#second variety

So after spending about a year in Middle Earth, I thought I could come back to sci-fi and I chose to keep reading Philip K. Dick’s short stories with volume 2 of the collected stories: “Second Variety”.

It’s not my first time reading PKD so I’m not surprised but I’m glad to come back to this, I really like reading these stories and I’m always impressed about how he could create worlds and characters in just a few pages. And as usual, most stories end on a twist or an incredible revelation, a good reward for having read the fiction.

Like I’ve said before (if you were already following me last year!), I always try to read several books at the same time and especially different types of books like novels, mangas, comics and so on. So I’ve also just read a French bande dessinée (a comic) called Undertaker, volume 4 (which was published quite recently).

This series has become popular quickly in French bookstores almost since its first volume, published in 2015 and in just two years the talented authors Ralph Meyer (art) and Xavier Dorison (story) have already published four volumes.

This bande dessinée tells the story of an undertaker (you wouldn’t have guessed) with something to hide, trying to make a living in the wild West but he keeps meeting shady people from his past and things keep going from bad to worse.

Dorison and Meyer have already worked together and I think they make a good team (like Remender and Murphy in american comic books) so I’m always waiting for the next volume. If Undertaker is published in your country, why not giving it a try?

In terms of manga, these days I’m buying the “deluxe edition” (published in France by Panini Manga) of City Hunter. I used to watch the anime when I was a kid but in France it was censored and had a very bad dubbing but when you’re a kid, you don’t realize... So, recently I tried reading the first volume and I liked it a lot!

Tukasa Hōjō’s style is quite retro but I appreciate it! He’s very good at drawing women (as you can see with all the scans I post here on ArtbookIsland) and this manga is sooo funny, I find myself laughing out loud sometimes, it’s fantastic! I also like seeing Tokyo in the 80s and Ryō Saeba, the hero, is pretty badass (as much as he’s stupid and perverted).

As usual, if you’ve never read City Hunter, give it a try, you might like it, especially if you like vintage mangas, you’ll have a good time!