MadInkBeard

The “inconsistent” drawing style of Cave-in [Rakuban, 1959] makes this short story unique. The five memory scenes (free motifs) are depicted in five distinctive styles, ranging from simple, comical line drawings reminiscent of prewar children’s comics to more detailed, “gekiga-like” figures. The degrees of detail in the drawing style represent the reliability of Maehashi’s story. The first version of the story Maehashi gives at the beginning of the story, a simple “cartoonish” rendition, tells a more distorted version of the story than the later versions, told through more representational drawings that use extensive shading. In contrast, the scenes that show the “present,” including the ending, are consistently rendered through Tezuka’s usual drawing style.

Power, Onoda Natsu. God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post-World War II Manga. UP Mississippi, 2009. 98.

On the whole, I found Power’s book two introductory for my tastes. I wanted deeper analysis of Tezuka’s manga, but there just wasn’t much of that. I was also extremely disappointed in the lack of discussion of Phoenix (which I’ve written about extensively), despite the author noting what a major work it is. But that quote above (and the illustrations accompanying it) caught my eye. This type of stylistic change is something I’m always looking for in comics, as stylistic consistency is still one of those aspects of comics that gets taken for granted. I sure wish I could see this Tezuka story in full.