Adult Comics Collections

Stephan Pastis Pearls Before Swine Pearls Before Swine, copyright 2005, is interesting for Stephan Pastis’s Introduction in which he comments on influences such as Mr. Bill on Saturday Night Live and Wylie E. Coyote.  Not so compelling (to me) are the subsequent strips with Pig getting injured and Bob getting burned.  I found that I…

Manju Buns

Manjū – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In Volume 51 of the Japanese manga One Piece Luffy, Chopper, and Brooks consume mass quantities of the Sabaody version of the manju bun.

Teen Manga

School Gunnerkrigg Court Thomas Siddell’s rendering of unusual students at a British boarding school is reminiscent (in an excellent fashion) in both art and characters to San Francisco resident Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin series.  It’s interesting that both series though written by men are centered on extremely bright young women unfazed by the beasties around…

Adult Manga

Western Scalped Scalped The Gnawing Vol 6 by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera, published by Vertigo.  Graphic novel series.  More violent than 100 Bullets. Spy, Military, Ninja Greg Rucka Queen & Country series: criticized by some because while the main protagonist (Tara Chase) is a female Brit, the writer is a male native of San…

All Ages Manga

(Also see the post Children’s Fiction.) Paranormal Courtney Crumrin; Polly and the Pirates Ted Naifeh brings great characterization and detail to all of his art (including Gloom Cookie and Kin) but it is the stories that he also writes that we get to truly appreciate his storytelling.  It may seem odd that the best stories…

Works by Neil Gaiman

Penelope’s Pinterest Board related to Neil Gaiman’s works. 2013 April Poem A Gaiman poem with which to kickoff National Poetry Month. 2012 May Commencement Speech Twenty minute video of Neil Gaiman’s inspiring commencement speech at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts in May 2012.  This speech will be published in book form under the title ‘Neil…

“Jack of Fables”

The nine volume graphic novel series Jack of Fables written by Bill Willingham tells the story of the trickster Jack (e.g. Little Jack Horner, Jack the Giant Killer (from Jack and the Beanstalk), and Jack B. Nimble – with overtones of the Jackal from other mythologies), his son Jack Frost, sidekick Gary the Pathetic Fallacy…

One Piece

(For a review of the One Piece Japanese manga series, see the One Piece post on AuntPennies.com.)  In more than six dozen volumes available in the series the main characters have evolved, particularly those who started as adolescents.  Unfortunately this has also added to the number of Barbie doll figures.  On the positive side, Luffy…

Naruto

According to the covers, Naruto is “the world’s most popular manga”.  A serialized manga in Shonen Jump, bound volumes are released every few months, first in Japanese and then in English (and other languages); the English version of volume 63 will be published by Viz Media 2013 Nov 5.  Author Masashi Kishimoto has a team…

“Fables”

The graphic novel series Fables written by Bill Willingham tells the story of how the European fables fled the Homelands for America and the subsequent trials and tribulations of these fables, their progeny, those left behind, and the fables of other lands.  Volume 18 is due to be published 2013 Jan 22.  This series runs…