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Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Black & White
In their latest Basement Tapes column Matt Fraction and Joe Casey go over manga. A good column overall but I want to post about something specifically that Fraction brought up. He praises Taiyo Matsumoto and his series Black & White. I just want to join in on the praise by expresses how much I enjoy Matsumoto’s work.
I can’t say I am or ever was really big into manga. I picked up a few issues of Akira when Epic was publishing it and I looked at and liked Lone Wolf & Cub. Like many American comic book readers I enjoy the work of Junji Ito. As a fan of horror books like the Colan drawn Tomb of Dracula or Bisette drawn Swamp Thing I felt Uzumaki, Tomie and now Gyo share the same sensibilities as those books. But the favorite manga I think I’ve read so far would have to be Matsumoto’s Black & White, and I’m not even done with it.
Here’s how I know I liked Matsumoto’s work. As soon as my eyes saw the pages I exclaimed to myself “who the Hell is this guy?” It happened when I first came across Bernie Krigstein in some EC reprint, it happened when I first came across Dave Mazzucchelli in Batman: Year One and it happened when I came across Walt Simonson in the Batman: Strange Apparitions trade. With barley any or no knowledge of the artist I’m already hooked. I think it was because, like those other artists, Matsumoto creates his own world for his stories.
Looking over Black & White Vol. 1 I noticed that the characters looked like no other figures I has seen in comics, manga or not. They seemed almost like freakish caricatures one would find in a political cartoon, if that even comes close to describing them. All the buildings in the backgrounds bend to and fro to create a sense of disorientation. The panel structures looked like broken glass strewn across the page, further creating this wonky sense that made the whole comic feel dreamlike.
The story was just odd enough, too. There have been many comics featuring organized crime, but this one had two acrobatic little kids fighting their own war on crime. Instead of Batman and Robin think Smart Robin and Dumber Robin. Again, this barley comes close to what the actually book feels like.
I’ve only procured the first volume of Black & White. I’ve been up to my eyebrows in comics lately, and I promised myself after I buy Jack Kirby Visionaries that would be the last collection I would buy for a few months. Still, I do need to get the rest of the series as well as pick up Matsumoto’s other work available here in the States, No. 5. Ah the life of a college student/freelance journalist/comic book lover, so much to buy and barley enough to buy it with.
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