A Nonchalant Urgency - Star Blazers 2199 Omnibus Volume 1

 

Review:

The original Star Blazers of the 1970s was my favorite of the early anime to hit North American after-school reruns - neither Voltron nor Battle of the Planets could compare to the dark tension and underdog tale of the Yamoto, her brave crew and their nearly hopeless mission.

The story was rebooted in 2019 as Star Blazers 2199 by Yoshinoby Nishizaki, with Michio Murakawa bringing it to Manga. Dark Horse then did us English readers the favor of bringing the manga North American readers as a 2-colume set.

The premise is straight-forward, even as the odds of success are as slim as ever. The Gamilans have arrived from space and bombed humanity almost out of existence. The remaining survivors have fled underground but the radiation will reach and kill them in another year. But a distant civilization on planet Iscandar has provied humanity with the Wave Motion Engine and a promise of a way to cleanse and restore the Earth, provided they can travel the vast distance and back in time.

Our Earth heroes resurrect and render space-worthy an old navy battleship and set out to cover the 300,000+ light year return journey in a year.

The situation is dire, the journey long and fraught, the mission critical and highly time-sensitive. And yet volume one is in no hurry. The creators keep a tight rein on the pace, allowing the characters and relationships to develop. It's a casual, nonchalant pacing, punctuated by bursts of intensity - the Operation M gambit, the conflict on Jupiter, the close call of even getting the Yamoto into space before another Gamilan bomb destroys it.

In fact the pace is so casual that at the end of volume 1 our heroes have only reached Saturn. As though Odysseus had only reached the second stop sign down the road on his classic journey. There is still so, so much space to be covered by our intrepid band of heroes!

The visuals of this manga volume are wonderful - by times fun, intense, even gratuitously if mildly sexy and suggestive. The sternness of the captain, the goofiness of the doctor, the sweet intensity of other characters. One place where Murakawa's art falls a little flat is in the emotions of grief in characters' reactions to the death and sacrifice of others. They must be entirely focused on their earth-saving job, as there are often few visual signs of what would be a natural emotional struggle. 

Given how much of the story remains to be told, be ready for a jam-packed second volume!

Update: It has come to my attention that publisher Dark Horse does have  plans to release a third and fourth Omnibus collecting this series. So the rest of the story does not really need to fit in volume two, as stated above. I have not been able to confirm a date for that release, so keep your eyes on the comic shops!

Description:

2199 will be Earth's final year--unless the voyage of Space Battleship Yamato can succeed! The alien Gamilas have devastated the biosphere, determined to reshape our planet into their own new home. But a third force has intervened, as an emissary from the distant Iscandar has given humanity the plans for a faster-than-light drive. If the Yamato can battle its way through the Gamilas fleet to reach Iscandar, their technology can heal the Earth--but the odds against us are literally astronomical...

The classic 1974 anime TV series Space Battleship Yamato became a fan phenomenon in North America under the title Star Blazers. Now the epic tale of a legendary WWII battleship retrofitted as a spacecraft on a mission to save Earth has been remade by the generation of Japanese creators that grew up inspired by it--with staff including Yutaka Izubuchi (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie), Nobuteru Yuki (Kids on the Slope), and Hideaki Anno (Evangelion)!

Collects: English translations of original Manga volumes 1 and 2

Authors:  Michio Murakawa
Artists:  Michio Murakawa
Published By:  Dark Horse Manga
Published When:  Aug. 27 2019
Parental Rating: PG-13
ISBN:  978-1506712208
Pages:  376 pages

"A Paperboy Always Finishes Strong" - Review of Paper Girls Volume 6

 

Review:

With this sixth and final volume, the complete story of these four newspaper delivery girls from a Cleveland suburb in the late 1980s reaches its fitting end. The creative team of writer Brian K Vaughan, artist Cliff Chiang and colorist Matt Wilson have taken us on a thrilling 30-issue ride, and what they accomplished in these pages has rightly received a multitude of awards, from best new series to best writer, best penciller/inker and best colorist. All well-deserved, this series is a moving and beautiful work of comics art!

