What other comics I’m into these days...

Besides classic comic strip reprints, and some old comic book reprints, like the Barks that just started coming out, and the John Stanley stuff from Drawn and Quarterly, pretty much the only other comics I’m into these days are Japanese comic reprints. Another whole overwhelming world of comics. The main series I’m into and reading right now are Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game and Touch, Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys and whatever Osamu Tezuka is coming out - I’m currently trying to pick up all his Black Jacks (just got the first 5 of 17), though I haven’t had time to start reading them yet. I am about halfway through the second volume of his Princess Knight, which I’m really enjoying. I’m also about two-thirds through the first of four 1,500 page collections of Sanpei Shirato’s Kamui-Den (French language edition) - at first it didn’t grab me, but lately I’ve gotten super into it. Over the holidays I also picked up the seventh volume of Taiyou Matsumoto’s Le Samourai Bamboo and all three volumes of Kazuo Kamimura’s Lorsque Nous Vivions Ensemble - another huge collection that stretches out over 2,100 pages. Haven’t had time to start reading those last two yet either, but really looking forward to them. It does seem to me that French language publishers seem to publish more interesting, classic Japanese comics than English publishers. I kind of wonder why things seem to have worked out like that. Even some great contemporary stuff, like 20th Century Boys, was translated into French much earlier - the 22nd and final volume was published in February of 2007 in France, while in the US, Viz has just last month published volume 18.