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From: candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Dave's Capsules for April, 2024 (no floppies)
Date: Fri, 3 May 2024 13:27:07 -0000 (UTC)
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Dave Van Domelen <dvandom@eyrie.org> wrote at 03:19 this Wednesday (GMT):
>                     Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
>           Generally Monthly Picks and Pans of Comics and Related Media
>
> Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups.  Recommendation does
> not factor in price.  Not all books will have arrived in your area this month.
> An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
>      Looking forwards to spending the summer doing cardiologist visits.
>
>      Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None this
> month. 
>
>      In this installment: Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 17, Easygoing
> Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Production Magic Turns a Nameless
> Village into the STRONGEST FORTIFIED CITY vol 1 (whew), Robotics; Notes vol
> 1-3, Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 4, Cat + Gamer vol 1-4, The Mighty Onion vol 1,
> Thorn, Spectreman Heroes.  (No floppies due to shipping mishap, they'll be in
> next month's.) 
>
>
> "Other Media" Capsules:
>
>      Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
> comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
> available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
> section when I have any to mention.  They may not be as timely as comic
> reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
> (or ten) to get around to.
>
>      X-Men 97 is still ongoing, ten episode season so I'll cover it in May.
> I got Aquaman II and Doom Patrol S4 at the end of the month, those won't get
> watched in time for this month's column, although I almost watched Aquaman
> over the weekend.  Also, the latest Please Don't Tell My Parents superhero
> universe book from Richard Roberts dropped this month, but I won't be
> finished before the end of the month, and the latest book from the Wearing
> the Cape universe (new series in that world) dropped but it's after PDTMP in
> my reading queue.

So is that a prequel?

> Digital Content:
>
>      Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of
> regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column.
> Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for
> reading online or for download, usually for pay.
>
>      Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 17: Patreon.com - This is explicitly an
> extended homage to Avengers: Endgame, as all the friends and allies Clari and
> her crew have made along the way join the fight.  Not a whole lot of fighting
> this issue (more along the lines of showing off), but it's made clear that
> despite all the boosts and allies and so forth, it's hardly going to be an
> easy battle or even a likely win (other than, you know, dramatic
> necessity...but the fourth wall is quite solid here and the protagonists do
> not know this).  Recommended.  $2/month or more on Rod Espinosa's Patreon. 

Fanmade? Nice.

>      Speaking of Patreon, if you subscribe to Linda Sejic's Patreon, the
> story pages for Punderworld vol 2 are complete, but the finished collection
> and printed copy have yet to be announced. 
>
>
> Trades:
>
>      Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
> If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.
>
>      Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord: Production Magic
> Turns a Nameless Village into the STRONGEST FORTIFIED CITY vol 1: Seven Seas
> Entertainment - This has a BAD case of Light Novel Title.  I'm just going to
> call it Easygoing Territory Defense from now on, and even that's a mouthful.
> Anyway, this is another "salaryman reincarnates in a fantasy world" isekai,
> and he basically just angsts himself to death before reincarnating.  Unlike
> the typical "reincarnated as a hot teenager" isekai, our protagonist
> reincarnates as a 2 year old, so he barely even gets to his Nameless Village
> by the end of volume 1.  Very extended setup, following him through his youth
> as a "prodigy" (since he already knows how to read and do math at age 2), and
> then the huge familial let-down when his magical talent turns out to be
> "production magic."  Basically Fullmetal Alchemist-style transmutation
> alchemy in terms of its effects, but never strong enough to be considered
> magical talent worth having (like, a typical skilled Production Mage might
> exhaust themself making a sword, then be too tired to use it).  As we see in
> the flashforward first few pages, the protagonist is very much a prodigy and
> can whip up a manor with presumably little effort.  So...lots of setup.  The
> real story starts next volume, in which he tries to turn his Shameful Exile
> (for having "unworthy" magic) into, well, the STRONGEST FORTIFIED CITY.  He
> also has the fairly standard isekai protagonist superpower of not being an
> asshole to the little people, which is one of those ur-fairytale tropes (the
> person who is nice to those seemingly beneath them is rewarded).  While I
> don't yet read a lot of isekai, it does seem that pretty much any "modern
> world person reincarnated as a noble or other high-status person" character
> gets a lot of mileage out of just being halfway decent to the commoners.
> (Rei Taylor of I'm In Love With The Villainess is reincarnated as a commoner
> and is creepy to those of high status, which I suppose is an inversion.)
> Recommended.  $13.99/$17.99Cn, Rated Teen 13+ (probably for some ribaldy
> early on and the combat scenes near the end). 

Honestly, I'm more interested in non-human Isekai but this sounds rly
cool.

