-catching recycled paper cover, which is why I picked this baby up in the first place. A brief flip-through and I was sold. The art by Yamazaki is really very nice, something the cover doesn't really give any indication of, though it is a great design. This title is basically a series of short stories, all that eventually involve mysterious private detective Reiji Akiba, who has a unique device to aid him in putting troubled spirits to rest, a sanctified gun named Kagutsuchi. This is a horror manga title and as such, it really does succeed in containing chilling little moments, though the overall concept is really silly and su...

Steve Horton & David Ahn This is an advance review for Strongarm #1 from Image Comics, which hits comic stores in late February. Strongarm is obviously a heavily manga-influenced title about twin brothers and the different paths they've taken in life. One brother works with a resistance movement while the other is a delivery boy who's going nowhere. This story takes place in a future where flying cars are the norm and all of the typical manga conventions are in place to make an already bland story that much more uninteresting. The book immediately opens with an action sequence where our loser brother is battling a hulking man with cybernetic arms. When the underdog gets lucky and kills his assailant, the arms begin to move and graft onto him, and unfortunately, he's unable to control the power he now wields. It seems that his position in life has now been inadvertently altered, for better or worse. If there was something, anything, to like about this issue, I co...

I'm finally caught up on my comics from the last two weeks, so I've got a bit of ground to cover today... All-Star Superman #6 Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely This series is, quite honestly, hit or miss for me. I do appreciate how Morrison and Quitely are able to consistently put out self-contained issues, and the art is always great, but I find some of the issues just plain bland. This issue was a cool idea, but I certainly wasn't blown away by the concept or the interaction of the characters or anything. It was just kind of there. But no matter what with Morrison's stories, there are always cool moments. In this issue, Superman and Krypto playing together with a tree was a great sequence. C Civil War #6 (of 7) Mark Millar & Steve McNiven A few neat ideas are thrown into this issue of Marvel's huge crossover event as Cap's team attempts to level the playing field. Nothing particularly shocking occurs here like seems to have happened with every other issu...

The week's entertainment release highlights... DVD Releases (Tues, 1/16) Doctor Who: Season 2 Employee of the Month Gridiron Gang King of Queens: Season 7 The Protector Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning Previous Week: IMDb Top DVD Rental: Little Miss Sunshine Billboard Top DVD Sales: Jackass: Number Two Music Releases (Tues, 1/16) America - Here & Now Diana Ross - I Love You Roxette - A Collection of Roxette Hits: Their Twenty Greatest Songs Stacie Orrico - Beautiful Awakening Previous Week: Billboard Top 200 #1: Dreamgirls O.S.T. Comic Releases (Wed, 1/17) Batman Year One Hundred TP Bone (Volume 5): Rock Jaw, Master of the Eastern Border Color Edition Essential X-Factor (Volume 2) Marvel Visionaries: John Buscema Mike Carey's One-Sided Bargains Storm Premiere HC Superman: Emperor Joker TP Testament (Volume 2): West of Eden Tezuka's Buddha (Volume 5): Deer Park SC Last Month: Diamond Top 300 Comics #1: Justice League of America #4 Diamond Top 100 Graphic Nove...

It's Manga Monday and today I have three mini-reviews for your viewing enjoyment! Dragon Head (Volume 5) Minetaro Mochizuki This is the best installment of Mochizuki's Dragon Head since its debut. I was getting a tad bored with the series to be honest, so I was really delighted to see it turn that corner and really get me excited again. This is really great survivalist horror that shows the madness left in wake of a disaster of unknown origins. Although this issue does show what occurred above surface through someone's perspective, which was really neat to behold, it didn't go too far into the realm of revealing too much . It's all still very vague and open as to the cause of the world's present state, and the hows and whys of how it got that way. And this is the first time you get those two words whispered: Dragon Head . It was really chilling when those words finally appeared in the book and I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what's ahead....

Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato Jr. Spinning out of Marvel's huge Civil War crossover event comes the much-anticipated relaunch of the Thunderbolts . The Thunderbolts, of course, originally appeared as "yet another superhero team," but shocked readers when, by the end of the first issue, the team was revealed to be made up entirely of villains. There were a lot of C-rate villains involved, like Songbird who used to be known as The Screaming Mimi. This new team of Thunderbolts consists of more A-List villains. Kind of the supervillain version of the New Avengers , if you will. We have Venom, Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Green Goblin and a few obscure names: Penance and Swordsman. An ecclectic group that's sure to play off of each other marvelously under Ellis' pen. I never really read Thunderbolts before this to be honest, so I don't know much of the history of the group, but all of that's thrown out the window here for the most part with Civil W...

