Entries tagged with clamp

Normally I never buy manga I already own in another edition.

But the new CLOVER omnibus published by Dark Horse was just too pretty to resist.

( Feast your eyes on this! )

Years ago, Tokyopop published CLOVER in English. I already had the whole series in Chinese, so I only picked up the first Tokyopop volume out of curiosity.

It was a disappointing experience. Although Tokyopop did reproduce the translucent dustjacket and colour illustrations, the translation was sometimes awkward, the text was in an unattractive serif font, and the artwork was flipped so the pages read left to right - remember those days? - which had odd results since one character had an artificial hand.

I wish I still had it for comparison, but I ended up donating it to the library. I didn't even know that edition had gone out of print.

Anyway, Dark Horse has done a fine job with this omnibus. The paper is good quality stock, the images are crisp, the font is standard, and the artwork has been kept in its original orientation. And I've only browsed it so far, but the translation seems for the most part to be smooth and accurate. (I have nitpicks about a few names, but I suppose romanisation is a judgment call.)

But the real lure is in the colour illustrations: not only the cover art and splash pages are included, but also a bonus gallery of seventeen gorgeous images, most likely sourced from CLAMP's various artbooks.

If you've never read CLOVER before, this is a beautiful way to start.

( More pics )

( Spoilerish nitpicking )

X was the first CLAMP manga I ever read. When I started reading it, 1999 was in the future.

I'd never even heard of CLAMP back then. But it was the cover that caught my attention. You know the one. Glossy black, with that picture of Kamui standing under Tokyo Tower in the moonlight, huge eyes and wavy hair and blood red sakura wafting past. Totally Clampesque, and completely different from all the shounen and seinen manga on the shelves in those days.

I remember being intrigued and picking it up and putting it down again, because back then I was a poor uni student and $30 AUD was a lot to go drop on a graphic novel. (Yes, they cost that much then. Insert obligatory "Kids these days!" comment.)

But in the end, I circled back for it, and although I didn't warm to the story straight away - remember back when Kamui was a cold little bastard instead of the fragile ball of angst we know so well? - it intrigued me enough to keep going. After all, there really was nothing else like it then. Viz's collection Four Shojo Stories had only come out a few months earlier, and that had been a revelation in itself. ("Japanese comics from a uniquely female perspective!" the cover said. "It's Not Just Girls' Stuff Anymore.")

So yeah, Dragons of Heaven and Dragons of Earth and mystic swords and duelling prophecies and starcrossed lovers and bucketloads of angst, and a movie and a TV series and a billion volumes of other CLAMP manga later, and wow, cats in the cradle, we're just around the corner from 2009. Which is a good time for the

x2009 fanfiction challenge, 'Ten Years Later'. Sign ups are open now, for anyone else feeling the nostalgia.

X was the first CLAMP manga I ever read. Which makes it kind of funny that I still haven't finished reading it. Here's hoping they pick it up again before 1999 falls even further into the past.

(Though I suppose they're still doing better than Minami Ozaki, whose Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989 is still crawling along. By all rights, Koji and Izumi should be pushing forty by now.)

Rolling in CLOVER

We're gonna party like it's 2009...