When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice, and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret… Written by Stephenie Meyer; Art and Adaptation by Young Kim Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Supernatural Romance Price: $19.99 Rating: Buy This Book I don’t care for the Twilight franchise. I didn’t read the books. I watched the movie, only because Rifftrax did such a great riff on it, but hated it in general. But surprisingly, I wasn’t repulsed by the graphic novel. It read like an average young adult romance, and the characters were typical of a shojo title. To quote my oldest daughter when I asked her why Twilight was popular with her friends, “Bella is a blank slate so anyone can be her, and the guys are all hot.” It was filled with lots of wish-fulfillment and angst, but it wasn’t the worse thing I’ve ever read. This first volume covers…
When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice, and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret… By Stephenie Meyer; Art & Adaptation by Young Kim Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Romance Price: $19.99 Rating: Buy This Book INTRO: The book I’m reviewing now is called Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1. I think I regret reading this, and I may never touch it again after setting my eyes upon it. But hey, as long as I’m allowed to bash it for what it is, I’m cool. Anyways, let’s talk about what the story is about.
Nature vs Nurture The scanlation debate continues this week. The first salvo fired was by Kate Dacey of the Manga Critic blog. Spurred by a tweet that pointed to a link to a review of a Chrome plug-in for OneManga, she explains why a aggregator site like Onemanga is illegal. Johanna Draper Carlson replies with a post that readers of scanlations know perfectly well what they’re doing is illegal, and just don’t care. So is it the nature of the net, or a learned behavior? I think it’s a combination of the two, since a lot of kids are either hearing about the sites from their friends, or searching Google, and the aggregator sites always come up on top. And it’s going to take more than a “Just Say No” campaign to change things. Most teens, who are probably the majority of online readers, either don’t know or don’t care about copyright. Knowing is only half the battle, but as long as the illegal sites come up first in search engines like Google, behavior isn’t going to change. If publishers don’t try to take down these sites or offer legal alternatives, then readers are going to think they think it’s…
But Is It Contagious? Love to love it, or love to hate it, the release of the Twilight manga is eminent. Manga fans have been expressing (mostly) their disdain for the series and a NIBY attitude about it. Shaenon Garrity, a respected writer about manga points out that the themes in Twilight are nothing new. In fact, the themes in Twilight are not only prevalent in shojo, a lot of it has been done before! So quit whining about it. In the end, it’ll do more good than harm. Someone needs to be able to challenge Viz, and right now, it seems like Yen Press’ adaptations are the only ones with the steam power. See the NYT Bestseller List below.
Ikki Takes a Holiday You might have noticed that the Ikki Comix website hasn’t had any updates for a while. Well, that’s because they’re taking the holidays off. There’s no word about when the updates will return, and hopefully this is just what they say, just an intermission and not a break that becomes a hiatus. Ikki’s got some great titles that deserve the exposure that the website gives them. So take this as an opportunity to get caught up!
Manga’s version of the “Sub vs Dub” debate Found this on Twitter via aicnanime: Helen McCarthy weighs in on the OEL manga label debate, and she puts into words something I’ve always thought but don’t think I’ve ever expressed properly: And that’s the reason. Semantics is the study of meanings, and to writers and historians, meanings matter. Fans and businesses exploiting the power of the word ‘manga’ are tapping in to one of the oldest magics known to man – the belief that real names have real power, and that attaching a name to a thought or act can give it weight, can bring it into being. But to me, attaching the word ‘manga’ to non-Japanese comics doesn’t change anything important about those comics, and may well dilute and weaken the power of the word in its original form.