Featuring OUTCAST VOL 1 by THE WALKING DEAD‘s Robert Kirkman, Jacques Tardi’s RUN LIKE CRAZY, RUN LIKE HELL, Urasawa’s MASTER KEATON, a MMORPG-centric manga SWORD ART ONLINE, several new series from Image Comics and PLUMDOG by Emma Chichester Clark…
Single Black Glove (£3-50) by Kate Hazell…
“The lonely wave
Of a five fingered shadow,
Crashing silently on the city’s cinder block shore.
The imprint of a handshake,
A fossilised high five,
Down low, too slow.
They have nothing to hold
On to but memory,
So the future reaches out to the…
Single Black Glove.”
Aww, how sweet. You’ll find that poem and twelve photographs of single gloves, lost and lonely on the mean streets, on the final two pages of this tribute to the power of love as the titular digit warmer meanders along, blown by the wind to various locations through the city, pondering the wonder of relationships. Yes, there are things like skiing, skateboarding, playing heavy metal guitar that you can do all by yourself, but is it as nourishing for the soul as a walk together in the rain, sharing control of a steering wheel, or even cupping close together to stop a football and save a certain goal?!
Then… a falling leaf provokes a revelation of Newtonian proportions! The idea is shared with the other glove, thumbs interlock making the shape of a bird familiar to everyone, because it’s the one animal shadow everyone knows how to cast with their hands! But then the gloves take flight and… well, the end is as cute as the rest of this story, but it does have a gently serious point to make regarding relationships. It’s not just about being a couple, there is a wider world out there and whether we like it or not, we are all connected.
Finally, apropos nothing of any importance whatsoever, when I saw the panel of the single black glove skiing (don’t start counting digits, by the way, or you’ll observe some strange polydactylism going on), I had the strongest sense of nostalgia for the cover of one of the first ZX Spectrum computer games called Horace Goes Skiing. So much so I had to google it and make the comparison. It’s clearly a coincidence, but in doing so I did also find this online emulator.
Were computer games really this shit once upon a time? It’s hard to believe, frankly. Also, I had completely forgotten the incredibly irritating Frogger rip-off bit where Horace has to run across the road to get his skis before he even manages to get on the slopes, incurring fiscal penalties if he gets knocked down, presumably due to lack of travel insurance. I suggest reading comics instead: far less hazardous, the odd paper cut aside.
JR
Buy Single Black Glove and read the Page 45 review here
Plumdog h/c (£16-99, Jonathan Cape) by Emma Chichester Clark…
After the 
gamut of cat-related comics we have been inundated with over the last few years (STAR CAT, CAT ISLAND, CAT GETTING OUT OF A BAG…, CATS ARE WEIRD…, HOW TO TELL IF YOUR CAT IS PLOTTING TO KILL YOU, HOMICIDAL JUNGLE CAT, I WAS THE CAT, YOU ARE A CAT, CAT PERSON, CAT ORGY NOTEBOOK, FAT FREDDY’S CAT and KING-CAT… okay well maybe not that last one..), it seems that we are well overdue for something dog-related… Yes, we’ve had LOST DOGS, DOGS – BULLETS & CARNAGE, LIKE A DOG, DOGS & WATER, STARGAZING DOG and even STRONTRIUM DOG, but they haven’t really been about our canine chums, have they? Happily this is about a dog and her owner and absolutely nothing but.
In fact, this is autobiographical material because Emma Chichester Clark has recorded the adventures of her whoosell Plum (a whoosell being a Jack Russell poodle cross), in diary form, all from Plum’s perspective. It’s wonderfully illustrated in a manner not dissimilar to Posy Simmonds’ MRS WEBER’S OMNIBUS and like that tome it’s full of gentle, observational humour. Actually, it would make a great newspaper strip but I guess Fred Bassett got there first so it’s just as well Emma has been, and still is, publishing this material on her blog… Here’s a typical entry…
Sunday 20th October
“My daddy gets terrible sneezing fits.
“He doesn’t just sneeze once or twice – he sneezes again and again and AGAIN – about 25 times until he is nearly DEAD!
“I get so WORRIED. I get so ALARMED. It is AWFUL. Luckily I’m there to give him the kiss of life and I’ve managed to save him every time so far.”
