Shutterbox, Volume 1: Volume 1

I love this book a lot. I encourage everyone to read it. It exspands your imagination, making you thinks of thing that could happen instead of things that actually exist. Open your mind to this wonderful new wolrd that Rikki, Tavisha and the muses have created for us: Read ShutterBox!

I've been reading Rikki and Tavi's comics for 10 years now, since I was 12, all the way back when they used to make Robotech Clone and Reality Check. Shutterboxs is absolutely their best work to date, although my favorite is still Ranklechick. I don't undrstand the reviewer who wrote that "dialogue is a luxury in a visual medium." That's totally wrong considering that comics aren't just a visual medium. Hello, that's why there're are words to read! And I've always loved how Rikki conducted his personal style. It does take a long time for his story to get anywhere because that's his style. It fills up the world with something intelligent and not just speed lines and super deformed faces and same old same old "bishies". Tavisha and Rikki's work compliments each other completely. And I liked the Santa Monica scene. It made Megan look small cold and alone and I think that's how she felt when she saw AJ die. Plus, no other reviewer here wrote "I dare people to create their own manga this good". You must be paranoid.Shutterbox is beautifully written and drawn. I can't wait for book two.

I was immediately drawn into Shutterbox when I saw an add for it. The pretty, yet mysterious guy on the cover intrigued me, and since my brother had the first Volume, I figured I'd give it a shot. At first, I wasn't sure what I thought about it. In fact I didn't like it much at all really. And I was sad because the guy on the cover cuts his hair. :( hehe Okay, so I'm a dork, sue me.! :p Anyways, as others have said, the story is intrigueing: A girl named Megan has been having weird dreams lately. She's been unsure what to do with her life, and she's been seeing people or things that she's not sure are real, her mother sends her to a psyciatrist, doesn't help much though. But then one night when she goes to bed she discovers just how real it is. That she has been chosen to be a Shutterbox, an exchange student at Merridiah Univrsity where dead people are trained to be muses, and she is there to be trained as a living muse. The characters are interesting enough, I really like Adrien, I hope to see his character grow. And I REALLY *hope* to see Megan grow out of somewhat typical manga-girl character she is right now, and become something that is a more 3-dementional. Not say she's a flat character, but I was more intrigued with Damien and Adrien then I was her. What kept me reading was knowing that I would see Adrien. And that the plot itself is very interesting. Shutterbox seems like a very promising manga, I have a feeling it will only get better once the characters are giving room to breath and live. I did like the chapter names and pics though. Esp. the title "Quixotic" made me think, that maybe this is more poking fun at the typical manga, and celebrating them as well, by having Megan be the sort of character she is. If you are familiar with Don Quixote or the Female Quixote(which I studied in college), then you will know that they are characters transfixed with a romance novels and detimerined to live the lives of the romance characters. I think in a way, that is what the authors here are doing. :D Well that's my bit, you may or may not like Shutterbox, that my friend, is up to you. God Bless & *Enjoy* ~Amy PS: The artowrk takes getting used to.

If you haven't heard about Shutterbox by now...well, I'm afraid you've been living under a cave, my friend. Beautiful plot, fantastic characters and a storyline that'll melt you to your curly-toed boots. I haven't seen a comic so intriguing and bursting with new ideas for many many years. We're no longer boxed in with back-to-back copycat mangas about magical girls with magical powers and masked heroes carrying them off into the stars; Studio Tavicat (the creator, as if you didn't know) have given us something uniquely new. Magical girl? You get Megan, a spunky girl without the need of a spunky hairdo. Magical world? You've never seen a place as darkly familiar to your soul as Merridiah. Masked men? None, sorry, but full of amazingly sexy muses who don't need to hide their faces. If you like the ideas of humans mingling in the spirit world, you better buckle up. With Shutterbox, not only are you going to get an amazingly well-delivered plot that'll get you thinking the whole time, but you'll also get the fantastic curly-cued and darkly charming art along with it. "But some other reviewers didn't like it....," you say? Well...I'd very much love to see those other reviewers create a storyboard brimming with poetics, put on panels, coloured and then published into an actual piece. Shutterbox is amazing in its entirety. It's a step up into a new world of meaningful manga. Get it!

The back of the cover reads:"Like a Photograph, love develops in darkness. On the surface, megan Amano sems like a typical Los Angeles girl, attending college and spending a good deal of her time in therapy. However, when Megan dreams, she travels to a place unlike any other - a supernatural and surreal college, one any recent high school graduate would die to attend. And usually they must...for Merridiah is the afterlife's premier educational institute. But for Megan a great exception has been made. Megan has been accepted as a Shutterbox exchange student, where she will spend a year studying to become a living muse. However, all is not as it seems as secrets are unlocked and a great mystery is exsposed - revealed, of all places, through the lens of a camera."And with that said, combined with the beautiful art on the cover, I didn't even have to open this book to know I MUST HAVE IT!You get a great feel for the strange, sad (melancholic?) feeling that runs through the theme of this book just from the beautiful picture of Adrien on the cover, but what's really surprising is the gentle humor that runs side-by-side with the sadness. Bitter-sweet and oh, so wonderful. The story begins and hooks you with a suicide drowning, and from there we enter megan's dreams and the land of Merridiah that resides there...or SOMEWHERE. Muses, fairies, little flying bunny things called Beebos, a herd of Hyperpans, reincarnation, and a mysterious/magical castle somewhere in the great beyond...I wish MY dreams were like Megans! Oh, but is she dreaming? This is the first book of six so I guess we'll slowly find out over time! I know I'll be there for the whole series if the rest are as good as the first.BTW: there are so many things you catch on the second and third readings, it's like reading it for the fist time every time. Like, the cruel brother to Adrien, Damien, he's the only character with British spelling in his word balloons ("favourite" instead of "favorite")!