New Comic Book Day Megathread

[Hawkmumbler]

Madness indeed! Sorry you had so much trouble. Clearly they still need to smooth out the edges on google devices.

[The Adventurer]

But its working now, yes?

[sheldipez]

Yes working fine including purchasing issues. Read the latest #1 and that's a whole lot of content for your money. Dunno how they manage that but I'll be continuing onwards with it, all pretty easy to pick up bar Naruto. Didn't have the foggiest what was going on there.

[The Adventurer]

They manage it because it's licensed. Which is cheaper then creating original content. Also they have good circulation numbers, and the manga publishing model puts more emphases on selling collected editions, not the anthology itself. There are limits, English Jump has to pay royalties to manga creators directly based on sales numbers. Which does put a cap on how much they can license. But their not there yet I don't think.

[Hawkmumbler]

Well if thats the case they can afford to license Claymore once a month! I want my fantasy manga dammit!

[The Adventurer]

Could be a violence thing (I haven't read Claymore, but the impression that I get is it's pretty violent?) But between Toriko, One Punch Man, All You Need is Kill, Seraph, and Blue Exorcist... maybe that's not it after all. Or maybe English Jump has been drifting toward a more 'mature' slant. Maybe we'll see Claymore someday, it is a Shueisha published series after all and licensed by Viz already.

Personally? I want Jojo's Bizarre Adventure! But I hear its notoriously hard to translate and runs into all kind of copyright and trademark issues.

[Hawkmumbler]

Claymore is very much in the same vein as Berserk and Vinland Saga. A hyper violent fantasy epic with more than it's fair share of gore. But seeing how gruesome the first chapter of AYNIK was I agree that I don't think the violence is the issue. Lets see what the nest eleven months brings us, AYNIK is only a finite series after all.

[Colin YNWA]

I love it when you folks start to talk your Shonen Jump talk. Its like you're speaking a secret language I don't understand and underlines the fact that I need to investigate more Manga (should that be Mangas?).

Currently reading Shigeru Mizuki's 'Onward towards our noble deaths' and that only serves as another reminder that there's a whole world of comics I'm still not exploring... mind when I think I'll get the time to do that escapes me entirely!

[The Adventurer]

Talking Shonen Jump here is like me talking 2000 AD anywhere else. 

[Colin YNWA]

Rocket Girl 3 was at the tipping point, everything gets three issues before I decide to stick or twist and I was reading this thinking its not doing enough BUT got to the end and thought... well actually I kinda really really want to know more about whats going on. Good sign. Might give the first three issues a quick re-read to make sure but I think I'm sticking with this.

Did that and wonder what the hell I was worried about. Its like the fun romping parts of Zot! ... well in reverse I guess. its just great fun comics, with a nice physics mystery edge. On re-read this one has flown past the 3 issue barrier and no mistake.

[sheldipez]

Just gone through the last ten or so issues of Weekly Shonen Jump, I've found the likes of Nisekoi, One-Punch Man, Seraph of the End, World Trigger, Blue Exorcist to be instantly readable and very enjoyable.

Where as One Piece, Naruto (which is also the most fugly manga I've ever seen), Bleach, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal is incomprehensible (or just mind numbingly dull as far as Yu-Gi-Oh is concerned, but I expected as much for something that is based on a card game) jumping this far into their stories, the synopsis doesn't help one bit, I've no idea who is who, what they're talking about, what they're trying to achieve. I look forward to those story arcs finishing on the off chance they do some more set-up, otherwise they're now a skim read (or skip entirely for Naruto and Yu-Gi-Oh).

Dragonball is enjoyable as it ever was but gains nothing from being in colour and the font they use makes it look like it was lettered in MS paint.

Not to come across as overly negative though, its a cracking anthology and can't wait for more All You Need is Kill.

Oh and I thought the judges where harsh on El Viento Del Norte, the art was way better than anything in Naruto.

[The Adventurer]

Bleach and Naruto are, or at least I believe I've been told, are in their final arcs and on their way to their final conclusions. So don't expect things to improve much between those two. That said they may hang around for years yet.

And yeah, Naruto's biggest problem is its artwork makes following its action really REALLY hard. Also there are a billion characters. And none of them ever stay dead. Trouble is, I KNOW Masashi Kishimoto is capable of better. Viz published a few one-offs of his last year (Mario and Bench) , and their were actually pretty good! Unfortunately I don't believe the issues in question are available for sale any more (annoying!)

One-Piece may yet grow on you, as it did me. But its also got a big cast and a lot of pathos to sift through. Though its much easier to tell who the good guys are from the bad.


My main issue with El Viento Del Norte is that I felt like I read it before. Like in Gun Blaze West. Other then that, its was generally competent in art.

[sheldipez]

I thought that was case for both of them, can't really expect to jump into chapter 700 or whatever of something and pick it up with ease. There's some creature designs and layouts within Naruto that look good but majority of it looks like it was scribbed down in one pass with a biro, human heads can be all different shape n sizes with a touch of cross-eyedness to boot. The whole thing feels like it was drawn on a deadline.

I've went back to read Nisekoi, Seraph of the End, World Trigger from the beginning as I've really enjoyed those. Nisekoi surprised me the most as never expected to like anything in that sub-genre.

[The Adventurer]

The whole thing feels like it was drawn on a deadline.

I'm not an expert, but manga creators work on really REALLY tight deadlines. Like... delivered the day before going to press tight. It can be pretty nuts!


Oh and...

Toriko's been on break, and if you read any of it it would have been the tail end of the last arc, but did you get any kind of impression on that one? Its back this week with a brand new arc.

I enjoy Toriko quite a bit. Its a bit crazy.

[sheldipez]

I've heard about tight deadlines and how overworked they have for often very little financial rewards (and speaking of which I really liked Bakuman that was in the special one off WSJ issue, that centres around two young kids that aim to do their own manga, one of which who's Uncle was a Manga creator, who we're told either worked himself to death or committed suicide after lack of success, it's by creators of Death Note so I'm sure some of this is based on their experiences working on that series.) but nothing else feels like it was drawn in rush, uber detailed backgrounds among most of the stuff in there or just sheer detail in One Piece - so much going on in most panels.

I've not really fully grasped Toriko but unlike the other long running series' in there it's still enjoyable and made me laugh out loud a few times (the chapter where they're all telling Toriko about their favorite meals for example) so I yeah, more of that please!

WSJ really is insane value; glad it's got an Android app at long last so I can jump on with this thing after so long!