Because of course what you’re really need when you’re having a sneezing fit is your dog frantically licking your face to reassure you…
It really is a sequence of one-a-day gag strips, I suppose, given there’s always a punchline to Plum’s daily activities, but you do get a real sense of Emma and Plum’s life through their various activities and holidays, and it seems like Plum is a very contented dog indeed. I do hope stardom won’t go to his head though, he’s already made his first foray into moving pictures with this trailer for the book…
JR
Buy Plumdog h/c and read the Page 45 review here
Master Keaton vol 1 (£12-99, Viz) by Naoki Urasawa.
Ooooh, I love 
me some spot varnish!
Spread across the front and back jacket with its fold-out French flaps is an old-school atlas indicating that the titular MASTER KEATON does like to travel. And indeed he has done so for many years in a capacity few would suspect.
Yes, gold foil aside, that’s a singularly mundane title for manga, isn’t it? You’ll find that quite apposite.
Everywhere he goes Master Keaton is underestimated: he does have the jejeune air of a dopey dilettante, an eccentric in a world of his own and possibly out of his depth. When he arrives at the archaeological dig in the Taklamakan desert he is dismissed as a dandy, dressed to impress but quite impractically in a suit, tie and somewhat ‘special’ stockings. But the boffins know nothing. It is the local Sheikh’s soldier-son who sees through to the truth and with very good reason…
From the creator of Japanese sci-fi PLUTO, 20TH CENTURY BOYS and recently repacking horror MONSTER comes a comic about an insurance investigator. Seriously.
The son of an English aristocrat and Japanese zoologist, Master Keaton – divorced like his dad, with a daughter he dotes on – specialises in high-end archaeological claims. It’s the subject he studied at Oxford University. Fiercely observant, little gets past our Keaton, however well hidden, and you can imagine how much is hidden when it comes to insurance claims.
He has another key skill set which comes in surprisingly useful wherever he roams: those of a soldier for Master Keaton was once a member of the British SAS. He is quite the Renaissance Man!
You yourself will learn keen survival skills I pray will never be required as well as top tips for orienteering and unexpected cultural history lessons.
The art is an odd one.
The opening colour landscapes in Greece are quite, quite gorgeous. The pinks on the ancient white stone, crumbling with age or worn smooth with wear and tear, are far from obvious, throwing up the greens in the grass reclaiming its ground and the beautiful blue of a Mediterranean sky. The sense of space is enough to make you cry, looking first through one arch to a middle-stance courtyard before a second arch beyond and what lies below what is quite evidently a hill.
The neatly dressed forms are perfectly reminiscent of THE WALKING MAN’s Jiro Taniguchi, but the faces are not. Master Keaton’s nose, for example, is so bulbous it resembles at time that of a proboscis monkey, whilst some minor members of cast like fellow lecturers who find fault with his daughter early on are drawn as ugly, boss-eyed caricatures – which is surprisingly blunt for a comic so sharp.
SLH
Buy Master Keaton vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here
Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell h/c (£14-99, Fantagraphics) by Jacques Tardi…
“In the past half hour,
Thompson’s stomach cramps had become thoroughly unbearable. The cramps had doubled him over.
The killer decided he had to give up his trade. Soon. Each time, it got worse.
For the last ten hours or so, he had been unable to take in any food. Now that he had killed, hunger was gnawing at him in the most appalling way.
At the Perrache station buffet, he ordered a helping of sauerkraut and devoured it. He felt better.
He ordered another helping and savoured it. His stomach calmed down. So did his mind.
Thompson had just earned a tidy sum of money.”
Hitman par excellence, Thompson definitely has a most unusual eating disorder. It hasn’t got really out of control by this point, but it will, oh yes. Not that he lets it interfere with taking care of business as we find out on the very first page of this third Manchette and Tardi outing. As with WEST COAST BLUES and LIKE A SNIPER LINING UP HIS SHOT before, this is a dark crime caper where none of the cast is remotely likeable, all of them deranged / demented / disturbed to a greater or lesser degree.