>      Robotics; Notes vol 1-3: Udon - This is a 2012 manga based on an
> Augmented Reality Game, but it only recently got a U.S. translation as a
> Barnes & Noble exclusive.  Diamond has the first volume available about now,
> though.  The premise starts off interestingly enough...a near-future (2019)
> slightly alternate reality features robotics competitions that are
> significantly more advanced than real world Battlebots.  A couple of kids are
> trying to get their high school robotics club back on its feet, and while
> there's a few bits of initial weirdness in the setting, it's otherwise pretty
> much a Club Activities manga in a world similar to ours but some higher tech
> and all the serial numbers filed off (e.g. one inspiration for the club is
> the "Gunbam" series...every brand name is changed, but you can generally tell
> what they're supposed to be).  The weirdness of the world gets greater and
> greater as conspiracies and secrets get uncovered, but then the pacing goes
> straight to hell in the third omnibus.  I don't know if they got orders to
> cut it short, were getting bored, or just thought this would work (it
> didn't), but it feels like they left out a volume or two in the middle of the
> third omnibus.  There's several sequel series, but I don't think I'll be
> bothering with them if they get translated.  Some interesting bits, and it
> works pretty well for the first two omnibuses, but it really fails to stick
> the landing (even though the first scenes of volume 1 were a flash-forwards
> to the Big Fight, so it's not like they didn't know where it had to end up).
> Very mildly recommended.  $24.99 per volume. 

At least it started strong?

>      Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 4: Seven Seas - The pacing of this collection is
> a bit off, I suppose it's a case of definitely NOT writing for the trade (or
> tankobon).  The flashback origin of one of the supervisors finishes up this
> volume (complete with a flashback within the flashback), then there's a
> complete story about tracking down an escaped black market Velociraptor, and
> then the first half of another arc involving a rather uptight supervisor.
> Basically, once Itaru Kinoshita got past the setup in the first two volumes,
> I think he started stretching his legs storytelling-wise but stretched
> outside the boundaries of collection size.  It's telling that if you look at
> the back of the book summary, it's purely about the Velociraptor story, they
> don't even mention the two half-stories.  At least the first-half story
> ending this volume can be considered something of a cliffhanger, whether or
> not intentionally.  Recommended, I did spend rather a lot of time on what's
> really a minor pacing quibble, don't take it as a huge problem.
> $13.99/$17.99, rated Teen 13+ (for dino violence). 

Dino!!!

>      Cat + Gamer vol 1-4: Dark Horse Manga - No, this is not about a cat who
> takes care of a gamer, that's "The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today."
> This is about a hardcore gamer whose life of nothing but work in the office
> and gaming at home is disrupted when she decides (for reasons that escape
> her) to take in a stray cat that was found in her workplace parking lot.
> Musubi is a totally normal tuxedo cat, and Riko is such a gamer nerd that she
> can't help but think of everything in terms of online gaming tropes and
> rules.  For instance, when she realizes Musubi has fleas, she jumps to the
> conclusion that this is a negative status effect and Musubi could very well
> die of it if not helped immediately!  She's capable of behaving like a normal
> person at work, but it's as if when the business clothing gets swapped out
> for sweats, she leaves her ability to interact with the real world in the
> closet with the outfit.  Musubi is basically just a normal cat, though.  Each
> chapter is fairly short, and is followed by a brief "how the chapter looked
> to Musubi" epilogue that anthropomorphizes the cat a little (he has thought
> bubbles and about as much reasoning as you'd expect from a kitten), but it
> doesn't cross the line into "Garfield, but replace a nerdy guy with a nerdy
> lady."  I suppose just as Way of the Househusband is "how to run a household,
> disguised as entertainment," this is an educational book on owning a cat.  Or
> two.  Volume 4 has a her get a second cat, because that can only be good,
> right?  (The anthropomorphic aspects ramp up at this point as well, now that
> there's two cats who can communicate with each other, and the dialogue
> between them gets more like people-talk.)  Recommended.  $11.99/$15.99Cn 

MMneat.

>      The Mighty Onion vol 1: Little Brown Young Readers/Hatchette Book Group
> - This is a sort of spiritual sequel to The Drawing Lesson and The Comics
> Lesson, but focused more on the problems arising from collaboration.  This is
> somewhat ironic, since the vast majority of Crilley's work has been
> writer/artist stuff, while the core conflict here is between a writer who
> can't draw well and an artist who can't write well.  The story is told
> through a mix of passed notes, diary entries (mostly the writer's, so bad
> art), and the occasional finished story pages.  We never actually see the
> "reality" layer except for the cover and title page, and I did find it a bit
> distracting at times...I'm not really into the "kid's diary" style of comics.
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