Comics and MangaArtemis Fowl makes his debut in graphic form, 'guardsmice' discover a dark plot, and manga goes mammoth, writes Katherine Farmar
Fans of the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer can now enjoy the young criminal genius's exploits in graphic form: Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel (Puffin, £7.99) adapts the first book in the series with great style and wit, telling the story of how the 12-year-old Artemis Fowl the Second schemes and plots a way to regain his family fortune by holding a fairy hostage. The adventures of teenage spy Alex Rider have got the graphic treatment, too, with action-packed adaptations of Anthony Horowitz's phenomenally popular Stormbreaker and Point Blanc (both Walker Books, £7.99) on the shelves.
But the best graphic novels are always the ones that started out that way, as is proved by David Petersen's extraordinary Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 (Archaia Studios Press, $34.95). Mice are small, even for woodland creatures; the Mouse Guard walk the paths between the mouse towns and keep mouse travellers safe from predators. But not all mice agree on how best to arrange this, and in the autumn of 1152 three young guardsmice discover a sinister plot that threatens to tear mouse society in two. Petersen's exquisitely drawn miniature world rivals the rabbit-warrens of Watership Down for richness and depth: Mouse Guard is both beautiful to look at and fascinating to read.
Robot Dreams by Sara Varon (First Second, $16.95) is a wordless fable of friendship and loss. Dog makes a robot from a kit to be his friend, but when he takes Robot to the beach, Robot rusts until he can't move. Unable to help him, Dog leaves Robot on the sand, where he dreams of rescue while Dog tries to fill the gap left in his life by Robot's absence. Robot Dreams is sweet without being saccharine and sad without being bitter or dark; its unsentimental warmth leaves a lasting impression.
MASASHI KISHIMOTO'S long-running series Naruto (Viz Media, £5.99) is one of the most popular manga (Japanese comics) in the world, and it's not hard to see why. The irrepressible Uzumaki Naruto is treated as an outcast by the people of his village because at his birth he was used as the vessel for a rampaging fox-demon. This just makes him all the more determined to win the villagers' respect by becoming the best ninja ever - though that doesn't stop him from playing tricks, slacking off in class and generally making a nuisance of himself in the tradition of Tom Sawyer and Dennis the Menace. Naruto's extraordinary action sequences are leavened with a double handful of comedy and supported by strong and appealing characters; the series has been running for years in Japan and has new volumes coming out in English on a regular schedule.
Another long-running and immensely popular manga series is Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket (Tokyopop, £6.99), the story of a resourceful girl called Tohru Honda who takes up residence with the Sohma family after she is orphaned, and discovers that the Sohmas suffer a strange curse: any time any of them is hugged by someone of the opposite sex, they transform into their Chinese zodiac animal. Strange as this is, Tohru herself has always stood out "like a rice ball in a fruits basket" - so among the eccentric and mysterious Sohma family she fits right in. Fruits Basket is funny and heartwarming; Strawberry Marshmallow, by Barasui (Tokyopop, £6.99), is just plain funny. The plotless, meandering chronicle of the exploits of four ordinary girls - crazy Miu, shy Matsuri, level-headed Chika and her chain-smoking older sister Nobue - has a rare freshness and bite to it.
For older readers, the Minx line of graphic novels aimed at teenage girls was launched this year. The best of the series so far has been Re-Gifters (DC Comics/Minx, $9.99), written by Mike Carey with art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel: it tells the twisty and complicated tale of how Korean-American girl Dik Seong Jen, known to her friends as "Dixie", juggles family, friendship, her crush on a boy who doesn't know she exists, and the national hapkido championships. The story zigs and zags at a dizzying pace - though not so dizzying as the knots tied by the protagonist of Death Note (Viz Media £5.99), another hugely popular long-running manga series. Death Note, written by Tsugumi Ohba, with art by Takeshi Obata, concerns Light Yagami, a bored teenage boy who stumbles upon the power to kill anyone whose name and face he knows, and uses this power to rid the world of people he considers undesirable. His actions quickly draw the attention of the police, and a dark and compelling game of cat and mouse ensues, with much rumination on the nature of power.
And if the young comics enthusiast in your life can't decide what kind of story they want, The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga 2 (Robinson, £9.99) follows the first such anthology in bringing together every possible kind of story - 526 pages of them - between the covers of a single volume. Romance, action, drama, comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, horror - it's all there, and cheap at twice the price.
Katherine Farmar is a freelance writer and editor. She blogs about comics at http://puritybrown.blogspot.com