Our heroine, Julie, fresh out of a mental asylum, has been handpicked to be a nanny for a wealthy orphaned child called Peter. She’s been recruited by his uncle, who is also Peter’s guardian, and looks after the child’s trust fund. She has precisely zero experience in this field, which would make her rather a strange choice, you’d think, but then Peter’s uncle has a long history of employing only people with mental issues or physical disabilities. A very caring chap on the face of it…
So, it’s a tough first day on the job, therefore, when Julie finds herself and Peter abducted by a criminal gang, including Mr. Thompson, and forced to write a ransom note implicating her as the kidnapper. As she’s a former mental patient, the police are obviously going to believe Peter’s uncle has at last become a victim of his misplaced altruism when, in fact, events have transpired precisely as he planned. All he needs to do now is get Thompson to eliminate Peter, hang Julie, thereby making it look like a suicide, and he can inherit the rather sizeable estate. The one thing he hadn’t planned on, however, is that his intended patsy is rather a feisty young lady, and so Julie manages to escape from the gang’s remote hideout, partly due to their own incompetence it must be said, and goes on the run, Peter in tow, with an irate and increasingly intestinally aggravated Thompson in hot pursuit. As the chase becomes more protracted and problematic, so does Thompson’s peritonitis.
As with their previous works, you get the sense that events are building towards an explosive and deadly climax, and that does indeed prove to be the case once more. Even so, I do love how Manchette manages to engender a complete sense of believability into such utterly absurd scenarios with his writing. I think the use of everyman characters plays a significant part in that, though there’s usually at least one person having an existential crisis of some sort just for good measure. Combined with Tardi’s gritty, ground-out artwork (no one looks pretty in his world), everyone seems like they belong in a police line-up and it’s quite easy to believe these events could really happen.
I note with great interest a film adaptation of one of Manchette’s prose works, The Prone Gunman, is coming out next month. The fact that it’s starring Sean Penn gives me hope for something really decent after the absolute debacles adapting of two of my favourite crime comics in BULLET TO THE HEAD and PARKER, so I am definitely going to give it a watch. I really can’t understand how you can mess up so badly making a film when you have such great source material, though both did suffer from strange casting, I must say.
JR
Buy Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell h/c and read the Page 45 review here
Outcast vol 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him s/c (£7-50, Image) by Robert Kirkman & Paul Azaceta, Elizabeth Breitweiser…
“Joshua… 
what are you eating?! It’s almost bedtime.”
“So… hungry…”
Thus begins what Robert Kirkman promises will be a proper horror, after some witty opening repartee which softens you up nicely for the initial shocker accompanying the quotation above. From the chap who pens arguably the most famous horror comic of all time, THE WALKING DEAD, that’s a chilling statement. In fact what he really means, as he explains in the afterword he included after the first issue but sadly not reprinted here, is that whilst the possibility of a zombie apocalypse ever occurring is precisely zero – and, let’s be honest, we all hope he’s got it right on that score – there are other terrors which are all the more horrifying because they actually exist.
Yes, demonic possession is on the very cusp of fact versus fiction as he readily acknowledges, and he certainly doesn’t want to get into any sort of religious debate about it, either. Ultimately he just wants to write an entertaining horror comic, disturbingly credible, with a genuinely creepy undertone to it, and this is the subject matter he has chosen.
I was initially sceptical that this premise could be spun into something with the same long-term potential as THE WALKING DEAD but, having read the first volume, one can see already Kirkman’s got something epic in mind for us. The main character, Kyle – a man who as a boy saw his mother and then, years later, his wife succumb to demonic possession – is clearly a man with some story to tell, if only someone would believe him. Shunned by his now-ex-wife, and pretty much everyone else he previously knew with the exception of his sister for reasons which are all too painfully clear by the end of this opener, he’s become a complete recluse.
When the local Reverend, intimately aware of his past, tries to enlist Kyle’s help with an exorcism, he initially refuses. But… when you’ve seen the things he’s seen, suffered in the manner he has suffered, well, he knows he can’t in all good conscience refuse to help another soul in torment. And that is why his problems are going to start all over again. And it’s the why he has really got the problem with, the question that has bothered him all this time. Why him? Why is he the outcast? I can think of an answer, but I can’t believe it’s going to be that obvious, I sense some potential misdirection afoot.
