A bookshelf interlude

Let's take a break in our tour of my bookshelves to address something I alluded to in the pevious post of the series. That is, this big pile of un-shelved comics. Yes, although most of the available wall space in my house seems to have a bookshelf filling it, I still don't have quite enough bookshelves, and this pile here are all the books that need shelved yet. (There's a similar series of piles across that same room that will also need shelved someday, although those particular piles are my To Be Read piles, so I'll need to read those before I shelve them). 

The majority of the books in these little stacks are manga, so let me just list those that aren't manga first. 

First, there's Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis The Menace 1953-1954, the second volume in Fantagraphics' typically handsomely designed series...and the last which I bought.

There's a pair of Marvel books, the collections of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers Unleashed, the 2010 series by Chris Eliopoulos and Ig Guara, and Marvel Zombies 5, the 2010 Fred Van Lente and Kano entry into the franchise, this one featuring Howard the Duck and Machine Man travel to various Marvel alternate realities to retrieve samples of the zombie virus.

And there's a whole stack of DC Showcase Presents volumes: All-Star Squadron Vol. 1, Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld,  Batgirl Vol.1, Hawkman Vol. 1, Justice League of America Vol. 6, The Phantom Stranger Vol. 1 and Superman Family Vols. 2-3. (I sure would like to see the rest of All-Star Squadron collected, in any format. I loved this particular format, but DC has obviously ceased making them.)

The rest are all manga, from a bunch of different publishers...some of which I don't think are around anymore. I'm just going to list all of the titles below, and only offer some thoughts on a handful. You will probably notice that the numbers I have are...weird. 

There are a lot of first volumes, which is usually because I would try a series out and then stop at the first volume, because I either didn't like it, or else I got distracted and lost track of it immediately, or because it was a review copy from the publisher (When DC's short-lived manga imprint CMX launched, for example, they sent me the first volumes of their first wave of offerings). 

And sometimes I'll have later volumes in a series but not the first ones; that is generally because I started reading the series from the library, and then decided I would like it enough to own it, and started buying new ones as they came out...or that I got caught up on it via volumes from the library and then started buying new ones as they came out. 

I should also note that while I've read all of these, looking at their covers as I sifted through the piles for this post, I realized there were an awful lot of them that I have virtually no memory of at all.

Anyway, here's all the manga in those piles...

•Abenobashi: Magical Sohpping Arcade Vol. 1-2

•Animal Land Vols. 5-11 (Here's one where I read the first few volumes and was then enamored enough to start buying new volumes as they came out...and then I lost track of it. Looking it up now, I guess it only had 14 volumes, so I gave up just as it was nearing its climax, I guess. )

•Astro Boy Vols. 1-6 (These were from Dark Horse and were smaller and slimmer than the standard manga digest. I feel like everyone should read at least one volume of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, if only for, like educational purposes)

•Battle Vixens Vol. 1-5

•Cage of Eden Vols. 1-6, 11-21 (This one was recent enough that I know I've talked about it on the blog before. A comic about Japanese high schoolers fighting extinct prehistoric megafauna with rather horny art, it is one of those relatively rare works that seems like it was created just for me. There's a Lost like element, as it involves a plane crash on a remote island with an overarching mystery that unfolds clue by clure, and while the resolution left me cold, I liked the whole series up until the resolution was revealed. I started buying new copies with volume 11 and read the rest of the series. Then realized it was probably going to go out of print, so I went back and bought the first six volumes, and then I think I had trouble finding 7-10. Are you a comic shop that has them? Let me know and I'll buy 'em!)

•Elfen Lied Omnibus Vol. 1

•Flowers of Evil Vols. 3-11 (Fun fact: Volume 9 blurbs something I wrote here, and credits it to "Every Day Is Like Wednesday." My reviews have been blurbed a few times here and there, but almost always by the place the review ran, rather than by my name. Like, my Good Comics for Kids reviews get blurbed here and there, but the publishers always credit the blurb to School Library Journal, which is obviously more authoritative sounding than "J. Caleb Mozzocco", and is fewer words than "J. Caleb Mozzocco of School Library Journal's Good Comics for Kids.I think this instance was the only time EDILW was blurbed, though.)

•From Eroica With Love Vol. 1

•Full Metal Panic! Vol. 1

•Fushigi Yugi Vols. 1-4, 6-7 (Volume 5 was, randomly, on the previous bookshelf on the tour. I guess the series ran 18 volumes total, so I got less than halfway there.)

