I just don't know what to make of this.
Marvel announced 15 Love, a 3 issue series, written by Andi Watson (Breakfast After Noon, Little Star), and illustrated by Tommy Ohtsuka about a girl named Mill Collins, who goes to a high school on a tennis scholarship.
There is no Thor tie-in as far as I can tell. But what it looks like is that Marvel is branching out into genres other than their comfort zone, and are trying some manga like slice of life stories. I can't say I saw this coming at all. Andi Watson has serious chops of course, having created some of my favorite slice of life comics, so I have no doubt that there will be some quality behind it, but the question remains, "who is this for?" I can't imagine the direct market flocking to a book that they know most of their core audience won't even notice, so that leaves bookstores and the young adult market that DC abandoned with the Minx line. Is this the kind of thing we're going to see in a post-Disney Marvel? The possibilities are mind boggling, but let it not be said that they're not dipping a toe into the other areas of the pool.
Issue #1 hits in June, and will be 56 pages for $4.99.
I would be remiss to mention that, even though it might be situationally appropriate, they managed to squeeze in an upskirt there.
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That is disturbing about the upskirt shot because the girl is 15 years old….
I like it that they are branching out though, even if this something I will never buy.
I’m personally not interested, but good for them. We’ll just have to see how this one plays out.
@TheNextChampion I wouldn’t have noticed that until you pointed it out. Thanks:(
…Princess of Tennis?
@TheNextChampion
I don’t actually think the upskirt is really sexualized. This is something you see in tennis matches. This is just part of her outfit, not panties per se.
You need a scholarship to go to high school these days?
@Noto fancy tennis high school.
This is bizarre. I’m very pleased to see it, and whether further projects like this develop. If this is what a Disney-Marvel partnership could offer, like you say, then I’m excited to see what else could happen…!
@BornIn1142 I suppose this shows some cultural bias, but it is inconceivable to me that a manga artist would draw an upskirt shot of a teenager and not intend for it to be sexual. Yes, that happens in tennis, but I suspect that’s why this is a book about a girl who plays tennis and not about a girl who runs track or participates in some other sport that doesn’t allow them to be depicted wearing short skirts.
I’m all for Marvel trying new things, but not like this…
Huh. Releasing this to the direct market seems a rather strange move. I’d have thought they’d put something like this directly into book stores and libraries where the audience has a better chance of finding it. But good luck to them!
You didn’t see it coming? It was announced in 2003. Two thousand THREE.
@jxc Well I’ve totally been thinking about this and only this for the last 8 years. I don’t have much else going on.
It’s like no one here has ever watched tennis before, in regards to the skirts. So uptight.
It’s manga, ifanboy hates it, amiright?
@KickAss I wrote nothing of the sort. You’re trolling. Knock it off.
I wasnt suggesting Ohtuska did it on purpose or anything. I just found it disturbing it is shown on the page involving a minor.
@TheNextChampion I know you didn’t mean anything by it.
@josh If such scholarships/schools were readily available in my day, I would totally go to a fancy tennis high school. Good for Mill Collins.
I’m shocked by this, and excited by it. The ONLY way comics besides super-hero ones are going to really break into the mainstream of comics is if Marvel and DC lead the way. As much as people who are hardcore comic lovers (like most of us on this site, i would imagine) know about great non-super hero books like Box Office Poison or Blankets or the like, the average, casual fan thinks comics are all super-heros. If Marvel starts to get some success with titles like this, we might be on our way towards a comics landscape like we had in the 40s and 50s, when there were comics of almost every genre imaginable readily available to casual readers. I don’t think super-heros will ever stop being the mainstay of comics at this point, but it would be great to see some other genres get more recognition.
Whatever the artist might have been thinking at the time, it still just looks like a tennis match to me. God forbid they branch out to women’s volleyball or gymnastics. Anyway, I think that overall, I want either this or a project like this to succeed. In Japan, you have TONS of sports comics and I think if executed properly, it’s a perfect cape-free genre for comic books (lots of action, rivarlies, internal/external conflict, etc.).