Death: At Death’s Door by Jill Thompson in consultation with Neil Gaiman

Once more we return to the shoju Vertigo stylings of Jill Thompson. Here Thompson does a re-perspective on the events of A Season of Mists. That’s the Sandman story-arc where Dream goes to Hell to spring free a girlfriend he’d condemned there ages ago and ends up being given the keys by Lucifer after the Morningstar closes the place down and kicks everyone out.

In At Death’s Door Thompson occasionally stops by the regular story with Dream, but mostly she follows his siblings Death, Delerium and Despair as they wrangle the newly expelled ghosts of the Damned. That includes Delerium and Despair trying to throw a party at Death’s to cheer up some of the Damned.

Thompson’s work is fun and makes for a wonderful contrast and companion to the original story. But, as always, part of the enjoyment will depend on one’s tolerance for manga-style art. Especially the shoju or girly style that Thompson does so well…

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service:vol. 1 story by Eiji Otsuka, art by Housui Yamazaki, translation by Toshifumi Yoshida

So lets say your a fairly typical college student. Meaning broke. And near graduation but still completely clueless about what to do next. And say you have a “gift”. In that corpses talk to you. And that you meet up with some other students who include a dowser, a pint-size embalmer, a computer hacker and someone who channels an alien thru a puppet. You’d probably form a business where you helped the restless dead find justice or peace or vengeance or whatever, trusting in karma to reward you for your good works. Right? Of course you would…

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service seems like an odd concept. But really its the manga version of a mystery-of-the-week supernatural television show. Like the non-conspiracy episodes of X-Files…