Changing direction

The past few days, I've been hurtling through issues #2-6 of the manga "Death Note". It's a supernatural (mass) murder mystery with more twists than my Agatha Christie collection. The two main characters are both masterminds, but the real geniuses are writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata for managing to sustain such an intense, consistently shocking read without descending into absurdity.

Something I realised around issue #3 or 4 was how much more exciting and mentally stimulating it is than most of the American comics I "subscribe" to through my local comic store (actually far from local, but that's another story). It's also way more economical - $12 for an hour's worth of manga as opposed to $7 for a 15-minute US comic (and that's only if it contains a letters page).

The conclusion's obvious. I'm gonna cut back on my standing order and concentrate on collecting more marvelous manga. So out go "Astonishing X-Men", "Justice League Unlimited", "The Maze Agency", "Warlord", "Wonder Woman" (after 15+ years!) and "Usagi Yojimbo", leaving only "Knights Of The Dinner Table" and the occasional release from the likes of Evan Dorkin, Peter Bagge and Chynna Clugston-Major.

From now on, I'll be doing the majority of my comic reading from right to left.