Black Blizzards Beat Gundams

By Mat K.

So its a reeeeally small week this week, about 10 books. Three of those books are Mobile Suit Gundam related. First up is the 9th (and I believe final) volume of Gundam: Ecole Du Ciel. In case you were curious, Ecole Du Ciel first started coming out in the states in 2005. That’s five years to put out 9 books. The only excuse for that kind of fan-teasing is some horrible debilitating disease that left the artist minus both their hands for a couple years. On top of that, Tokyopop seems to think they are justified in raising the price on the book not only to $10.99 like they did the rest of their series, but instead this final volume is going to be $12.99, like anyone who even was reading the series 5 years ago hasn’t already fallen out of love with, or plain old forgotten about the whole thing. I know they had issues with a lot of downsizing in the last couple years, but it has been 2 years sine volume 8 released, and even that was really far behind it’s predecessor. At some point in the last two years you would think Tokyopop would have switched one of their crappy pseudo-manga books if just to finish a series that at least has pretty covers and nice artwork. But I digress.

The other two Gundam books coming out this week are Gundam 00 Season 2 Volume 1, (I hazard calling books by seasons, since it confuses people with the DVDs, but hey, that’s how it’s listed), and the first Gundam 00 Lite Novel. So, all you Gundam fans enjoy this week, despite the fickle weather.

One thing comes out this week that has me a wee-bit excited and that is the Chobits Omnibus Volume 1 by Clamp, and published by Dark Horse, as strange as that may be. I suppose Tokyopop sold the rights to the series since they weren’t going to bother printing it anymore anyway, which is just fine because now the first omnibus is here, in a lovely, larger format with 16 whole color pages, which is the best way to see Chobits art anyway. Believe me, I have the Chobits artbook that came out and the print work is just gorgeous. I always love Chobits, I mean, who wouldn’t want a life sized antroPC with strange but adorable robotic kitty ear things? After the Clover Omnibus last year, I can only assume that Clamp has a fan or two over at Dark Horse Comics.

I’m going to wrap this week up with what I think is the most interesting new release this week, a new book (relatively speaking of course) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi called Black Blizzard. If you’re not sure who Tatsumi is, I’m sure you have seen the books Abandon The Old In Tokyo, The Pushman and Other Stories, and A Drifting Life. And if you still don’t know who he is, go out and read all those books I just listed. Because if Osamu Tezuka is the God of Manga, then Yoshihiro Tatsumi has got to be the Moses. The story is, a pianist is arrested for murder and is handcuffed to a career criminal on the train taking them to prison, when suddenly an avalanche derails the train and the makes an escape into the mountains dragging the reluctant pianist with him. Anyway, thats everything this time. See you next week!

Ja Ne!