21.1 - Manga Time: Gantz

Time for a Little change of pace, I'm going to talk about a manga called Gantz. Now, I do not normally read manga, and I have nothing against the Japanese comic form, but this series just grabbed me by the throat. I got into it first by watching an anime series based on it, I think it was like 12 episodes, and I thought it was really amazing to watch. My friend told me the series was made as a big F U to the Japanese censors (yeah, it was). The only down side to the series was the ending, as any anime fan knows a series based on a manga that has to end before the manga, they wrapped it up terribly.

So, I did some internetting and found the series, all 250 chapters in like 13 volumes up to that point (they are in the 300 chapters now,) and I found it started to diverged heavily around chapter 50 or so, with a lot of little missteps along the way. To make a long story short this series is awesome and it goes on great. You should read it.

It is a story about a kid named kurono, who is killed in a train accident (head came off) along with a childhood friend. They wake up unharmed and in a room with others, who seam to think they have died, and a big black ball in the center. This ball gives them weapons and tells them that they will be transported to a game field where they will fight for their lives against "aliens."

Basically they are put into a real life or death game, and if they win they get there life back. I really feel that this description does not do it justice, just please believe that it is one of the most awesome comics I have read. The characters that survive have such great development and interesting interaction, but there is so much super violence and action. Its a great and strange interaction.

Dark Horse owns the rights in the US and is putting it out now.

18.2 - LOL Gutters 174

If you have not read the web comic The Gutters you should. They are a great comic that show a really satirical view of the comic industry, whether it be the stories or whats going on with the real people involved.

Just read 174, great stuff.

18.1 - still excited for New DCU

Apparently I am one of the few patrons of my comic shop that is actually excited for the new books next month. That's kinda sucky cause this is gonna be a really cool unprecedented thing that DC will be rolling out, and I hope this is not how fanboys feel out there in general.

I am kinda upset about what they will be doing with Red Robin (Tim Drake), because they only just really grabbed me in his series, and now it seems he won't have his own title.

I think it is great that Mr. Terrific is getting his own book. Ever since I saw him kick ass in Omac Project mini series, I have wanted him in his own book.

The new JLA preview looks cool. I like that Batman has actually gone back to being semi myth. Plus, I think he was fighting a parademon in there, so that's got me interested.

Not to sure about the Batwing guy. But, woohoo more black super heroes.

Real woohoo for Static. I recently finished my 90s static run and I feel its fate that this is coming out now, maybe it will be a hit.

In general I think DC has balls to even try something like this. Hope it does well.

17.1 - Worst Ultimate Book Since Ultimate Hulk Annual

Yeah just finished Ultimate Avengers 3. Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2 were pretty sweet, but 3 was pretty bad. Luckily I dropped it at issue 2. I got the last 4 for a buck each at buckeye comic con because of my completest nature and so I actually have room to say it was bad. I hate it when people declare something bad that haven't even taken the time to read/watch/experience the "bad" thing. Any who, time for work. Two posts today.

15 - I'm wondering what is going to happen to the Ultimate Marel Universe

Let me preface this by saying that I am going to free style my thoughts on this as I go, so hopefully it makes sense and is semi interesting.

So, I'm a big fan of the Marvel Ultimate line of books and have been for a long time. Since issue 30 or so of Ultimate Spiderman i was hooked on this part of marvel. I got everything except Marvel Adventures, whatever that was. Today I have almost full runs of every Ultimate book  in issue form except Ultimate Marvel Team-ups and Ultimate Vision. I think what drew me toward these books was the completest in me, with this universe just starting I actually had it within my reach to own entire runs of stories, and this was something I could not do with the normal Marvel U. Anyway the last few years there has been a lot of contraction in the UMU where in years before they grew by adding new characters through mini series, guest appearances and what not. Now since Ultimatum they seem to have done nothing but kill characters off. I do not know how I feel about this yet because I have to read in order to judge. So ill have to see how it goes as it it is coming a long. My buddy thinks that they are trying to kill off the Ultimate line, which kind of makes sense, but now I am seeing solicitations for essentially a new line of Ultimate books which kinds of blows that theory out of the water.

**spoilers**
I am sad to see that Peter Parker is dead though, but they seem to have just remade him into, supposedly, a black/Latino kid, and from what I read in the Ultimate Fallout series he seems to be the exact same character while in costume. That is, he has all the one liners fully loaded. I am super sad to see Pete go and I really do not know how you replace him, but ill probably read every issue trying to figure that out.

I did not plan on continuing with the new Ultimate X book because the premise was weird to me, but since so few issues have come out I picked it up anyway. I find it hard to really see where it is going and it seems like they are really dragging out the story by developing each new character in their own issue. I will keep getting it now to see where it is going cause I am interested in what they are trying to say, but if it suck I'll be happy anyway because they are comics.

As for the UMU overall I still love it even though most of the characters I loved are dead, and this is because even my not favorite characters are still pretty awesome.

14.2 - I Should Have Checked the Inside Cover

Let this be a lesson for any one reading this. When you are collecting comics, always check the edition of the book. The difference between first printing and second can be very very drastic for a collector. I bring this up because recently I bought, at what I thought was a steal of a price, issue 2 of TMNT the original Mirage run. It was the over size book with the indie looking cover I had seen on the early editions of TMNT, then the dude told me 20 bucks and its yours. I said 15 and he agreed. One week later I'm looking into it and I find that this book is actually a second print and I paid VF prices. Not the worse purchase I have ever made, luckily, but I thought I really had something.

14.1 - Cool New Book Witch Doctor

So, I have been excited about this new book out by Skybound an imprint of Image, called Witch Doctor, since I read the preview in Walking Dead issue 85. I has a cool premise which can be summed up by saying that it is House MD meets Hellboy; They say "House meets Fringe," but that doesn't make sense to me because Fringe deals with super science not the super natural. For 2.99 you can't beat it though. I'm on issue 2 and I'm waiting on issue 3 of this 4 part series, and I am really hoping that they can make this an ongoing series because so far it is funny and very interesting.

I love the way this comic approaches the super natural aspects of this world, even though I am not a big fan of fantasy. It doesn't just chalk everything up to magic and leave it at that, it explains things in a semi naturalistic way making it seem that the "demonic possessions" and "fairy baby kidnappings" are things that happen in the real world, normal people just don't experience these things everyday, and thus have chalked them up to magics over the years. The "possessions" are parasites and the "fairies" are humanoid insects who replaces human babies with there own in order to be reared.

As far as new comics go this is the topps and like I said I really hope this gets an on going, so I can add a new book to my list of non-superhero books (this is a very short list).

The writer, Brandon Seifert, is new to comics but worked with and for Brian Bendis at Portlan State University. I found a pretty good interview with him here and he talks a lot about the comic. The artist, Lukas Ketner, is just as new to the comic scene with doing a variant cover on Walking Dead.

I love hearing about new guys to the comic industry because it is always good to get new blood in the system. Check out the book!!