[The following special feature appears in Shards #8, Hidden Years #21, New Blood #28, and Blood of Ten Chiefs #17. Note that the 3 photographs (and corresponding captions) originally printed with this feature are not included in this archive. --MK]
Tokyo - Thursday, October 27.
Manga overkill afternoon and evening!
You have to understand something about us, Elfquest and manga. As Wendy and I were growing up, we watched (on black and white screens; who could afford color?!) these odd cartoon shows such as "Eighth Man," "Kimba the White Lion," and "Astro Boy." Wendy knew, though I didn't, that these were animations coming over from Japan, the first ripple of what would, twenty or more years later, turn into a tsunami of anime available in the United States. Living on the west coast, and being the curious sort, Wendy then discovered the world of manga, Japanese comic books, a very few of which could be found at this or that general store in San Francisco's "little Tokyo" section. Later, we came to know some of the names associated with these comics: Osamu Tezuka, Gou Nagai, Monkey Punch, Yumiko Igarashi...
And there we were, in a meeting room in a hotel, mingling with what has to qualify as a "who's who" of manga artists, representing genres of comics (historical, romance, sports, juvenile) that we in the U.S. don't even like to acknowledge. This is who came to dinner: Takashi Yanase, Machiko Satonaka, Yumiko Igarashi, Eiko Hanamura, Kei Ishiraaka, Shoutaro Ishinomori, Fujio(A) Fujiko, Jirou Tsunoda, Tetsuya Chiba, Takao Yaguchi, Gou Nagai. Daiji Kazumine, Shingo Morita, Ryuu Kumita, Masaki Katori, Masahiro Katayama, Baron Yoshimoto, Monkey Punch, Buichi Terasawa, Motoki Matsubayahi. Some of these names we knew: Gou Nagai, who created the entire "big robot" genre of comics; Monkey Punch for his wonderful character Lupin III; Yumiko Igarashi for "Candy Candy." Many of the others we knew of only slightly by their work, or not at all. But we knew that we had the honor to be in a room with an assemblage of creative talent the likes of which we don't often see in this country, and never outside of the largest comics conventions. All the while, as we chatted back and forth, and talked about sales figures and the wide differences between how comics creators are viewed by the public in Japan versus how they are treated in the U.S., I had to keep reminding myself, "All right, I'm in a room with Jack Kirby and Burne Hogarth and Alex Raymond and Lou Fine and Ramona Fradon and Tarpe Mills and I must try very hard not to act like a fanboy dork...
So just what did we talk about, that star-studded day?
To be continued...