Spectacularly pensive and brooding art from Paul Azaceta, ably augmented by the exceptional colourist Bettie VELVET Breitweiser, which keeps us permanently balanced right on that knife edge of lurking horror and pants-wetting fright. There is a real sense of building foreboding in this opening volume, as we believe we are gradually beginning to get at least some small measure of precisely what malice is tormenting the vulnerable fringes of the town. Then… the conclusion is a real, genuine shocker, as one of our main characters gets an absolutely terrifying visit that will leave a devastating lasting impression upon him… Ouch.
JR
Buy Outcast vol 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him s/c and read the Page 45 review here
Nameless #1 (£2-25, Image) by Grant Morrison & Chris Burnham.
“From 
Earth to the Moon.
“Malkuth to Yesod.
“Shit rains down.
“Nothing is real.”
I don’t think I’ve every typed the words “Morrison”, “predictable” and “pedestrian” in the same sentence before.
I remember “passionate”, “compassionate”, “fiercely intelligent”, “parapersonality” and “transtemporal, pansexual, mulltidimensional fight for the future’s freedom”. You wouldn’t really forget that one, would you?
Also, drugs: I remember a great many drugs and extreme vacillations between “Comics are ephemera, bound only for bins” and “Comics are the last medium unsullied by compromise with corporations just like the one that publishes most of my comics” depending on which horse du jour he felt like backing that day.
Artist Chris Burnham you may remember from Grant’s BATMAN INCORPORATED VOL 1 where he did a fine impression of Frank Quitely. Here he comes over all Corben which is perfect for horror. But before we begin, may I take a personal moment to say how fondly I recognised and remembered Glasgow’s Botanical Garden Gates, having lingered there long-time, but not all those plump, floppy fish here seen skewered on its weathervane?
“Hebrew letter “mun” means “fish”. “Fish” and “Death”. And death is daath.”
Fair enough. I suppose all that has something to do with The Veiled Lady’s henchmen wearing deep-sea anglerfish head masks when they kidnap our titular protagonist who apparently will remain nameless and dump him in a supermarket shopping trolley. He tumbles out tellingly because our man and his trolley parted ways way back in 2001 since when, we learn later, he’s been on the run from the police.
Maybe he tried to steal the fuzz’s Dream-Key to their Empty Box in a Tombraider-like dream-space? That’s what our nameless one’s done to The Veiled Lady, which is why she is ever so slightly brittle.
Or maybe they want him for pretension since he quite evidently got a Christmas-cracker crash-course on the Kabbalah lodged in his throat.
An asteroid 14 miles in length and 6 miles wide is on a collision course with Earth. It’s called Xibalba, otherwise known as the Mayan underworld, the “Place Of Fear”, because whichever astronomer was on duty that night was feeling portentous as fuck. In 33 days there will be an Extinction Level Impact somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but long before that there will be planetary-wide panic. Of course there will! Have you read Dan Berry’s THE END? So psychologically astute!
The thing is, the asteroid bears a symbol carved into its surface. The sigil is 3 miles tall and half a mile wide. It’s the glyph denoting the door to the Anti-verse!
The Anti-verse! Is there a single element there than cannot be traced back to a previous Grant Morrison mag?
For an infinitely more imaginative take on the Kabbalah, please see Alan Moore & JH Williams III’s PROMETHEA.
SLH
Buy Nameless #1 and read the Page 45 review here
The Dying And The Dead #1 (£3-50, Image) by Jonathan Hickman & Ryan Bodenheim…
“I’m sorry, 
Colonel. There is nothing we can do.
“We can try to make her comfortable…
“Manage her pain…
“But she’s beyond our abilities now.
“Clair was a wonderful woman… but it’s time to start thinking about letting go.”
One of those five lines will turn out to be the whole crux of a conundrum presented to Colonel James Canning by a mysterious individual known as The Courier. For whilst it may be beyond the abilities of mortal doctors to cure his wife of her terminal cancer, there are… others… who have that power. The power over life and death itself. Furthermore, Colonel Canning is one of a very few mortals who are even aware of these others, having previously encountered them in circumstances which I suspect may well in time become clearer.
