Hollow Fields, vol. 1
Writer & Artist: Madeleine Rosca
Published by: Seven Seas

196 (162 net) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: June 2007.
Toning: Armand Roy Canlas
Lettering: Jon Zamar
Graphic Design: Jon Zamar & Nate Legaspi
Cover Design: Nicky Lim
Assistant Editor: Adam Arnold
Editore: Jason DeAngelis
Publisher’s Rating: All Ages

Rating: 5 out of 5 *

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Premise: Private school meets 1930s horror cinema by way of 1870s clockworks and steampunk, with a dose of wry humor, and a sprinkling of Nightmare before Christmas.

Synopsis: (from the back cover)

Little Lucy Snow was meant to be enjoying her first day at the nice elementary school in town; however a macabre twist of fate sees her enrolled instead at Miss Weaver’s Academy for the Scientifically Gifted and Ethically Unfettered–also known as Hollow Fields. Located on the outskirts of Nullsville and run by the insidious Engineers, the grim boarding school dedicates itself to raising the next generation of mad scientists and evil geniuses! Classes include Live Taxidermy, Cross-Species Body-Part Transplantation and Killer Robot Construction, and for her own survival Lucy has to master them quickly…the student with the lowest grades at the end of each school week is sent to the old windmill for detention–and so far, no child has ever returned!

In her first afternoon in Nullsville, Lucy gets lost in the woods and ends up at Hollow Fields. On her second day she makes a friend — for five minutes, before he gets detention. Over that first week, she manages to get on the bad side of nearly every teacher, ends up with extra assignments, and has to sneak off to the library at night just to keep up with things the other students already know. One night at the library, though, she makes two discoveries: first, that at least a few students are planning to escape. Her second discovery may just give her the edge to graduate… or to escape herself.

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Review:

In the past 6 months I’ve been rather parsimonious with the “5 out of 5″ rating, previously only bestowing it twice — once to a non-fiction title and once to an anime series near and dear — so yes, Hollow Fields is the first *manga* to garner my highest rating.

I tried to clue you all in on this title three weeks ago, and I amplify my comments of that post: Hollow Fields is the break-out title for Seven Seas — at least it deserves to be a break-out title, though it will need some more publicity, and maybe a lucky break.

Yeah, yeah… You’d give my recommendations more credence if I were a proven, reliable source, but I’m just some random blogger with a manga fixation and a drinking problem. –
But between now and then we’ve had some independent confirmation, by way of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry handing out some award that you may have heard about. (actually, not a bad looking trophy: see the pics).

If only my distributors had been a shade quicker getting a copy of Hollow Fields into my greedy little mitts before the annoucement; I could have had a review up on 28 June and then coasted for years (literally, *years*) on a “by the way, I picked this title before…” contention for Rosca’s work.

She did a Damn Fine Job. It was only few days ago that I told you about my latest default, easy-pick manga recommendation, but this is the trump card that no one was expecting. (so short your time in the sun, Time Guardian…) I’m not just recommending this book, I’m sorely tempted to buy additional copies so I can randomly leave them in waiting rooms and airport terminals. Heck, this is my new fiction recommendation, manga or no. This is the best book I’ve read all year.

From page one, we’re treated to exceptional pacing, plotting, character design, character motivation, & execution on concept… all that, and the volume ends on an upbeat, “I’ll save them all” note. Lucy is obviously the standout character, being cute as a button and with the mix of sugar and spice wrapped around a steel core: she occasionally faints or boggles when first exposed to the horrors of a mad-scientist education, but recovers quickly — which makes her easy to identify with, and fun to root for.

Lucy is surrounded by a very odd mix of fellow students and even odder teachers. The Engineers who run Hollow Fields are particularly well done, in that they are an odd mix of menace, the macabre, and stuffed animal. They’re still villains, but the style fits in with the all-ages rating. The students are mostly an undifferentiated mass, but a few personalities are beginning to shape up amongst the rivals. I don’t know if Lucy will ever make any friends, though.

The plot device that sends another student to “detention” each week gives us a built-in episodic structure, though I don’t know if this will ever be fully developed outside of a 26 episode anime adaptation (…well, I’d like to see it done). If this is a complete story at say, just three volumes, then it is a neat way to characterise the school but Lucy won’t be at Hollow Fields long enough to make it work.

A unique premise that both fits in ably with current manga trends (school girl) and trends in young adult fiction (a school girl… at a mad-scientist academy — antiheroes are in this year) means this title is ready-made and almost over-ripe for general market distribution. The International Manga Award is a good first step, and will make for some lovely ad copy in press releases, but Hollow Fields still needs a little something extra to break down the walls between “comics” and the rest of the YA market.

Be here’s wishing Rosca and Seven Seas the very best.

Buy it, read it, pass it along.

Volume one is out now; it looks like volume two has a tentative release date of Jan. ‘08.