Gundam Wing: Blind Target
Omode and Asagi fill a gap in the chronology of the Gundam saga, a longtime comics/ cartoon/model/game hit in Japan that's now gaining a large American audience on the Cartoon Network. New readers are likely to be baffled, since much lore accumulates around a continuing, multi-part series like this. In brief: before this installment's events, humanity had expanded into huge space stations orbiting Earth, and those colonies were fighting a war for independence from the motherworld. The most dramatic weapons used during the war were Gundams, giant robot exoskeletons piloted by teenagers whose characters grew considerably during the fighting. In this story, the former Gundam crews are trying to figure out what to do with themselves if they can't be warriors. Some are ready to renounce the Gundams, but others distrust Earth and the idea of peace. The Gundams may be out of sight, but they're obviously on everyone's mind (no one wants to give up the cool-looking and wearable weapons of mass destruction). Omode's script deftly establishes and develops the large cast of characters. The book's high point, however, is Asagi's artwork, which beautifully transcends the limitations of b&w; printing through jittery line work mixed with blocks of shading. In the same way, she works wonders within the compressed space of digest-sized pages through overlapping irregularly sized and shaped panels. Asagi offers such visual tricks that reading the book is a surprisingly active experience.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.