Well, here’s hoping three months makes the heart grow fonder, eh?
With regards to my absence from this website, I can only offer my heartfelt apologies and a list of excuses, only some of which would be of interest to the readership which had been so supportive of this column in the past: impending nuptials and subsequent change of residence, a possible comic project of my own since put on brief hiatus (artists wanted—apply below!), the effects of the economic climate on my day job, and repeated consultations on my upcoming oral surgery (really, don’t ask). It’s been something of a “restructuring period” around the homestead of late and I can’t yet imagine how the next few months will affect my planned return to regular column-writing. My lovely wife-to-be is a teacher with a particular eye to comics in the classroom, and our discussions have meant this site has rarely been far from my mind. I believe it was the great Albert Swearengen who said that announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh. That said, with an event of some notice occurring this week amongst the “comics to film” crowd, I’d be remiss in not peeking out from my self-imposed gopher hole and taking a glance at the landscape.
Quick notes of thanks that I’d planned to make before I vanished from God’s green Internet last: To Journalista’s Dirk Deppey and to Savage Critic Abhay Khosala, who both had kind words for this column, as well as to Top Shelf’s Leigh Walton (also very kind), and to each of the readers who made the comments threads such an enjoyable follow-up to these over-labored writings. Though to those who were troubled by my tendency to meander, this might not be the best entry to rejoin my scattered thought processes…
And of course thank you to Keith Uhlich for his never-ending fount of patience and goodwill. One of these days I promise to get around to earning it, I swear.
XVIII. “…Somewhat self indulgent.”
The world’s greatest heroes are being picked off one by one, and a troubled detective meets with each in kind to warn them of the danger. It’s the beginning of a classic work by a beloved author, one that deconstructs the long-running comic characters on which it is based, most notably in relating these children’s characters and their narrative to contemporary, real world politics. While it is a striking work in its own right, much of its inspiration lies within the science-fiction stories which preceded it, particularly those of film and television. With an upcoming film renewing interest, the Internet is ablaze with discussion of this classic work of sequential art.
Clearly, I’m talking about Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto.
I’m being overly cheeky, of course. The narrative similarity between Watchmen and what some are calling its Manga counterpart are superficial, and limited solely to its opening pages. That said, as America reacts to what media buzz would have be the movie event of the season, it’s worth noting that the first volume of Pluto (as well as one of Urasawa’s other great works, 20th Century Boys) has finally been released in an English translation.
Pluto is Urasawa’s take on Osamu “God of Manga” Tezuka’s most beloved Astro Boy story, “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” Written to coincide with Astro Boy’s “birth date,” it takes Tezuka’s book-length fable and constructs a whole (projected eight-volume) series about the nature of war and humanity.