Osamu Tezuka : Buddha

Osamu Tezuka, famously known as the God of Manga, has created a masterpiece in this monumental series of 8 volumes on Buddha.

The epic series captures the sum and substance of the life and times and the philosophy of Buddha, in simple beautiful and elegant graphic style of Manga.

The Eight volumes are,

1. Kapilavastu
2. The Four Encounters
3. Devadatta
4. The Forest of Uruvela
5. Deer Park
6. Ananda
7. Ajatasattu
8. Jetavana

The story is an adaptation where Tezuka takes certain liberties with respect to characters, storyline and time lines. This results in a rather refreshing retelling of one of the most important stories of all time.

This is a great set of books to read for the story and the philosophy and the beautiful art of Tezuka. Also, this is a great master class on the art and science of Manga! What better way to learn to create Graphic novels?

There are of course several editions, and translations of the original Japanese version. Also to make it easy to read and make life easy for the translation process, the original book was simply mirror imaged! to enable English readers go from left to right. Not sure if that's a great idea though.

There are at least three different English editions, one the nice and seductive hardcover, with beautiful white dust covers and the three Buddhas shining on the spines. the other is the paperback version of the same, and there is one more paperback edition made using pulp like economical paper available in India and south east Asia.

Pacific Comics Club : Golden Age Reprints Phantom, Mandrake and More

There was a Golden age for everything. The early twentieth century was the golden age of various things. Aviation, Science, and among other things the golden age of newspaper comic strips.

For several decades beginning the 30s various strips came into existence, and had a wonderful run, with readership running into the millions.

The great art work of masters such as Alex Raymond, Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Sy Barry, Dan Barry, Phil Davis, Leonard Starr, Milton Caniff, Gene Byrnes, Hal Foster entertained newspaper readers all over the world. Some of the stories that came from their pens and brushes were The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Steve Canyon, On Stage, Reglar Fellers, Prince Valiant to name a few. The Golden era slowly got forgotten and gave way to other forms of entertainment. Though he American public had largely forgotten this era, these strips were extremely popular around the world, with reprints in the form of collections, coming up from various publishers.

A few years back, when I finally got time to get back in touch with these beautiful stories and artwork, and was disappointed with the absence of popularity in the United States, I discovered a wonderful source for these golden era reprints.

It is Tony Raiola's Pacific Comics Club. The online store has a treasure chest of the golden age goodies. Tony is a passionate comic strip fan/collector/publisher who has been running this since the 60s in France, Italy and later in the United States. Several popular strips have been published by Pacific Comics in wonderful format, very carefully reproduced, highlighting the clear artwork of the masters. They also carry similar reprints of hard to find strips from other publishers.

I asked Tony for his thoughts and he opines..."American newspaper strips were more popular in Europe than here in the States , just like western movies. What happened is that European made compilations and books from the strips, instead the American had a few reprints in Famous Funnies, etc. In Europe Flash Gordon ,the Phantom , Mandrake were very popular .The fact is that after the '50s the American concentrated their efforts on comic book business forgetting the strips and creating superheroes."

I agree with him and made me think about the huge popularity of Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon and the likes in India. Where there was a large fan base and Indarjal Comics had a fantastic run.

I wish Tony the best and continue to offer several of the long forgotten Golden era comic strip master pieces.

Drawing from Reference and Copying the Masters

As one goes about learning to draw, one realises at some point the importance of drawing from reference, or even copying.

The urge to draw typically comes from observing great art. Whether it is story illustration, comic art, animation, or the academic, each one of us get inspired by specific art to begin with.

It can be Michelangelo's realistic figures, Herge's simplicity and elegance, Alex Raymond's magical drama with lines, Leonard Starr's cinematic panels, an so on. But these specific individual artists and their art serves as the motive for us to learn to draw.

Learning to draw consists of learning the elements of drawing. One has to know how to use the two dimensional medium to represent the real world, and create a believability with the tools of the medium. Leaning to use the elements such as the gesture, line, tone, principles of perspective, composition, etc are mastered in an attempt to create realism. We learn how to begin a drawing, how to develop it, and how to complete or render it to the detail desired.

But learning to write is more than learning the alphabets and words. A rich vocabulary and strong grammar is necessary, but not sufficient. This is when one starts to read!

Similarly as an artist, after learning the foundations of drawing, and learning a medium or two, such as the pen and ink, or watercolor , one needs to "study" the masters. Choose a select band of masters of interest, and copy the art. This will hone the skills all around. Use of line, composition, drama, action, expression, style, all of these can be improved by trying to replicate the masters to the dot.

A combination of generating original art, and copying and analysing the masters, will accelerate the development as an artist. While copying art, one has to analyse it for the principles and elements of art and learn from it.

Copying masters is not only an aid to improvement, but is such as rewarding activity, since the great amount of learning and the genius can be appreciated at a greater detail than when simply observing it.

Great artists always used models for their work, and used heavy reference material. Copying the Masters is a compulsory part of any serious art curriculum. One can learn about this from the artists of the renaissance, to the masters of the times, such as Herge, whose reference material teaches us the relevance of it. So does Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff and others who used models for their work. A recent book on Norman Rockwell tells us how he created his illustrations, by creating the scene completely in reality using models, posing them and photographing them and using it as a reference!

So, while in the journey of learning to draw, if one hits a plateau, its time to go out and sketch from life, or pick up the favourite artist and simply copy!