Our fearless foursome has grown so much in just a few days. They have discovered new depths of courage and bravery, they have learned self-sacrifice and teamwork, they have even killed and been shot at. But most of all they have discovered and fostered a tight bond, clinging together for support and survival in all the wild adventures to this point.

But the biggest test has a more individual component - future-clone Erin's time bomb at the end of the previous volume has sent them all to different times. KJ has landed in a rough-and-tumble 1950s, so it's a good thing she has discovered her bad-ass streak in recent days. Erin found herself in our contemporary era, with Hallowe'en revelers dressed in modern costumes like a Donald Trump mask. Tiffany wound up in the more distant future, pulled into a small band of women - their future selves - trying to restore the timelines and end the war. And Mac has been blasted into the far, far future, the dying moments of planet Earth. Now the challenge of getting everyone back home has become much harder!

With our heroes in four very different times, the award-winning creative team takes their creativity to the next level. One whole chapter is told in parallel, with each page laid out as a stack of four horizontal panels, one for each of the girls in each of their times. It's a novel approach, and they pull it off, inviting the reader to read each character's arc separately, or to marvel at the symmetry between their situations by taking in the tale page by page. A daring and inventive approach to storytelling, and they stick the landing! Which should be no surprise at this point, the inventiveness of the visuals, the powerful use of color, even down to the carefully crafted letters of the future-teen speech bubbles, demonstrates the great skill, care and attention to detail as Vaughan, Chiang and Wilson (and a nod to letterer Jared K. Fletcher!) have pulled off a brilliantly entertaining, wild ride of a story.

In these six reviews, I have compared the Paper Girls story to a 1980s-era after-school special, with elements of the Twilight Zone and Doctor Who swirled in. Fittingly, the story ends back in the land of after-school friendship drama. The price the girls paid for their safe return home was to have their memories reset, so they would remember none of these bizarre adventures. And they knew from their future selves that they drifted apart, that the bonds of friendship forged in these fires did not hold.

And yet, back in their right times and with no such memories, one of them risks embarrassment and rejection and asks the others to just hang out together for a few more minutes. And they do. It's a beautiful and poignant end to a phenomenal series.

Description:

THE END IS HERE!

After surviving adventures in their past, present and future, the Paper Girls of 1988 embark on one last journey, a five-part epic that includes the emotional double-sized series finale. Featuring a new wraparound cover from Eisner Award-winning co-creator CLIFF CHIANG, which can be combined with the covers of all five previous volumes to form one complete mega-image!

Collects: Issues #26-30

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  Oct. 1, 2019
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1534313248
Pages:  144 pages

Converging and Diverging - review of Paper Girls volume 5

 

Review:

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang have produced an astounding and delightful series. Their richly-drawn and nuanced characters have grown as friends and as eople through the many challenges of the first four volumes - they have been shot at with both mundane and extraordinary weapons; they hae met their older selves; they have been separated and seemed lost but refound each other; they have faced lance-weilding soldiers on flying dinosaurs, and more!

Now, in this penultimate volume, the creative team finally draws together the many scattered threads and timelines of this complex blend of after-school special and the sweeter themes of Doctor Who. The seeds and references, the dreams and visions scattered through earlier scenes fially fit into this dumti-dimensional puzzle.

We start this volume in the year 2171. Our four Paper Girls plus 24-year-old Tiffany split into two teams. KJ and Mac set out in search of a twenty-second century cure for the cancer that will kill Mac in a few years. The second team sees Erin and the two Tiffanies on a quest for answers, most pressingly whether or not the Wari and Jahpo involved in this war are the same mother-and-son pair they met in the twelfth century BCE? If so, how is that possible? and can they help the girls get back home?

But nothing goes according to plan. KJ needs to pull another "badass" moment to save Mac, who must then return the favor. Their deepening mutual affection is so natural and beautiful, moments of serenity in the midst of the other perils they face.

And Erin's clever problem-solving combines beautifully with Tiffany's courage and the whole group's strong ability to talk through their problems. All of which brings them a huge step closer to home.\

But when the clone of future-Erin appears again and detonates a time-bomb, they find themselves scattered again through time. KJ tumbles into the late 1950s; Tiffany winds up in the near future; Mac in the very distant end-of-Earth future, and Erin lands in our present-day. How will they react when what had been their greatest hope yet of returning home wound up scattering them the farthest yet from that destination?

