Gold Digger Highly recommended

Publisher
Antarctic Press
Writer
Fred Perry
Artist
Fred Perry
Country of origin
Japan
Year
1993

Gold Digger Pocket Manga Volume 2

By David Rasmussen
1st Apr 07

“A Modern Manga Masterpiece”
Backcover intro to the Pocket Manga volumes

“A thrill ride that may never end.”
WIZARD : The Guide to Comics

For the Diggers sisters of Gina, Britanny, and soon to be “born” sister Brianna (as of this review), life is seldom boring… for both the readers and the sisters.

15 going on 16 years old, Fred Perry’s Gold Digger is still to this date one of the essential cornerstones of the AmeriManga franchise. This & Ben Dunn’s Ninja High School are just some of Antarctic’s contributions to the long history of the genre, which started with Antarctic and is now carried on by the likes of Seven Seas and TOKYOPOP.

This is the beginning. The Golden Age of Gold Digger. The first 50 issues of it’s run. Its origins and its most memorable moments. The start. OK. Nuff said, let’s review.

OK. Let’s see. Outlining the first six issues of the Golden Age of the series. Yes, that’s the beginning of it all. Anyway we catch up with sisters Gina and Britanny post the events of the Super Special/4-Issue Mini Series (subject of Gold Digger Pocket Manga Volume 1 AND possibly Gold Digger : Timeraft OAV Volumes 1 to 3) raiding the tomb of “The First King“ hidden in the deserts of Persia… I mean Iran.

Yeah, it may not be post 9-11 at this time of the series but it doesn’t mean Iran isn’t an unsafe place to visit, especially when you are planning to “borrow” some things from an ancient site on their land. Thing is, however, this (and all the crazed “terrorists” or “arms dealers”) camped out right on top of the site pales in comparison to the “curse” that is about to be laid down on the twosome (along with one of a nice chain of beloved secondary characters in the form of Genn, the lovable shape shifting Rakshasa who (after a few volumes time with Brianna) should be quite familiar with the phone number of Dr. Ruth or Amnesty International… or both)).

However stuck with a bad bad curse (which will rear it’s ugly head one more time effect wise down the road which includes demon-rat problems which started here but we‘ll talk about it on the flipside of our other Gold Digger review this week) it looks like the “cure” will bring about the birth of the “third sister”, Brianna, who (at this time) is considered only an amalgamation of Britanny and Gina (hence her name of Brianna). Later, of course… what? Stick to this volume? Must I? Well… fine. Right now we have to see if the two can survive her “wrath” as the curse seems to have turned her against her new “sisters”… until a little timely intervention brings the whole situation to a good end… almost.

During the events of this story Britanny is put into the infirmary, where she is promptly whisked away by the jealous priestess Tanya and… we’ve come to the point where… what? Rewrite it all? Fine. Here it is, the Princess Tanya storyarc.

Follow along, and don’t cry “soap opera plot” at any point in the retelling.
1-Britanny loves Stripe.
2-Stripe loves Britanny, but he’s the object of affection of his priestess Tanya who is uptight with Britanny, in that CBS Daytime sorta way uptight.
3-Britanny is whisked away from the Diggers’ home during the whole incident with Brianna (before her head is set straight on by Dr. Diggers removing the curse that is bending her like Beckham.
4-Before Tanya can “remove” (painfully) Stripe from Brit’s heart she nearly gets caught and Brit slips right out of her grasp (this happens abit as she just seems to get so close and yet so far time and again).
5-While Stripe is throwing Brit a little party (having gone so far as to find out when her birthday day which wasn’t an easy task) Tanya changes herself into Britanny and kidnaps the son of rival werewolf clan leader Jetta. (So she’d become rather murderous towards her son’s “kidnapper’ Britanny.)
6-Tanya then puts the two together in a little cavern system (through the use of magic) and lets them go at it.
7-Tanya then impersonates Brit and goes to slam on Stripe who is trying to propose to Britanny. This works… for a hot minute until she runs into the real Dr. Diggers and is promptly outed as an imposter.
8-Dr. Diggers catches up to this daughter and is promptly gutted by Jetta… only he gets better.
9-Once all parties (including Jetta’s husband Thabian who, by the by, has a clearer head than Jetta) are settled and not fighting they form a tedious “alliance” to get Jetta’s kid back, which signals the slow inevitable end to Tanya’s plot as her plans unravel quickly from here on out.
10-By the end of this volume everything is well as can be, and Tanya’s position in life (along with her relative size) takes abit of an alteration. But nuff said about that.

Long story short. One of the essential series, Fred Perry’s Gold Digger has been entertaining people for years on end (fan service, pop culture references (visual and otherwise), over 15 years of good writing and artwork, and the series is slated to continue it’s reign of good vibrations as it marches towards it’s 100th Issue event in 2008. In this context then it’s about as good a time as any to get back to the roots of Gold Digger and experience it’s Golden Age (available in the first two Gold Brick Collection books for those not willing to spend the time and money to pick up all 11 Pocket Manga books AND Gold Digger Max Volume 1 (representing the Beta One Shot and GD -18).

Gold Digger Volume 2 gets 5 Happy Birthday Brianna(s) out of 5. Happy birthday!

Gold Digger is ™ & ® 1993, 2004, 2007 Fred Perry

-- David Rasmussen 1st Apr 07