Friday, August 03, 2007
One more Tezuka, because I just read the first volume of Histoires Pour Tous, the first book of a twenty book(!) series being published by Delcourt (in French), collecting various shorter works Tezuka drew between his longer series, mostly during the 70s - and I must say - this first issue has some of the best Tezuka comics I've read yet. First, I think I prefer shorter comics - these ran generally around 40 pages - and that length feels really good to me. The focus in this first book was mostly autobiographical (I think only the first, slightly gimmicky story isn't), which was really interesting - these were the comics by Tezuka that I was most hoping to read, after seeing some excerpts in the four volume biography. Although he covers serious times - his life growing up in Japan during and after the WWII years - Tezuka emphasizes the humorous aspects of growing up in a challenging era, as sort of a nerdy, manga-obsessed, undersized kid. The artwork is particularly fluid and a pleasure to look at - his pure-humor style of drawing is great, really active, and really funny. The exaggerated comedy actually works perfectly here in combination with the more serious undertones to the stories - the fear, hatred and struggle of living through the war years. The balance is perfect and quite stunning. I can't really think of any other stories that I've yet read that are more harrowing, while also being as amusing at the same time. It's my understanding that this book contains the bulk, if not all, of Osamu Tezuka's autobiographical comics, which is a little disappointing, because when something is so good, so interesting, you can't help but with for more. Lots more!
