New culinary comics from Anthony Bourdain and Amanda Cohen

More culinary comix

One could point to the long-running manga Oishinbo as the source of the trend; it's been published in Japan since 1983 (107 volumes and counting). Each book highlights one essential dish or technique (sashimi, gyoza, etc.), spinning an adventure narrative that somehow turns on the mastery of said dish. Between 2009 and 2010, Viz Media published seven English-language compilation volumes.

The Drops of God is another manga series, this one launched in Japan in 2004 and published in English translation starting in 2009 by Vertical Inc. The protagonist, the teetotal son of a famous wine critic, is ordered in his father's will to find 13 wines … so the plot is your basic multi-volume adventure series, but critics and wine enthusiasts from the New York Times to Wine Enthusiast have given Drops of God rapturous reviews for its soil-to-glass evocation of the grape.

Sara Varon's Bake Sale (First Second, 2011) is simplistic and very, very cute – suitable for young readers or Zooey Deschanel fans. It's a fairly basic story of baking and friendship starring Cupcake, a … well, cupcake who owns a bakery, and his friends Eggplant, Avocado and Brown Egg. It also bucks Dirt Candy's claim to be the first graphic cookbook; simple recipes are part of the book, and unlike Dirt Candy, they are in comic form.

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