Say It With Manga Zombie Edition

My column for this week’s Say It With Manga over at Comics Should Be Good covers zombies. Admittedly, this topic is played out, but man, there’s still some good stuff out there, and one of these in particular I miss terribly. Check it out, these three are less tacky and about as different as you can be while still dealing with zombies.

Since I love the work of Al Ewing unconditionally, and this is my blog and I can say what I want, I would also recommend Zombo. Not a manga, but quite funny and worth checking out.

Say It With Manga, The Pet Edition

Last week’s column over at Comics Should Be Good covered pet series. What I learned was that I need to read What’s Michael badly, and I will do so soon. But Stargazing Dog is the other thing you should take away from this column. Inubaka… not so much.

Say It With Manga, Disaster Edition

I forgot to link this one in my last update, but a recent column I did over at Comics Should Be Good focused on disaster-themed manga. I liked these three titles a lot and felt they went with the topic nicely, and I think everyone should read them (or at least the first three volumes of Dragon Head).

Part of me felt bad writing this the day after Chicago was so flooded I couldn’t get to work, but the poor taste thing didn’t occur to me until I was finished, and none of the stories are about flooding. Plus, when else am I going to get to talk about Drifting Classroom?

Say It With Manga, Pulp Doctors Edition

The Say It With Manga I posted on Thursday over at Comics Should Be Good covers Pulp Doctors. I’ve covered doctors over here before, but it’s such a fun topic, and Black Jack’s face is so iconic, it was hard to say no when I thought about covering it again. Black Jack, the Embalmer, and Anesthesiologist Hana at the late, lamented JManga (they were still okay when I wrote the article!) are the series of choice this week.

On that subject, I’m totally downloading Say Hello to Black Jack on my kindle tonight. You can’t stop me. And… is that Kimagure Orange Road?

Say It With Manga, Extreme Cuisine Edition

Last week’s Say It With Manga over at Comics Should Be Good covered Extreme Cuisine. There are lots of foodie manga out there (surprisingly!), but as I am completely illiterate when it comes to food, I go for the gut-punching entertainment value. Iron Wok Jan, Toriko, and Moyasimon are the three titles of choice for this column.

Someone pointed out in the comments that I should have covered Yakitate! Japan as well, and that person is totally right.

Say It With Manga, World War II Edition

And this week’s Say It With Manga is about World War II. I actually wrote the whole thing up and was getting ready to publish it before I realized I’d already talked about Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (only the fact I’d already saved the cover to my hard drive tipped me off), so I had to make a last-minute substitution for Adolf. That may be for the best, because Adolf is pretty great, and it just came out. Other featured series include Barefoot Gen and Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. I can’t believe Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is out of print!

Say It With Manga, So Bad It’s Good Edition

Last week’s Say It With Manga over at Comics Should Be Good was about manga that were terrible for most, but I found to be very entertaining. But not really good, per se. Brief looks at Apocalypse Zero, Offered, and Lives can be found at the link. Offered is one I haven’t looked at in a long time. It’s still crazy. Maybe the craziest manga I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something.

Say It With Manga, Valentine’s Day Edition

More Say It With Manga over at Comics Should Be Good, this time I look at three romantic one-shots. Ohikkoshi, 5 cm/s, and A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. All are pretty great and slightly off-the-beaten-path one-shots, though my heart still craves long, super-girly shoujo, the likes of which I covered on here today. But those aren’t for everybody, and manga provides for a wide range of audiences.

Say It With Manga, Taiyo Matsumoto Edition

This week’s Say It With Manga over at Comics Should Be Good was all about Taiyo Matsumoto, and I like him enough to link it over here and once again encourage everybody to read Tekkon Kinkreet. Or anything by him.

Actually, did you know we were getting Sunny in May? Because I didn’t. And that’s very, very awesome. I am so ready for more wonderful stuff from this guy.

Say It With Manga, 1-10-13

I still do this column every week, though I should mention it over here more often. The one that’s going up tomorrow is about sports manga, and I geek out about those for a minute. But the one from last week has three of my absolute favorites in it. Any true lover of girly comics should read Jyu-Oh-Sei, X, and Paradise Kiss. Especially since the latter two have been republished.

I had forgotten that X has been in English in various forms (like, 3 serials and 3 different graphic novel editions) since 1996. That’s… seventeen years. It’s possibly been in print in English longer than many people reading this have been alive. Which makes me feel sad and old. The only other manga series that have been in print longer are probably Oh My Goddess and Akira. Maybe someday CLAMP will finish it!