Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Manga Mania Month: Tezuka likes his twisted metal

Maybe it's just me, but it sure seems like Osamu Tezuka took every chance he could get to include car crashes in Black Jack.  Maybe they're a good source of mangled bodies to operate on, or maybe it's the opportunity to partake in some of the loud action that stands in opposition to the careful, precise work of surgery.  Whatever the case, it's as awesome as one would expect to see Tezuka unleash his dynamic sensibilities on the subject, starting with the very first pages of the first story:




Just look at those coursing streams of speed lines, and their resulting explosion.  That's how you start a goddamn comic book!  It certainly doesn't end there though.  People get wrecked, giving Black Jack the opportunity to reattach limbs:


Children get run over:


A guy gets vaporized by a train:





Even the doctor himself gets in on the action, using his car to take out some punks:


And sometimes we don't even see the crash, but just get to witness the gruesome results:


It's pretty crazy, a great example of Tezuka's ability to work cool stuff to draw into stories and make them exciting.  It will certainly be something to watch for in future volumes.

1 comment:

  1. Tezuka's a god. Black Jack, MW, Ode to Kirihito, and Phoenix are awesome. I'm currently going through Astro Boy, and it's the first Tezuka work I've read that's disappointed me. I think I'm too old for it.

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