Chiang continues to dazzle panel to panel and page to page. He eschews the facile sameness of some comic artists, whose characters are not all that different and the reader relies on context, such as outfit or manner of speaking, to tell them apart. Chiang, on the other hand, so consistently renders each of these girls and characters that the same facial structure, expressions, set of the jaw or eyes carries throughout all ages for each of these girls. Senior citizen Tiffany is still recognizably the same human; even Wari is noticeable - although the tattoo markings do help drive home her identity.

And Matt Wilson continues to show off his multiple-award-winning color work through this volume, with the brilliant use of pops or panels, gently subtle when called for, or sky-spanning shocks of pink and purple on other occasions.

After a weaker fourth volume, the series feels back on track, another solid and beautiful few chapters that have set us up for a tremendous finale.

Description:

Can anyone escape fate? That's what Mac and her fellow newspaper delivery girls must discover as they escape the year 2000 and travel to the distant future. Plus, the truth behind the mysterious "old-timers" is finally revealed.

Collects: issues #21-25

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  Dec 11, 2018
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  128 pages
Pages:  978-1534308671

Remember Those Giant Killer Y2K Robots? Paper Girls volume 4

 

Review:

One of the great strengths of the third volume on this Eisner Award-winning Paper Girls series was its narrowed focus on the four girls, plus new characters Wari and Qanta. No distractions of the Old Timers vs Teens sub-plots, no wondering about Grand Father and his cathedral of acolytes. Not even any nods to 1980s nostalgia or contemporary realities, as delightful as those references could be.

All those complicating plot elements and more come roaring back in this fourth volume. KJ, Mac, Erin and Tiffany land in Cleveland in the early hours of January 1st, 2000. The creative team of writer Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang does their usual solid job of inserting period references into the dialog and visuals. Through the eyes of our displaced foursome, even a 12-year jump into the future brings them to an amazing place.

Well, except for the giant killer mecha bots battling all around Cleveland, ones that apparently only Tiffany can see. Let's come back to those bots shortly.

Our pre-teens find themselves separated again. This time Tiffany is the one who lands in a different corner of the city. After saving a cop's life, she makes her way to her old home and meets her 24-year-old self, who has made some questionable life choices, ones that young-Tiffany strongly dislikes.

The other three girls set out to solve the question of how Folding locations get secretly coded and communicated to the Teens in their war with the Old-Timers. This leads them to a late-middle-aged woman of questionable sanity, and who has no desire to let them leave freely.

This is the most violent book of the series so far, with our old woman cartoonist blowing away several Old-Timers, who in return fry her to a crisp, along with several others, and these are far from the only deaths and injuries in these pages. And again, there are the battling giant mecha robots throughout.

Vaughan has a clear overall vision for his characters and story, but so many elements collide here that it feels muddled and confusing. And the turn toward giant battle bots is unnecessary, with so many other elements of the war over time between these two sides. In so many places the future tech has been imaginative and well-handled, but these bots turn us toward a sub-genre of sci-fi / fantasy that is not helpful or especially interesting.

Chiang's drawings are up to the task, with light blasts and dripping gore as needed, yet he manages to retain an infusion of beauty throughout. And the subtle touches like Erin crossing herself with holy water before a large confrontation add to the character and insert some measured pacing to this most breakneck of books in the series.

Overall, the story remains solid but needs to gather itself back into a tighter focus for the final couple volumes.

Description:

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Eisner Award winning series Paper Girls is coming Amazon Prime Video in July 2022!

The mind-bending, time-warping adventure from BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and CLIFF CHIANG continues, as intrepid newspaper deliverer Tiffany is launched from the prehistoric past into the year 2000! In this harrowing version of our past, Y2K was even more of a cataclysm than experts feared, and the only person who can save the future is a 12-year-old girl from 1988.

Collects: issues #16-20

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matthew Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  April 10, 2018
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1534305106
Pages:  128 pages