Ninjas Win!

Teen Read Month Read Beyond Reality Tournament!
In a very close vote, Ninjas beat Vampires and Fairies beat Zombies!

So this week it’s:
NINJAS vs FAIRIES!

This could actually be a close match, power wise.

Ninja are fast, have a variety of powers (real and illusion), but they are mortal.

Fairies can vary in size from inches to human size, have magic powers, are immortal but are allergic to cold iron.

Who can win?

VOTE HERE!
Comment Here!

Teen Read Month Read Beyond Reality Tournament!

NINJAS vs VAMPIRES!

Will Recca’s flames toast the vampires? Or will he be overwhelmed by the strength and speed of the Vampires of the Cross Academy? Maybe they will be outnumbered by the bunshin of Naruto? Or perhaps Karin will… okay I can’t really see her fighting, but maybe her family?

I suppose the sparklepires will win the day again.

FAIRIES vs ZOMBIES!

Fairies come in all sorts of sizes, have incredible speed, good hygiene, cunning, and magical powers!

Zombies are implacable, slow, stupid, nasty smelling, and flammable.

Fairies are the protagonists and antagonists of a large number of books.

Zombies are either smelly angst-muppets or smelly annoyances with only a few books.

Fairies should win!

VOTE HERE!
Comment here!

Teen Read Month Read Beyond Reality Tournament!

ROBOTS vs FAIRIES!

The Good Neighbors by Holly Black and Ted Naifah tends to make me think of a Terry Pratchett quote

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.

These Fair Folk are not the Disney type. They are old school. They are not nice.

The Transformers have a classic good guy/bad guy storyline starring robots. The movies have resurrected this series from the 80’s, although the comics were always a bit stronger than the cartoon. Cartoons back then seemed to require that nobody win or get shot or anything.

Vogelein the Clockwork Fairy will sit out the battle this week. While she is a sentient robot who requires winding every 24 hours, she is also able to see the Summerlands, where the Fairies dwell.

ALIENS vs ZOMBIES

We actually don’t seem to have as many aliens as one might expect in the in the graphic novel section. There’s Spock and various others in the Star Trek manga and graphic novels. The books we have are mostly based on the old original series not the new, revised movie version of the original series. Lots more special effects because they are cheaper when you only have to draw them.

Of course we also have Superman! I think he may be a naturalized alien. Or maybe that was an Elseworld. But he isn’t from around here so that will do.

I honestly can’t think of anything nice to say about the zombies. We don’t have any in the YA graphic novel section. There are a few in the adult section because they are mature reader only books. Because zombies are disgusting. Zombies stories are depressing. They mostly end with not being turned into a zombie TODAY. No guarantees about tomorrow.

There is currently some effort in teen fiction to turn zombies into romantic leads, thereby displacing the vampire. These are not old time zombies that mindlessly eat human flesh and are rotting where they stand. These are mostly just teens without a pulse. And probably a very nasty smell.

*runs away with my Zombie survival guide*

VOTE HERE!
Comment here to defend your choice!

X-Men Misfits is very disconcerting for me. Not just for the uniforms.

The storyline is interesting. I was surprised that Kitty was the only female, but then remembered she was the first of the new generation of mutants in the original stories. What threw me off was having many male characters who had been much older than Kitty de-aged to their teen years. All the other female characters remained adults. I gather there will be some new girls in the next book.

They do use a lot of the original characters but they are mostly not introduced or explained. I am not sure someone could pick up this book without the background and completely follow the action.

The art is pretty, although they don’t always distinguish people very well. The new looks for some of the characters is rather odd. For example The Beast is now some combination of the Catbus and Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro.

Bad guys are now good. Good guys are now jerks. Some things are very confusing but original Marvel is a bit messed up now too so I suppose I can’t complain.

I’m not sure how successful this book was overall.

Teen Read Month Read Beyond Reality Tournament!
Some wizards and vampires are frankly too adorable to fight.

Negima!? Neo! - Negi Springfield, mage in training and master of battle magic. He is backed by his fearsome and strangely skilled class 2A. No quidditch jokes, please.

Chibi Vampire – Karin doesn’t need to drink blood, she needs to give it away! When she finds an unhappy person, she can bite them and give them her extra blood, giving them confidence and happiness.

But don’t think being pretty or cute means they aren’t tough!

