Ed. note: Josh Frankel is a co-cartoonist of Garbage Time All-Stars, the most excellent NBA comic blog, and an occasional contributor to Ball Don't Lie. His thoughts on Takehiko Inoue's 'Slam Dunk' comic series are below:

In July, Greg Oden appeared at the San Diego Comic-Con, North America's largest pop culture nerd festival. Donning a fresh Blazers jersey, Oden signed autographs, posed for photos and overshadowed the comic he was there to promote. But Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk comic series is hardly a 98-pound weakling flailing ineffectually at Oden's elbow. This 31-volume Japanese serial about the Shohoku High School basketball team has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Volume 1 is now available in English.

The story opens with freshman Hanamichi Sakuragi absorbing his fiftieth consecutive rejection by a girl. "I'm sorry, Sakuragi ... but I like Oda from the basketball team." With that humiliation ringing in his ears Hanamichi flies into a berserker rage against basketball, head-butting anyone who mentions the sport in his presence. That is, until a few pages later, when Hanamichi meets Haruko, yet another wide-eyed cutie with a taste for cagers. Hmm, maybe he should learn to play?

The path to hoops stardom isn't easy for Hanamichi. In a chance encounter with the captain of the team (a monstrous senior with a high-top fade that would earn an appreciative nod from Kid) he lashes out with: "How smart do you have to be to throw a stupid ball through a stupid hoop?!" The captain cannot tolerate this insult to basketball. And of course, it turns out that the girl Hanamichi is trying to impress is the captain's sister.

While the story is basic high school soap opera, every action and emotion revs past the red line. Any moment of unhappiness unleashes a gush of hot tears. When Hanamichi meets Haruko he's suddenly surrounded by falling flower petals as he rhapsodizes, "If only I could walk her to school! Then I could die happy!"

On-court action is just as exaggerated. This initial volume features what might be the most dramatic dribbling drill in the history of comics. The sooner you accept the goofy internal logic of Slam Dunk the more you will enjoy it. It's humor punctuated by vicious dunks, fisticuffs and crying.

This initial 197-page story installment ends in a cliffhanger, followed by a strange NBA tie-in section. Included are a photo pinup and quickie biography of LeBron James, an explanation of what a slam dunk is, and a step-by-step guide on how to dunk, suitable for clipping out and mailing to your favorite team's earthbound backup center.

Slam Dunk Vol. 1 is entertaining enough, with the promise of many more English volumes to come.  If you've re-read Playing for Keeps and aren't drooling for the latest Starbury family tell-all you could do worse than smooth this pre-season dead spot with some Japanese sports comics.

As for Oden at Comic-Con: he looked ready to go.  Like he could have grabbed one of the many nearby Boba Fett helmets and calmly thrown it down.