The spendiest debit card of Online Commentaries & Diversions:
• Interview: Robot 6 and Tim O'Shea interview Chris Wright about Blacklung. Wright answers, "the characters in Blacklung, particularly Brahm, are wrapped up in these hellish cycles, of destruction, and grief, and that quote seemed, not so much to sum up the philosophical point of view of the book, but to act dynamically with it, and become part of it’s dialogue. How responsible are we really for our own fates, and how much of what we become, and what we experience is beyond our influence."
• Review: Anime News Network looks at The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. Jason Thompson writes " . . this story isn't about same-sex attraction and social prejudice as much as it's about love itself; at heart, this is a manga about spiritual love between two souls. . . The Art Nouveau artwork and the prose-poetry that accompanies it, the dream sequences, the images of ghosts and doubles, all add to a feeling of unreality. Hagio's work often approaches surrealism. . ."
• Review: On Manga Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. "It all felt strange and foreign. . . but I kept turning pages, hoping for these children to find more settled hearts. The question of how much responsibility someone else’s feelings for you place on you is a universal one, never to be answered, but I enjoyed reading about these young men dealing with the problem and its consequences."
• Plug: MTV Geek puts The Heart of Thomas on its Manga Lovers List. Brigid Alverson says "one of the first boys-love manga and a masterpiece in its own right. Translated by manga scholar (and friend of Moto Hagio) Matt Thorn, this manga is complete in one single, oversized volume." Stumptown Trade Review adds "Fantagraphics is not normally known for publishing manga. So, when they do choose to publish a manga graphic novel it is worth noting. The Heart of Thomas is no exception."
• Review: Experiments in Manga writes a thankful note for Shimura Takako's Wandering Son series, "I needed a story like Wandering Son growing up. I've only recently realized how crucial and important it is for young people to have characters that they can personally identify with in the media that they watch, read, and play . . Ultimately Wandering Son isn't so much about issues [of sexuality and gender identity] as it is about people."
• Review: Castle Waiting #18 by Linda Medley is reviewed on Comic Book Resources. Kelly Thompson states, issue #18 "ties up that volume beautifully and puts the characters exactly where they need to be both for closure purposes and as a set up for future stories to continue at any time. . . Medley approaches these characters and ideas with a boundless creativity that never feels forced, instead there is an effortless element to how her stories unfold, natural and without true purpose."
• Interview: The Quietus interviews Joost Swarte on his new book, Is That All There Is? collecting his life in comics so far. Aug Stone states,"these are works to behold, to marvel at their beauty and composition, all presented with a good sense of fun. The backgrounds brim with amusing and interesting details, the stories themselves bursting with mishaps, mayhem, music, and sex."
• Review: Broken Pencil Magazine released their printed review of Is That All There Is? by Joost Swarte. "Taking visual cues from Tintin creator Hergé’s clean line style, Swarte added a healthy dose of 70s-style countercultural mores and boasted an incredible capacity for experimentation and playfulness that went above and beyond many of his peers," to quote Matthew Daley.
• Review: Comics Worth Reading reviews Ralph Azham Book 1: "Why Would You Lie to Someone You Love" by Lewis Trondheim. "What’s not typical, and what made this most interesting to me, is how no one is particularly trustworthy. There isn’t a lot of obvious Good and Evil. . . Everyone’s lying, in some form, and discovering those secrets makes up much of this book," writes Johanna Draper Carlson.
• Plug: In an nice history lesson and review of The Complege Pogo: Vol. 1-2 by Walt Kelly in the Washington Times, Michael Taube states, "Pogo was intellectual, thought-provoking, cynical, controversial and downright brilliant. It broke barriers and didn't fit into societal norms. You didn't even have to agree with Kelly's politics to respect his genius as an artist and a commentator."
• Review: Matthew Daley reviews Athos in America by Jason for Broken Pencil Magazine. He writes, "these stories can tread on some pretty dark, even bleak ground, and in the hands of a different artist, it could wear the reader down. However, the simple art and bright flat colours and the aforementioned deadpan characters make the bleakness a bit easier to take."
• Plug: A much looked-forward to release on Heroes Online is Tony Millionaire's Green Eggs and Maakies. Seth Peagler says, "Millionaire’s highly regarded for the way he combines classic strip cartooning (and fine line work) with subversive humor."
• Review: Rob Clough of High-Low profiles Paul Hornschemeier and his book Let Us Be Perfectly Clear. "There's a certain grimness and melancholy that's dominated his major works, but I always found his humorous pieces to be every bit as involving. . . What I like most about [Let Us Be] is its intricacy and the way it yo-yos back and forth between emotional distance and the immediacy of Dennis' unbalanced mind. . . I'll be curious to see what his newer comics will look like, and if we're due for another round of unbridled innovation from Hornschemeier."
• Review: Popeye by E.C. Seger gets the twice over by Roger Ash on Westfield Comics Blog. "I’ve only read the first two volumes so far, and they are fantastic and eye opening. This is a very different Popeye that what I knew. He’s still gruff and lovable, but spinach has nothing to do with his strength. . . He routinely survives stabbings and shootings and is a terror in the boxing ring. . ." and "Because of the size of the book, a whole week’s worth of dailies fit on one page. Due to their age, the quality of the reproduction of the strips can vary, but in general they look very nice."
• Plug: Comics Alliance's Best Art This Week compiled by Andy Khouri includes a little Richard Sala and Jaime Hernandez! Way to go, team.
• Plug: Ellen Forney touches on her time as a creator for Fantagraphics in a Publishers Weekly article by Grace Bello.