Black Jack: Osamu Tezuka

Alright, I will never pretend to know anything about manga. The first manga I ever read cover-to-cover was a copy of Berserk (6, I believe) that wasn’t mine, which I picked up while totally zonked on Acid. It was actually a mind-blowing read, but then again, I was trapped in an apartment in North York in a half-bad trip, looking for some escape route other than the balcony (good call on my part). Since then, I haven’t really had time to explore the world of manga, but their crazy, often grotesque themes – despite the lack of effort, on my part, put into discovering them – still mysteriously appeal to me.

So, this afternoon, I was really stoked to receive the first three volumes of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack Series, considering it was released in 1973, the same year Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow was published – a big year in literary history for me. Even though this is Tezuka’s third most popular series, preceded by Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, both of which I haven’t read, I still think this will be a fun foray into a graphic medium I know very little about. Since I’ve been reading an excessive amount of literary and cultural theory as of late, I feel like this could provide a more than necessary creative break for my totally zapped brain. Reviews to come, for sure.