About Heroes

Author and Artist: Majiko
Translation: Alethea & Athena Nibley
Publisher: Tokyopop

It is very ironic that the artist and writer of St. Lunatic is properly named Majiko. The cover of the manga reminded me of the Nippon Ichi game Disgaea. Actually most of the look of the book reminds me of the NIS character designs. Which I think is why I enjoyed this little title so much. The story centers around Niko Kanzaki and her brother, Atchan, who are very poor and he can't keep a teaching job for more than a week. Atchan gets an offer to work as a teacher at the prestigious private school St. Lunatic High, complete with a house for the two of them, so of course they jump at the chance. At night, St. Lunatic is a high school not for privileged humans, but for demons. As Niko tries, and fails, to fit in, she's drawn to Ren-Kun, who looks almost human, though his wings come in handy every time Niko gets into trouble. Each story is separated by periods of classes and there is all kinds of possibilities the writer can take us through. I found this manga very appealing and offbeat, although Niko's hyperactive overreactions to everything could be irritating, the art really makes it funny. I'm sure the premise of the main story is to see how Niko and Ren get together, but I am really interested in all the supporting characters like the pumpkin head and mermaid. I can't believe that this is Majiko's first manga, it seems like it's been done by professionals. I really look forward to future volumes of this cute and funny series. A

Author: David Hine
Artist: Hans Steinback
Publisher: Tokyopop

David Hine is no stranger to writing comics. He has written Spawn and even some X-men titles. This seems to be his first shot at a OEL (Original English Language) manga and he is teamed up with Hans Steinback famous for his work on Midnight Opera. The title is a little misleading, when I think of poison candy I think of all the horrible Halloween stories parents and teachers used to tell me, maybe I had a weird childhood. It is really a story about a group of teenagers that find themselves the victims of the South Korean Adolescent Retrovirus (SKAR). This is a disease that triggers the latent mutant gene in a tiny minority of adolescents all over the world, triggering inside of them remarkable superhuman and telekinetic powers. The twist is that the retrovirus also kills within a few months. The main characters are Sam Chance and his girlfriend Donna as they struggle to come to terms with Sam's newfound abilities and the death sentence that comes with them. Sam is frozen and wakes up one hundred years later to find out his girlfriend and all his friends are dead. It's a promising start and the story is pretty solid, but for some reason I really couldn't get into the book. Could have been the awkward dialogue or the way Sam acts, but to me he's not a likeable character. Steinback's art is really inconsistent; while some of it is impressive, some panels look odd and out of place. Heads look bigger at times and bodies are sometimes contorted in unrealistic proportions. Not a great start, but it does peek my interest where Sam's story will go from here. C+

Author & Artist: Eun Jin Seo
Translator: Lauren Na
Publisher: Tokyopop

To look at the cover I would think that this is one of the many hundred CLAMP manga out right now. They seem to put out more books than your average creators. However, Fantamir is not even a manga, it is a manhwa (Korean comics). Seo is the same creator that brought you Peppermint, which is also available from Tokyopop. Fantamir is a story about Mir who loses her magical abilities, so she decides to retire and become a student in a normal school. And of course it's never that easy! To her surprise, she's enrolled in a shaman class, and the school has a mysterious history attached to her family's past. I can't say enough about the gorgeous artwork, it's really amazing that the same artist can pull off those great action sequences and the panels where characters are just acting goofy. Sounds stereotypical of this genre I know, but the perfect combination of humor, beautiful art and drama gives you a wonderful story that you will be looking forward to with the release of each volume. A-