Time… yes, that is also something which seems in flux for some of the participants in this first issue. For there is a mysterious, hidden underground paradise of extraordinary architectural beauty called The City whose Second (that is her title or rank) is tasked with guiding Colonel Canning from the surface to his meeting with The Bishop, the leader of these others. The Second seems completely unaware of Colonel Canning. Having been The Second since 1948, this puzzles her greatly, as do the Colonel’s comments regarding a great fire in The City because it’s an event of which she has no memory at all…
The Bishop on the other hand, well, he seemingly knows much, possibly all there is to know, and during his conversation with the Colonel many deep, philosophical matters are touched upon, such as the fact that there is a tree of life in The City. Not the Tree of Life, note, but a, which in turn suggests much. And that his kind bestowed religion of all shades upon humanity. Now, you might wonder why such beings, and I have my own personal theory about precisely what they are at this point, would wish to even deign to converse with a human. It turns out they need a proxy, to whom they are prepared to make a mutually beneficial proposal. If James Canning is prepared to undertake a task in our world for them, they will restore his wife to perfect health.
The task? Well, the impressive opening sequence to this issue – involving an amphibious assault on a wedding party on a Greek island by what appears to be a covert terrorist organisation, consisting entirely of an army of clones called The Children, all of just one male and one female, headed by an older dictatorial figure wearing a uniform with a modified infinity symbol, purely for the purposes of stealing an artefact called the Bah al’Sharur – is another huge tease in and of itself. All the Colonel has to do is recover the artefact. Now why I do suspect it isn’t going to be that easy…?
What an opener! This is Hickman at his best here, constructing an intricate puzzle to intrigue us, scattering some enticing pieces on the table to pique our curiosity, and then the game begins in earnest. I can already see I am going to love this series. Fans of the speculative fiction joint EAST OF WEST certainly will too, and also those who enjoyed SECRET, the previous espionage flavoured project which he also undertook with artist Ryan Bodenheim. He does like his detail, Mr. Bodenheim, and I can see elements of Geof Darrow and Simone Bianchi in there. The sequences as the Colonel descends deeper into The City are particularly spectacular.
Also, as with SECRET, there is a colour palette of merely one additional colour per panel used by colourist Michael Garland, in a maximum of two tones, which is very striking and really adds emphasis to the art itself. The only exception I can see to this ‘rule’ is the cover, which actually was my least favourite bit of art in the whole issue. No idea whether this is intended to be a mini-series or a more extended yarn at this point, but I’m hoping for the latter.
JR
Buy The Dying And The Dead #1 and read the Page 45 review here
Casanova: Acedia #1 (£2-99, Image) by Matt Fraction, Michael Chabon & Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba…
“Put a pebble in a shell.
“Put the shell in a box.
“Put the box in a bag.
“Put the bag in a trunk.
“Then throw the fucking thing in a cave and blow the opening shut with dynamite.
“THAT’S what it’s like trying to pin down ‘Amiel Boutique.’
“On paper he’s a labyrinth with no exit.”
Then the grey men attack and Casanova Quinn, our debonair gentleman criminal and occasional spy is forced to disrupt his research on his enigmatic employer and dispense some fatal lessons in library etiquette. Or, as he so eloquently puts it…
“What, you think because we’re in a library I won’t fuck you up and get a little LOUD? COME ON!”
The strange thing is not that Casanova Quinn has been attacked by mask-wearing persons mumbling strange symbolic languages intent on doing him serious harm. That’s par for the course for an individual whose father, Cornelius, runs the global spy organization E.M.P.I.R.E. which doesn’t even come close to describing the everyday weirdness of his existence. Indeed, it’s even the second assassination attempt he’s survived in this issue! The first being at the hands of a naked and nubile young lady who has enticed him onto the diving board of a swimming pool, long after a party at his boss’ Hollywood Hills mansion has wound down and all the other guests safely departed.
No, the really curious part is that his attempts to decipher the mysterious past of his employer, the ultra-rich Amiel Boutique, are entirely at Mr. Boutique’s request. For Amiel Boutique’s history is so shadowy, so secretive, that even he can’t remember it beyond a certain point, which unsurprisingly troubles him greatly. And in return, Mr. Boutique has told Casanova Quinn, currently living under the name of Quentin Cassidy, that he will do the same for him.
For Casanova too, is suffering from an amnesia of sorts, (long-time readers will know precisely why, new readers, just jump aboard then go back and read CASANOVA LUXURIA, GULA and AVARITIA to explain all), which means he has no idea of his true identity, merely that is he skilled in the various dark arts of subterfuge, self-defence and myriad other chicanery. Thus, a job as a majordomo for a man who asked no questions seemed like the ideal employment. Now that other factions are starting to move against him and Ariel both, well, it seems like a good idea to try and find some answers. What the right questions to ask are, though, and to whom, is a whole different matter.
