manga criticism: Pluto
Mar. 17th, 2009 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeI've whined before about the lack of good manga reviewing, which is tangentially related to a lack of serious criticism, so it behooves me to link to a few of the fantastic pieces of manga criticism I've read in the last week or so. This was originally one post with the YKK thing to follow, but it was getting long, so I split 'em.
The House Next Door: Comics Column #5: Pluto, Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen
Link from Journalista. The comments on Watchmen and Scott Pilgrim (one I've read, one I know only from reading snippets and the ravings of fans, although I've read other O'Malley work, and liked it) are definitely worth reading, but if you want, you can just scroll down for the Pluto segment. I really shouldn't have read it, because I still haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of Pluto yet, curses, but I couldn't help it.
A little tangential bit that made me smile, because the process and product of adaptation in fiction and media fascinates me (which I credit to having read a lot of mythology as a child--as in, multiple versions of the same story, and sometimes, I wondered why they weren't the same):
I've kept far away from "spoilers" for the volumes of Pluto to follow, something I rarely do when it comes to comics (Scott Pilgrim is another notable exception). For me, personally, it's one of the most exciting comics in ages. And part of that comes back to the reaction to seeing the human-looking Atom. I know how the story "ends," as I've read the original Astro Boy tale. And this is, of course, why people still get excited by film adaptations of comics, by remakes, by re-imaginings and retcons, dissections and distillations. We want to see what they're going to do with these ideas, what they're going to bring to the original.
Apropos of that, I've been dying to read Pluto for YEARS, ever since I first encountered it, as it combines four of my great loves in one--Tezuka, Urasawa, manga, and adapted work. I'd be in a tizzy over it being backordered, were I not also mostly unconcerned with spoilers.
The House Next Door: Comics Column #5: Pluto, Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen
Link from Journalista. The comments on Watchmen and Scott Pilgrim (one I've read, one I know only from reading snippets and the ravings of fans, although I've read other O'Malley work, and liked it) are definitely worth reading, but if you want, you can just scroll down for the Pluto segment. I really shouldn't have read it, because I still haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of Pluto yet, curses, but I couldn't help it.
A little tangential bit that made me smile, because the process and product of adaptation in fiction and media fascinates me (which I credit to having read a lot of mythology as a child--as in, multiple versions of the same story, and sometimes, I wondered why they weren't the same):
I've kept far away from "spoilers" for the volumes of Pluto to follow, something I rarely do when it comes to comics (Scott Pilgrim is another notable exception). For me, personally, it's one of the most exciting comics in ages. And part of that comes back to the reaction to seeing the human-looking Atom. I know how the story "ends," as I've read the original Astro Boy tale. And this is, of course, why people still get excited by film adaptations of comics, by remakes, by re-imaginings and retcons, dissections and distillations. We want to see what they're going to do with these ideas, what they're going to bring to the original.
Apropos of that, I've been dying to read Pluto for YEARS, ever since I first encountered it, as it combines four of my great loves in one--Tezuka, Urasawa, manga, and adapted work. I'd be in a tizzy over it being backordered, were I not also mostly unconcerned with spoilers.
