New Manga pieces. Any else given up on U.S. comics? 0

[Steven Ng]

The last few manga which I read and loved include Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka and Master Keaton by Naoki Urasawa. These are published in English as trade paperbacks, but each story is about 25 pages or so. I find them very readable. I did manage to buy a Black Jack cel.

Black Jack is an unlicensed surgeon who only takes patients on his own terms. Typically asking for astronomical fees, but operating for free under the right circumstances. One of my favorites has Black Jack visiting an island wilderness. While retuning to the mainland on a ferry, a hunter loses a captured predator onboard. The wild cat attacks a young boy and a developer/politician. The latter employed the hunter to poach the endangered animal to clear the way for making the island into a big tourist attraction. Before agreeing to operate, Black Jack demands a huge fee from the developer, then operates on the cat and the boy before saving the developer. The antagonist is saved, but arrested for a satisfying conclusion. 

Master Keaton is an academic in the field of archeology, but earns his money as an international insurance investigator. He gets mixed up in murder plots and insurance fraud, but his intelligence and special forces background make him a formidable operator. 

This is a great time to be a comic reader and many great comics are becoming available. Some can be found put up on the internet for free by their creators. Many European bande dessinee are being printed in English. I love Blacksad by Diaz Canales and Guarnido. Flight of the Raven and The Reprieve by Jean Pierre Gibrat. Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt. Comic strip collections  Mary Perkins On Stage by Leonard Starr and Tarzan by Russ Manning are published in complete sets.

Best,

Steven

[BuraddoRun]

I can't say I've stopped reading Marvel or DC, but there is some great manga out there, and I love that the creators mostly stick with their books for the entire run. Here are some manga OA pieces that I own.

1. Hayame Blast Gear (unknown chapter/volume/page (maybe page 5) for now) by Yuusuke Takeyama. I got this recently for about $30, which I figured was a steal. His autograph is prominently on the piece, which is cool. I also ordered the first 2 volumes of the manga, which haven't come in yet, in hopes that I can pinpoint said chapter/volume/page.

2. Unknown title, also by Yuusuke Takeyama. I have no idea what manga this is from. Does anyone here recognize it? I also got this one for roughly $30, and I really like the judo action in it! I'm a little less enthused about his prominent autograph here, since it crosses over the art a bit, but it looks like he took care to put it in a spot that was mostly white space, so I really can't complain.

3. Geopolice (or Geopolis) Joe, Volume 2 back cover, by Kei Satomi. I actually have had this piece for a while, but had lumped it in with my anime cel collection. I dug it out last night and took a pic today.

Edited April 8, 2021 by BuraddoRun

[BuraddoRun]

This is interesting. I got a piece in today from Takeshi Miyazawa. He's done a lot for Marvel and other Western titles, but he lives in Japan now and does his work from there. So, instead of this page being drawn on Marvel's branded board, it's actually on a smaller, Japanese board, the same size and brand that Yuusuke Takeyama used for one of the pieces in my post above. So, it's technically not manga (or maybe it technically is manga?), but it's definitely reminiscent of the typical manga style. This is from Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider # 5.