Courtney Crumrin is a magic user with an attitude and it ain’t nice. She doesn’t care about popularity or suffering fools. She does like the fairies and goblins and other things that go bump in the night.

Vampire Knight Yuki Cross protects the humans of the Day Class from the vampires of the Night Class at the Cross Academy, where the Headmaster is trying to improve relations between humans and vampires. Secrets and betrayals abound!

VOTE HERE!
Comment here to defend your choice!

EDITED TO ADD: The winners are Ninjas and Vampires. Come back for their match up in the third week.

Teen Read Month Read Beyond Reality Tournament!

NINJA vs PIRATES!

For Team Ninja we have Uzumaki Naruto of the Naruto manga! With his massive ninja powers, he can overwhelm an opponent with his Shadow Clone Technique, making hundreds of copies of himself. There’s power in numbers, folks! He can also use the explosive Rasengan technique, or just summon an enormous, sword wielding toad!

For Team Pirate we have Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hats! Luffy consumed the Gum Gum fruit which gave him super-stretching powers. His crew includes an expert swordsman, a weather-controlling thief, a marksman who can also invent anything, a chef who literally kicks butt, a shapeshifting doctor, a superpowered archeologist, a cyborg shipwright, and a living skeleton.

Back to Team Ninja with Recca from Flame of Recca. Recca is a modern day guy who always wanted to be a ninja. He eventually learns he is a real, flame-wielding ninja. He chooses to serve Yanagi, a reincarnated princess with the power to heal. Recca’s friends acquire various magical weapons to help Recca.

Team Pirate is joined by Polly and her loyal crew. A proper girl proclaimed the new Pirate Queen, Polly finds it in herself to lead the crew, escape the Navy, and thwart the son of the Pirate King. Swordfighting, blazing guns, and explosions are just part of the action.

VOTE HERE!
Comment here to defend your choice!

I started out as a Marvel fan. I read Spider-man, then got into the Avengers, then, of course, the X-Men. Then I became a DC fan, then manga.

Marvel started to disappoint. Then they decided to cut the number of mutants at the end of the House of M and had mutant superpowers floating around in the upper stratosphere and I threw an online hissy fit. I can only suspend so much disbelief. (The logical conclusion of stopping mutations in the 616 Marvel universe should have lead to a dramatic rise in childhood cancers, stillborns, and a plummeting birth rate. Just saying.)

So I haven’t been reading much Marvel lately.

Still, I was a fan and I was fairly familiar with Wolverine’s myriad number of secret origins and personal histories. (He gets retconned a lot.)

So I was interested when Del Rey announced they would be producing an all new, alternate-universe book of Wolverine.

Logan is now a teenager, though the book is set in modern times. He still has very few memories. He was found in a forest and taken into a martial arts school, where he excelled.

Naturally, Logan’s unknown past has to come back and haunt him. Lots of messiness follows. Conspiracies, old enemies, huge agencies chucking medical ethics out the window, etc.

To the author’s credit, they aren’t just putting a retread on the original stories. There are new characters and new-ish situations.

Worth a read.

Note: Del Rey is also publishing a re-imagined X-Men starring Kitty Pryde as the first female mutant in her generation. So she’s off to the here-to-fore all-boys Xavier School. Teen angst ensues. With superpowers. And Japanese-school uniforms rather than the traditional black and yellow bodysuits.

Viz is putting out a ton of Naruto books in the next three months.  Three or four volumes a month.

Keep an eye on the Manga and Graphic novel bookletter for the new arrivals.

Visual literacy (or, as it is colloquially known, visuacy) is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading. — Wikipedia

In other words (if you will pardon the expression): reading comics!

Now, most comic books do use words in a variety of ways; Spider-man contemplates via thought balloons, Superman exclaims, and villains monologue.

But you don’t need words to tell a story.

Owly is a graphic novel series by Andy Runton, featuring Owly, a kind-hearted owl who wants to help make other animals happy, and his friend Wormy, a clever earthworm who often has to help other animals learn to not be afraid of Owly. Simple symbols are used for dialogue. The series is aimed at a younger audience, but can be enjoyed by any age.

GON is a tiny fictional dinosaur with a big appetite, a short temper, and a big heart. He swims with the fish and (sort of) flies with the birds and will often use his enormous jaws to take a bite out of a bully. Gorgeous detailed drawings depict the animals and environments from all over the planet. Rated for teens because sometimes Mother Nature ain’t pretty.