It’s been a while, hasn’t it, dear readers? Classwork and all the activities which happen at my university have kept me away from writing for a while, but take solace that you are not the only ones with whom I’ve lost touch: my family rarely hears from me, my friends from college never do, and one of my pet cats still looks longingly out of the window as it awaits my return. But, this article will at least reach those who are in the first two groups–my cat will have to wait until I visit home next weekend.
As some of you may have noticed, the artist whose comic I marked at the Baltimore Comic Con, Sean Bishop, commented on my article and kindly offered to give me a free signed edition of his work. (I tell you, as surreal as it was for him to see his work blogged about, it was even more so to see one of my writings produce an effect in the physical world.) His generosity even extended to him sending two posters–one in color and the other in black and white–of his Rurouni Kenshin drawing, which may be seen in the prior blog post. Both of these are exquisite to behold; though, I find myself gravitating to the one in black and white, which no doubt shows to how full an extent I have immersed myself in Japanese culture. As I promised him, here’s a little review of his work.
The story concerns a criminal with a $50,000 dollar bounty on her head, who finds herself forced to cooperate with a lowly bounty hunter in order to work off her debt to society. This female misfit, named Ms. Aegea (An interesting name. Make me wonder whether I’m supposed to compare the character to Queen Aegea of the Amazons or King Aegeus of the Athenians–but that’s just my classical mind at work), was captured by the bounty hunter for staying in a park past curfew–this bounty hunter had no idea of the bounty. Judging from the scenes which show them working together, the two make a great pair. We’ve yet to learn the bounty hunter’s proper name. Since he makes Ms. Aegea pay for everything, she just calls him “freeloader.” The bounty hunter pair, in which we have one rather gung-ho character and another who is laid back, reminds me of Black Cat. I’m expecting some interesting things from the story. I’m especially curious what the freeloader’s background is, which will probably be revealed along with his name.
One of my favorite series.
This style of drawing seems to be a pleasant mixture of the kind found in Japanese-style manga and American Sunday Comics. This allows the characters to be very expressive, increasing certain scenes’ comedic impact. However, one does wish that the backgrounds held more detail, but the characters draw in the reader’s attention sufficiently to render this defect negligible.
Yet, this comic book has one flaw which makes me almost prompts me to break out into Juvenalian indignation. That Mr. Bishop realizes also it makes my complaint more justified: he committed the great and nearly unforgivable sin of making this comic too brief. I want to know what happens next! In particular, the final scene abruptly ends with a dark figure bombing a mailing facility as the freeloader says “That guy just…jaywalked across the street!” The desire to know how this scene continues practically makes the reader want to scream!
Another infamous bomber. If you haven’t seen Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, you really need to.
So, Mr. Bishop is writing a wonderful comic, which I encourage everyone to either buy or eagerly wait for its page length to increase before getting it.
Medieval Otaku 