Video Game Comics/Manga

[TheChargingRhino]

I noticed that there wasn't a Comic/Manga thread for video games, so I decided to create one.

You can argue which comics are better, show off your own comics, or just chat about comics in general.

 

My question- I've been wanting to get the TP manga ever since I learned of its existence. 

Can you get it in the US yet? 

If so, where can you get it?

Is it in one volume and two?

How much?

[The Damned]

Hit up Viz.com, you'll find it.

As for the other purpose of the thread...

I have volumes 1 to 49 or Pokémon Special (Adventures in some parts of the world) sitting on my shelves. It's gotten less and less... well, I would say written, but they barely had a story in the first place. Ever since around half way through the Ruby and Sapphire arc, it's been more and more about showcasing whatever pokémon they haven't featured yet, and less about any of the gaps in the plot from the games. Which is sad, because even before that, it wasn't exactly a strong connection in the first place.

It's been downhill at a slow, steady rate ever since, and I've pretty much stopped collecting it.

Honestly, as I peruse the various scans and fan translations that are now readily available, I see less and less good manga. Even if you filter out the obvious softcore porn titles, you're still left with a lot of series that offer very little past panty shots and fan-service.

The several hundred or so left from that vary from poorly written tropes-fests to marginally acceptable twists on the genre... which then end up having to focus more on action or sexy accidents involving the characters as they get more feedback from readers and editors.

I used to like Yozakura Quartet, but after a while, they started inserting scenes where all the young girl characters were just... sitting around in their underwear for no reason. Seriously, they had no reason for it, there was no circumstance that would justify it. As more chapters came out, more and more of those scenes would appear, until they had one chapter where it was just every girl in the series in skimpy swimsuits in an apartment. I stopped after that.

Meanwhile, Detective Conan hasn't really progressed much since 1994. Oh, they just missed another lead on the Black Organization. Damn, never saw that coming. Good thing another random murder mystery is happening right now to fill in the gap until the next minor incremental step towards the end! (Seriously though, someone is murdering at least one other person about every three or so days in this series. The graveyards must be triple-stacked at this point. That town is not big enough to support such a large, continuous population drain for that long! How are there any people left?)

There are, however, a few good titles out there (for me at least, and isn't that the really important thing, here? ), like Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken. A guy dies and is reincarnated as a slime from a Dragon Quest-like world. Kind of funny, has some interesting takes on fantasy tropes and doesn't pander anywhere as much as other series these days. Lightly explores issues about discrimination against races, building communities into countries, sometimes has cool magic fights against monsters...

Now, even though I find most of manga (and comic books) not worth the while, I still check them out every so often. You never know when you'll find something like All New Wolverine, starring Laura as... the all new Wolverine. I like her. She's funny. This one scene has her facing a bunch of random mutant kids trying to be tough, so she corners them in a parkade. One of them gets the bright idea to set her on fire to kill her. Nope. She's literally walking it off, laughing a bit. Angel swoops in, grabs her, and tosses her into a water fountain to put the flames out. She yells at him, and he can't understand why she's so mad. She tells him she had the situation completely in control. "But, you were on fire!" he says. Her reply?

"That because the only thing scarier than a Wolverine is a Wolverine on FIRE!"

Awesome.

So, I'm still going to check everything out once in a while, because if I hadn't I never would have read that scene, and never would have gotten into the current line of Marvel comic books. I don't read most of them still, but I do check up on a few every month, just to see if they're any good.