Magnificently stylish. Not just Fraction’s writing, of a story that continually manages to serially and surreally reinvent itself and its main protagonist, seemingly effortlessly, but also for Fabio Moon’s gloriously retro chic art. Casanova Quinn looks like a cross between a ‘60s footballer and James Bond, and knows how to act the part too, subconsciously that is, for the moment. The overall feel is something of Barbarella meets Austin Powers. Given how utterly out-there the previous three volumes have been, I can’t imagine for one moment this isn’t going to go all sideways, very shortly, well into yet another universe or timeline at least…
Beautiful artwork from one half of the team responsible for DAYTRIPPER. The other half, brother Gabriel Ba, gets a chance to contribute to the fun once more in a chortle-tastic back-up strip penned by Michael Chabon, author of the prose Pulitzer-Prize-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which, if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend. I say back-up strip, but I suspect it will turn out to be highly significant in some way before the end of the arc. Also, a rare mention for a letterer, Dustin Harbin, who I think may well be the best in the business right now. He also did the letters for a book called SECONDS by a certain Bryan Lee O’ Malley, which you may have heard of…
Finally, just in case you are wondering, the subtitles for each arc are the Latin versions of each of the seven deadly sins, acedia between sloth. So there will apparently be seven volumes of CASANOVA in total, one for each sin. I have at this point no real understanding of how that motif underpins or even pertains to the work, but I am sure it will at some point become clear. Maybe.
JR
Buy Casanova: Acedia #1 and read the Page 45 review here
Black Science vol 2: Welcome Nowhere s/c (£10-99, Image) by Rick Remender & Matteo Scalera, Dean White, Michael Spicer…
“How can
anything matter when every possible thing happens?”
I can’t help but feel this is the sixties television show Lost In Space, with a dash of Quantum Leap thrown for good measure, re-imagined in as twisted fashion as possible by someone who has taken the entire run of classic pulp titles WEIRD SCIENCE and WEIRD FANTASTY, performed some Dadaist cut-up of every plot device ever contained within said titles, and then randomly deployed them upon his characters, and indeed readership, at his deranged will. This is good.
Once again, I am left to ponder if Matteo Scalera and Sean Murphy are indeed one and the same person. Or maybe Grant McKay, the now missing leader of the Anarchistic League of Scientists, has used his Black Science technology to kidnap Sean Murphy from an alternate reality, brainwash him into believing he is an Italian called Matteo Scalera, and left him here. This too is good.
Expect to be confused and bemused. This is rip-roaring, utter science fiction nonsense which is as joyfully ridiculous as Hickman’s MANHATTAN PROJECTS. The lost in space Anarchist League Of Scientists ‘Dimensionauts’ are right up to their mutually loathing, proverbial necks in it, fighting amongst themselves as telepathic millipedes and hairless simians vie for the right to eat them. Only some strange, laser-welding long-haired aboriginal human types stand between them and a certain date with dinner.
Meanwhile, where is Grant McKay? Why, busy fending off a doppelganger that’s just appeared and wants to steal his children, though fortunately not to eat them! Kidnapping is probably preferable to consumption, mind you. Also, just to really up the confusion factor, it seems alien races from other universes have also been experimenting with Black Science reality-skipping technologies, and that the uncontrollable randomness of our team’s jumps might not be so chaotic after all. There’s patterns emerging, in every dimension apparently, according to the man himself, and if anyone knows what to do, it’s Grant McKay. Everyone else, meanwhile, myself included, hasn’t got a clue what’s going on! There’s only one thing for it, as Grant McKay himself says…
“We have to go to the centre of the onion…”
JR
Buy Black Science vol 2: Welcome Nowhere s/c and read the Page 45 review here
Sword Art Online: Progressive vol 1 (£9-99, Yen Press) by Reki Kawahara & Kiseki Himura…
About once a 
year I have a dream where I’m about to head into an exam room at the Trent Building on the Nottingham University campus to take my second year organic chemistry exam. I’m panicking somewhat because this is the absolute nadir of my time as a student, the moment it finally occurs to me I am actually going to have to seriously scale back on the video games and do some work in my final year, if I somehow can just get through this exam*. When I wake up, it takes me a good minute or so before I calm down and remember that in fact I am now 42 and don’t ever have to think about nucleophilic aliphatic substitutions or 1,2-rearrangements or any such nonsense ever again.
