Lets go Old School...

If you like classics then I must highly recommend Lone Wolf & Cub. Many of us have seen this book on the shelves of bookstores and kept right on looking for a book we would actually buy. I confess I probably would never have read it if not for my History of Comic Books class (thank you Professor L.) The art work is a little gritty and sometimes to stark but the more you read it, the more you don’t mind. What really hooks you in is the storyline. The series follows two rogue samurai, father and infant son, who travel around Japan as swords for hire. This series is rich with Japanese culture.

After reading the first book I wanted my neighbors to commit seppuku. Seriously.   The samurai code and honor are concepts that seem unreal in our current society. Anyway, give the first book a read. Its small enough to fit in your pocket and will burn well if you are dissatisfied…Did I mention there was a good amount of sex and gore?

Never heard of CLAMP? Crawl out of your Hole and visit a Book store!

One of my favorite groups of manga artists are CLAMP. If you like manga and have never heard of CLAMP then you need to crawl out of the hole you live in and make your way to the nearest bookstore! CLAMP is composed of 4 women who have been creating manga since the 80s. One of the things that make CLAMP an amazing group is their diversity.  Romance, Action, Violence. Their work has it all. One of my favorite works by them is a series called X/1999 which is currently on hold and has been for several years.

The series is about a battle to determine if man will continue to dominate the earth. The two apposing forces represent the Earth (the Dragons of Earth) and Heaven (the Dragons of Heaven). One force fights on behalf of the Earth which has been damaged by mankind’s harmful ways; they seek to destroy all of humanity to save the earth. The other group fights on behalf of Heaven and seek to save mankind. There are a lot of details that go into the story but really you should check out a volume yourself. Because of the graphic nature of the story and the direction it was headed, their publishers asked them to change the story. In X, one of the ways that the Dragons of Earth fight is to defile places and cause massive earthquakes which kill a lot of people. At the time this series was running, there were several large earthquakes in Japan and lots of casualties which added to the request that the story move in another direction.

 To my knowledge the series is still on hiatus (pretty sure it’s been like 4+years…) Still a good read even if it stops suddenly. Art work is beautiful and it has an array of interesting and well developed characters. One of my favorites so check it out! I had intended to talk about CLAMP but got stuck on X…Maybe I will touch on some of their other great works another time…