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Friday
Sep102010

The Most Meta Comic of All Time!

DateFriday, September 10, 2010 at 12:00AM | AuthorTravis

Kyle inadvertently creates the coolest manga ever.

Wednesday I said I’d talk about some of the manga series I like the most. Let’s get to it!

  • Fullmetal Alchemist- Imagine a world where Alchemy dominates over Physics as the leading science. Imagine what 1930’s technology would be like if it was powered by Alchemy. Imagine a militaristic state where military trained State Alchemists are the elite upper class. Throw into this mix Edward Elric, the youngest ever State Alchemist, and his equally talented younger brother. Ed has a mechanical arm and leg from an alchemical experiment gone wrong. Al was less fortunate and his soul is now attached to a suit of armor. They will do anything to get their original bodies back. The writing is superb, with a great mix of comedy and extremely elaborate and emotive drama. So far there’s 23 volumes released in the US with 27 total volumes expected.

  • Hellsing- The Hellsing Organization is a British secret para-military organization chartered to protect Queen & Country against all monsters and supernatural beings of all sorts. Their secret weapon is Alucard, a super powerful vampire who only answers to its leader. Throw in French mercenaries and Vatican demon hunters and you’re in for a wild ride. Oh, did I mention there’s also Nazis? Ten action packed volumes which are a total must-read if you even remotely like vampires.

  • Death Note- Shingami are demons who each have a special notebook where they write the names of people they want to die. When one Shingami gets bored and leaves a Death Note in the human world, Light Yagami discovers he has control over life and death. How will he use this power to reshape the world? This 13 volume series is extremely dark, but does a really amazing job of examining almost every aspect of human morality.

  • Le Chevalier d’Eon- D’eon de Beaumont is a historical French figure who was a spy and soldier in Le Secret du Roi of Louis XV. Even more interesting then that, he was also transgender and spent the later half of his life living as a woman. This supernatural thriller takes this fantastical real-life story further as D’eon was not a cross-dresser, but would actually become possessed by the spirit of his dead sister (turning him physically female) so that she could exact vengeance against the demonic Poets that are terrorizing Paris. This extremely bizarre story has gorgeous artwork with lots of cheesecake. A lot of the writing is based on French anagrams and wordplay, which is made all the more interesting when read in English that is translated from the original Japanese (the translation is excellent). An amusing romp for anyone interested in linguistics or the French monarchy. The eighth and final volume of the “Paris Chapter” has just been released in the states. No word on if there will be another series to continue the story.

The Labor Day holiday on Monday pushed new comic day to Thursday instead of Wednesday. Kris and I were also at a baseball game Thursday night so we didn’t have a chance to read everything we pulled. Below is our complete pull list with comments on the things we read. We’ll have comments for the rest of it on Monday.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

  • Batgirl #14 - Batgirl has been great, but this issue was loads of fun. Miller did a great job with the interactions between Batgirl and Supergirl. Also, it parodies the vampire-frenzy going on right now. If you’re going to have a book with vampires, the only way to do it is with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
  • Red Robin #16

Kris, what’s on your pull list?