•Gals! Vol. 1

•Gothic Sports Vol. 1 (Still love that title.)

•Hetalia: Axis Powers Vols. 1-2 (Probably the weirdest manga in this post, and the hardest comic to explain to someone else.)

•High School of the Dead  Vols. 1-7 (Daisuke Sato and Shouji Sato's zombie apocalypse series, featuring a handful of Japanese high school students trying to survive the familiar scenario and distinguished by its extremely horny art. The series ended prematurely with the death of the writer. It must have been fairly popular, as there was an anime adaptation.)

•Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers Vol. 1

•Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth Vol. 1

•Kare Kano Vols. 1-2

•Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me To You Vol. 1

•Land of the Blindfolded Vol. 1

•Leave it to PET! Vols. 1-3 (Volume 4, the final one in the series, was also atop the last bookshelf discussed. I liked this series a lot.)

•Lost World (A 2003 Dark Horse release of Osamu Tezuka's 1948 sci-fi riff on Arthur Conan Doyle's story, in which a rogue planet filled with dinosaurs and monsters approaches Earth and is visited by a group of explorers. Another seemingly made-for-Caleb book.)

•Madara Vol. 1

•Miyuki-chan in Wonderland (A CLAMP anthology, the first chapter is a loose riff on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.)

•Monster Collection Vol. 1

•Musashi #9 Vol. 1

•Negima! Vols. 10-11, 13, 15, 17-20, 23, 26 (This one has a pretty labored premise, following a 10-year-old boy wizard sent to Japan to teach English at an all-girls school where he's supposed to keep his magical powers a secret, but the weird student body, including a vampire and a robot, continually lure him into using them. There are elements of a harem comedy to it, but it's also a rather shonen-like fight comic, from what I remember...? Anyway, it's from Ken Akamatsu, who was responsible for the previous Love Hina, which I enjoyed. I started reading the series and, at one point, I found all of these available for half off at a used book store, so I snapped them all up. Unfortunately, I never made it through the first nine volumes, sooooo these are all still unread. I guess there were 38 volumes total. At this point, I can't imagine I will ever assemble them all and read them...) 

•Neon Genesis Evangelion Vols. 1-3 (Later printings of original manga adaptation of the anime. I originally read the manga in volumes borrowed from the library, hoping they would provide some clarity to the mysteries of the anime, particularly regarding the ending. They did not.)

•Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project Omnibus Book 1 (A manga based on a video game based on the anime; I never played the video game, and I don't think I knew there was a video game when I first read this. It features the same characters from the manga, but the tone is much lighter and more fun. I should probably reread this and then see if I can still find the rest of the series.)

•Phoenix Vol. 2: A Tale of the Future (More Tezuka; was there a volume 1? Do I own it? If I were texting you this, I would insert a shrugging emoji here.)

•President Dad Vol. 1

•Primitive Boyfriend Vol. 3

•Saving Life Vol. 1

•Soul Eater Vols. 4-6

•The Stellar Six of Gingacho Vol. 1

•Summoner Girl Vol. 1

•Swan Vol. 1

•Sweet & Sensitive Vol. 1

•Sword of the Dark Ones Vol. 1

•Triage X Vol. 1 (I checked this out as it was from the artist of Highschool of the Dead. It's about sexy, scantily clad nurses with guns fighting crime or something. I didn't care for it.)

•Tuxedo Gin Vols. 1-8 (Teenage boxer Ginji is on his way to a date with his dream girl when he's killed in a motorcycle accident. An angel tells him that, if he lives out the natural life span of an animal, then he can come back to life in his own body. He chooses his would-be girlfriend's favorite animal, an Adelie penguin, and spends his new penguin life with her, although she's unaware that he's really Ginji in penguin form. I liked this crazy-ass premise enough to stick with the series for eight volumes before losing track of it. I've always meant to return to and finish it though; it looks like it ran for a total of 15 volumes.)

•Who Says Warriors Can't Be Babes? Vols. 1-2

•Yakitate!! Japan Vol. 3 (This is a manga series about bread baking, and it's very good. One of the most magical things about manga, at least looking at it from the Western perspective, wherein most comics fall into one of a half-dozen or so genres, is that manga can seemingly be about anything and, no matter how off-beat the subject matter might be, it can still be incredibly engaging. Manga like this one are eloquent arguments that subject and genre don't matter nearly as much in the production of a good comic as the talent that goes into it.)