Now that things have loosened up a bit in the rest of my life, I’ve had time to do more reading and writing. My review of Cantarella is up at Manga Life. That is my favorite of the Go!Comi titles so far, but Crossroad is the clear runner-up, with lots of rich, soapy goodness. If you like relationships with complications, this one’s for you.
I also went through an OEL frenzy, keeping up with what looks like the cream of the Tokyopop crop: Dramacon, The Dreaming, and Roadsong. (Sorry, Rivkah, I read Steady Beat the day it came out. No procrastination there.) It’s all good, but I have a special fondness for Dramacon, because it really is funny and the heroine is so engaging. Like all good manga, it left me wanting more.
Roadsong is OK, entertaining without troubling the mind with plausibility or existential concepts. It’s sort of a manga version of a road picture: Two musicians grudgingly collaborate on a song for the wedding of two of their family members—then have to take it on the lam when a bomb kills most of the wedding party and they start looking like suspects. (Here is a Newsarama interview with artist Joanna Estep for those who want to know more.) But I didn’t get so involved with the characters that I’d slap down ten bucks for volume 2.
Of the three, though, The Dreaming, really grabbed me. It’s scary and beautifully drawn, and artist and writer Queenie Chan reveals just enough of her secrets to keep me interested. It also took me back to my childhood, as the art is eerily reminiscent of my beloved English girls’ comic books (which made something of a specialty of ghost stories). I’m willing to send a case of No-Doz to Queenie if she will only stop sleeping and finish the next volume.
