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There are two universal truths in today’s rapidly changing comics industry. The first is that Dog Man is the defining comic of our era. The second is that more people are reading manga and Webtoons (aka vertical scroll comics) than ever before. Therefore we at Comics Beat have chosen to embark on a new venture: Beat’s Bizarre Adventure. Every other week, we’ll have three writers recommend some of their favorite books and series from Japan, Korea and elsewhere. This week we have hard-hitting superheroes, an unexpectedly refreshing villainess isekai series, and, of course, zombies.

The Red Muscle

Story and Art: Rudy Mora
Additional Art: Mariel Maranan
Publisher: Tapas.io / Itch.io

The Red Muscle is the story of Scarlet, a 24 year old fitness buff who aspires to become the titular superhero. She wears a skintight bodysuit that enhances her strength. It has a simple yet eye-catching design that draws inspiration from Super Sentai or Power Rangers. Being a character who prides herself on working out, Scarlet’s physique is fitting for a strength-based superhero. She’s sure to have some readers on their hands and knees barking.

The world of The Red Muscle veers towards parody, though not as much as The Boys or One Punch Man. One of the villains, the evil fish woman Magnate Ula, runs a major export industry underwater via the various human-made goods she steals. Her goons work in cubicles and include video editors, social media managers and financial advisors. That’s just one way that artist Rudy Mora has fun with the superhero genre.

The characters have very simple and recognizable silhouettes. Rudy gives each design a range of facial expressions as well as a sense of fluid motion. My only critique would be that locations and backgrounds look too simple at times. At others, the lineart in the backgrounds does not comply with the guidelines for one or two point perspectives. As a result, items in the background that are meant to have a rectangular or square shape look wobbly or incomplete at times. It’s quite jarring to me personally, but may not be noticed by the average reader. I can only guess this is due to the backgrounds being deprioritized compared to the characters that inhabit the space.

Even so, there’s a charm that radiates from each panel of Rudy’s comic. You can see the passion and fun that goes into making it. You can read it for free on Tapas, but if you’d really like to support the artist, I recommend buying the PDFs of each chapter on itch. They come with bonus art from other artists like Mariel Maranan, as well as Rudy’s other comics which are available on his site as well. — Justin Guerrero

Concubine Walkthrough

Writer/Artist: bongbong
Translator: Catherine Roh
Lettering: Rachel Ordway
Platform: Tapas.io

Yona is your average junior high school girl living her life. Her friends are obsessed with a role-playing game called Concubine Walkthrough, where you play as Lili and try to become the empress. Yona commits the grave sin of asking them what’s so great about the game and ends up as smitten as they are. Five years pass and the game is remastered for virtual reality. Yona doesn’t miss a beat and has another go but now she’s stuck in the game – not as Lili, but as the final boss Imperial Noble Consort Ranhee. Will she manage to stay alive, log out of the game, and make it to her college entrance exams?

I’ve been on a fantasy romance hunt lately, and my past experiences discovering new titles have been hit-or-miss. Concubine Walkthrough, however, captured my heart in an instant! I know that many readers, myself included, don’t want to hear the words “villainess” or “isekai” ever again. But the way that the series integrates the game systems as well as transmigration into the plot is so interesting and fresh. It’s not just thrown in for convenience. I’m itching to tell you all about it, but that would spoil your fun.

Concubine Walkthrough‘s art style is distinct and pretty as well. Unlike the subgenre’s typical bright, elaborate style reminiscent of fairy tales, this series’ color palette is limited. The character designs and clothes are quite detailed in terms of fabrics, jewelry and ornaments–the game is based on China and its historical records on imperial consorts, after all. Despite how flat or simple everything looks at first glance, I adored how expressive and funny all the characters are, and the risks the series took by deviating from the norm. I haven’t completed the series yet, but I still wanted to recommend Concubine Walkthrough this week. — Merve Giray

Velveteen and Mandala

Writer/Artist: Jiro Matusmoto
Translation: Ed Chavez and Yo Shin
Production: Hiroko Mizuno and Tome Tsutsumi
Publisher: Vertical

Two girls dressed in their school uniforms wander around Tokyo’s Suginami Ward. One of them, Velveteen, lives inside an abandoned tank. The other, Mandala, comes and goes as she pleases. They wander the ward, playing war games and taking drugs. Occasionally, the two hunt down reanimated corpses dropped from planes in the sky. It’s quite possible that the two girls have lost their minds.

Welcome to the surreal world of Velveteen and Mandala by Jiro Matusmoto. Trying to describe the plot of this manga is pointless because there really isn’t one. The action consists of Velveteen and Mandala wandering the wilds of Suginami Ward. They argue. Occasionally the two find various detritus of society like pagers or abandoned military vehicles. And they kill zombies when they’re not fighting each other.

The characters talk mostly in nonsense. Little is spoken of their pasts other than that Mandala occasionally goes to school and Velveteen may have run away from home months ago. Writer and artist Matsumoto gives the proceedings a post-apocalyptic feeling even if the characters possibly still live in the present day.

Matsumoto fills Velveteen and Mandala with strange and off-putting images rendered in a scratchy expressionist style. Bodies covered in bugs. Fields and skies enveloped in smoke and flames. Small imps scurrying about stealing things. Characters walk around naked unaware of their nudity. There’s a furious quality to Matsumoto’s lines, as if he’s trying to capture a shape or figure as quickly as possible. The figures in this manga stretch and contort in ways familiar to fans of the painter Egon Scheile.

Velveteen and Mandala is one of the weirder books ever put out by Vertical. It’s violent and strange in ways that catch even more seasoned readers off guard. Yet it is worth seeking out for that very reason. There is no other manga quite like it. — D. Morris

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