Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Manga So Nice I'd Buy It Twice!
Inspired by this (likely erroneous) news item, David Welsh and I were discussing which other manga series we'd like to see in omnibus form. Bleach was a given for both of us, but here are some other dream manga repackagings I'd love to see. (Hopefully David will be along with his own wish list shortly.)
Love Roma omnibus - Wouldn't it be great to sit down and re-read this charming romance manga in one volume?
What's Michael? fat phonebook editions - I love Makoto Kobayashi's What's Michael? series, but I've never bought any of the collections because they're too slim for the price. But I'd be all over a cheap, thick collection of these excellent humor strips. Plus, a big, fat format just seems fitting for a series that frequently focuses on fat, lazy cats.
Club 9 omnibus - Speaking of Makoto Kobayashi, I'd love to see his Club 9 series collected into one volume, especially since Dark Horse never released the fourth and final volume of their flopped translation. (According to Michael Gombos of Dark Horse, they've thought about putting the whole story in an omnibus edition but there are no definite plans to do so at present. Club 9 fans: Let's let Dark Horse know there's interest in this!!)
Sgt. Frog omnibus editions - I'd love to see this hilarious manga series collected in larger and longer editions. For one thing, a larger format would probably make some of Mine Yoshizaki's minuscule background gags easier to appreciate.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind omnibus - I loved Viz's sepia-toned reprint of this classic manga, but I'd love it even more if the entire story were available in one oversized volume.
Akira oversized hardcovers - At roughly 10 x 7, Dark Horse's reprints are already larger than the standard manga book, but I'd love to see this manga masterpiece released in an oversized — and unflipped! — hardcover format à la DC's "Absolute" books, perhaps even slipcased as two volumes rather than six. (And, yes, I would totally buy this book again even though I already own it in multiple formats.)
Akira Club art book - Speaking of Akira, I hear there was an art book published in Japan collecting a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo's sketches and miscellaneous Akira illustrations. Wouldn't it be neat if someone published an English edition of this book? Oh, wait...
UPDATE: Here is David's list, and I thought of one more collection I'd love to see: The Collected Works of Usamaru Furuya.
Inspired by this (likely erroneous) news item, David Welsh and I were discussing which other manga series we'd like to see in omnibus form. Bleach was a given for both of us, but here are some other dream manga repackagings I'd love to see. (Hopefully David will be along with his own wish list shortly.)
Love Roma omnibus - Wouldn't it be great to sit down and re-read this charming romance manga in one volume?
What's Michael? fat phonebook editions - I love Makoto Kobayashi's What's Michael? series, but I've never bought any of the collections because they're too slim for the price. But I'd be all over a cheap, thick collection of these excellent humor strips. Plus, a big, fat format just seems fitting for a series that frequently focuses on fat, lazy cats.
Club 9 omnibus - Speaking of Makoto Kobayashi, I'd love to see his Club 9 series collected into one volume, especially since Dark Horse never released the fourth and final volume of their flopped translation. (According to Michael Gombos of Dark Horse, they've thought about putting the whole story in an omnibus edition but there are no definite plans to do so at present. Club 9 fans: Let's let Dark Horse know there's interest in this!!)
Sgt. Frog omnibus editions - I'd love to see this hilarious manga series collected in larger and longer editions. For one thing, a larger format would probably make some of Mine Yoshizaki's minuscule background gags easier to appreciate.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind omnibus - I loved Viz's sepia-toned reprint of this classic manga, but I'd love it even more if the entire story were available in one oversized volume.
Akira oversized hardcovers - At roughly 10 x 7, Dark Horse's reprints are already larger than the standard manga book, but I'd love to see this manga masterpiece released in an oversized — and unflipped! — hardcover format à la DC's "Absolute" books, perhaps even slipcased as two volumes rather than six. (And, yes, I would totally buy this book again even though I already own it in multiple formats.)
Akira Club art book - Speaking of Akira, I hear there was an art book published in Japan collecting a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo's sketches and miscellaneous Akira illustrations. Wouldn't it be neat if someone published an English edition of this book? Oh, wait...
UPDATE: Here is David's list, and I thought of one more collection I'd love to see: The Collected Works of Usamaru Furuya.
Labels: Idle Dreaming, Manga