2006 was a pretty lackluster year in terms of music, with few big releases and little innovation. There were some little nuggets of greatness in there however. I plan to get more into music in 2007, listening to new releases as they come into the music/DVD department I work in, since I feel sort of obligated to expand my knowledge anyway. But the following are the best CDs of 2006 in my little world. 1 . Sunlight Searchparty - Val Emmich Following up his major label debut Slow Down Kid , Val Emmich returns to a small indy label for his ambitious Sunlight Searchparty , where he takes his particular philosophy on music and realizes it. Emmich believes that anything can be done with studio magic, but music should hold mistakes and feel vaguely unpolished. An interesting idea. So before he went into the studio with his band this past summer, they practiced like crazy to create something quite extraordinary. With every song done in one take, the finished product is surprisingly professional...

I'm back from my mini-vacation with this week's new release highlights... DVD Releases (Tues, 1/09) Extras: Season One The Illusionist The Night Listener Spongebob Squarepants: Season Four, Volume Two Previous Week: IMDb Top DVD Rental: The Devil Wears Prada Billboard Top DVD Sales: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Music Releases (Tues, 1/09) Ty Herndon - Right About Now Mario - Go! Yo-Yo Ma - Appasionato Previous Week: Billboard Top 200 #1: Omarion - 21 Comic Releases (Wed, 1/10) Champions Classic (Volume 2) New Mutants Classic (Volume 2) Showcase Presents: Justice League of America (Volume 2) Superman/Batman vs. Aliens/Predators #1 (of 2) Thunderbolts #110 Theatrical Releases (Fri, 1/12) Alpha Dog Arthur and the Invisibles Notes on a Scandal The Painted Veil Pan's Labyrinth Primeval Stomp the Yard Previous Week #1: Night At the Museum

And here are this week's entertainment releases... Better late than never... DVD Releases (Tuesday, 1/02) The Covenant Martin: Season One Snakes On A Plane Previous Week: IMDb Top DVD Rental: The Devil Wears Prada Billboard Top DVD Sales: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby My Barnes & Noble #1 Sales: Little Miss Sunshine CD Releases (Tuesday, 1/02) Carly Simon - Into White Previous Week: Billboard Top 200 #1: Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead My Barnes & Noble #1: Josh Groban - Awake Comic Releases (Wednesday, 1/03, Some locations: Thursday 1/04) The Comics Journal #280 Death Note (Volume 9) Jack Staff (Volume 3): Echoes of Tomorrow La Corda D'Oro (Volume 2) Manhunter (Volume 2): Trial By Fire Ultimate X-Men (Volume 15): Magical Theatrical Releases (Friday, 1/05) Children of Men Code Name: The Cleaner Freedom Writers Happily N'Ever After Perfume - The Story of a Murderer Previous Week #1: Night At the Museum That's it until next week. I'm going out of town thi...

Fruits Basket (Volume 1) Natsuki Takaya The insanely popular Fruits Basket is a really cute shoujo manga. It's about an orphaned girl who moves into a house with a few boys who happen to be possessed by spirits of the zodiac. And every time someone of the opposite sex hugs them, they turn into their cute zodiac animals. Thus hilarity ensues. I'm not a huge fan of Takaya's art on the series, but it gets the job done and when she does "cute," she does "cute" well. Not hard to see why girls love the book. If anything, Takaya's a really good storyteller. I was really impressed with how she was able to introduce her audience to such mysterious characters and slowly peel back the layers to show us their true natures. A- The Drifting Classroom (Volume 3) Kazuo Umezu Screaming, stabbings, misunderstandings that go way way too far... The Drifting Classroom 's got it all in complete over-the-top fashion. The horror title from Kazuo Umezu isn't as horr...

It's a brand new year and there's plenty coming up to be excited about in the world of comics... * Joss Whedon's Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (Season Eight in comic form) . * Joss Whedon taking over Runaways . * Translation of Osama Tezuka's Apollo's Song from Vertical . * Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's concluding arc of Astonishing X-Men . * The Luna Brothers' conclusion of Girls . * The second volume of James Kochalka's American Elf . * The Complete Little Orphan Annie . * Athena Voltaire: The Legend of Mu-King , a new mini-series featuring the webcomic adventuress . * Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev's new Spider-Woman series . * Bendis' new Avengers books . Plus more of what I'm reading right now is a good thing!