Yuuki Asuna is having the opposite problem. A top student who loved nothing more than to spend her days and nights cramming for exams, she borrowed her brother’s virtual reality console and now finds herself trapped inside the MMORPG Sword Art Online, along with ten thousand other players, all of whom are somewhat surprised at this unexpected turn of events. Given most of them are gamers, however, it’s like all their dreams come true at once, but all Yuuki is worried about, rather than trying to level up, is how much of a failure she’s going to seem in the eyes of her peers and parents when she fails her exams, assuming she ever gets back to the real world, that is. And they are actually just her mocks, not even real exams!
Simultaneously satirising MMORPG culture and also the Japanese obsession with academic achievement as it does, this is well written stuff, makes excellent use of an interesting conceit, and the development of the character Yuuki as she starts to apply her innate intelligence in such unfamiliar circumstances offers endless opportunities for where the story can go, so I can see why this title has been massive in Japan. On that point there are two other SWORD ART ONLINE titles: SWORD ART ONLINE: FAIRY DANCE and SWORD ART ONLINE: AINCRAID. I have precisely no idea how they all fit together, though I presume much like ATTACK ON TITAN, once a manga publisher has a real hit on their hands these days, it’s just get the add-on titles out as fast as possible.
* I got 14% for organic chemistry, averaging a staggering 27% across all my second year exams, but fortunately my labs pulled me up to 41% overall, thus scraping past the required pass mark for the year of 40%. I did, however, complete Super Mario World, Mario Kart, Star Fox and Super Soccer on the Nintendo SNES, so the year wasn’t a total waste…
JR
Buy Sword Art Online: Progressive vol 1 and read the Page 45 review here
Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy!
Reviews already up if they’re new formats of previous graphic novels. The best of the rest will be reviewed next week while others will retain their Diamond previews as reviews. Neat, huh?
She Always Looked Good In Hats (Signed & Numbered) (£7-00, ) by Matthew Melis
The Unicorn And The Woodsman signed (£5-99, ) by Kate Brown
Caliban s/c (£14-99, Avatar) by Garth Ennis & Facundo Percio
Intelligent Sentient h/c (£16-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Luke Ramsey
Displacement (£14-99, Fantagraphics) by Lucy Knisley
Final Incal h/c (£22-99, Humanoids) by Alejandro Jodorowsky & Ladronn
Starlight vol 1 s/c (£10-99, Image) by Mark Millar & Goran Parlov
Ten Grand vol 2 s/c (£10-99, Image) by J. Michael Straczynski & C. P. Smith, Ben Templesmith
Trees vol 1 s/c (£10-99, Image) by Warren Ellis & Jason Howard
In God We Trust h/c (£17-99, Knockabout) by Winshluss
Dexter s/c (£14-99, Marvel) by Jeff Lindsay & Dalibor Talajic
Judge Dredd Casefiles 24 (£19-99, Rebellion) by John Wagner, Pat Mills, Mark Millar, Dan Abnett, various & Steve Yeowell, Carlos Ezquerra, Simon Davis, various
Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles Book One: A Simple Killing h/c (£16-99, Rebellion) by Pat Mills & Simon Davis
Hellblazer vol 10: In The Line Of Fire (£14-99, Vertigo) by Paul Jenkins & Sean Phillips, Al Davison
Batman: The Dark Knight vol 4 – Clay s/c (£12-99, DC) by Gregg Hurwitz & Alex Maleev, Ethan Van Sciver
Secret Origins vol 1 s/c (£10-99, DC) by various
Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance vol 2 (£9-99, Yen) by Reki Kawahara & Tsubasa Haduki
News!
ITEM! Scott McCloud to sign THE SCULPTOR at Page 45 on Sunday March 8th from 2pm to 4pm! Yay!
This will be so cute we may need to cull kittens in order to maintain the cosmic balance!
So many freebies to give away on the day: postcards, wrapping paper, posters!
– Stephen
