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Published in 1973, Barbara is one of Osamu Tezuka's mature adult comics, which means that it has some nudity and sexual content, but it actually means more that it deals with different themes and approach from his more obviously children-oriented comics. It's also quite a daring subject, an adventurous one rather than a political one, dealing in some ways with the idea of art and craft, but in a more serious way than how the artist sometimes inserts himself self-effacingly and self-critically as comic moments in his other books. Barbara the character is something of an enigma, a muse perhaps, one that Tezuka recognises as being influenced to some extent by Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann . Unlike Nicklausse however who tries to keep her master on the right path, Barbara is a more inconstant companion to her sensei. Yosuke Mikura is a "popular Symbolist writer' who picks Barbara off the streets, a drunk, delinquent, with a shady background. There is a literary bent t

Created in 1972-73, Ayako is one of Osamu Tezuka's dark exploration of people and society, specifically dealing with the significant post-war years from the 1950s, right up to the present day in the 70s. It's not a pleasant story to say the least, the American occupation giving rise to enormous upheavals that Japanese society is incapable of adjusting to. More than that, but seen through the eyes of one family, who represent many aspects and attitudes of Japanese society, it even seems to bring out the worse in the Japanese character. Ayako opens with Jiro Tenge returning from the war, the country defeated, its impact shock to the whole nation. He returns to his home village in the country, Yodoyama, to the grave disappointment of his tyrannical father who is ashamed that Jiro didn't die honourably in the war like so many others. Jiro finds that much has changed in the time he has been away, as much with Japan as his family. His teenage sister Naoko is secretly part of a l

Osamu Tezuka's 1965 science-fiction hero team adventure Wonder 3 is aimed at a younger audience and with Tezuka's imagination, style and dynamism there's plenty to enjoy. If you want you could maybe even find a little bit of broad social commentary, but if not, it still seems fairly on the money in respect of its traditional SF theme of showing the planet Earth in decline and in need of outside intervention if it is to be saved. Things are so bad however that the Milky Way League aren't even sure the Earth is worth saving. They decide however to send a superhero Space Patrol Squad team The Wonder 3 to monitor the planet for one year and if it doesn't show any sign of being worthy of redemption, they are to use their Antiproton bomb to destroy the place. It's too much of a risk to the rest of the universe. Arriving on Earth the three decide to disguise themselves as animals in order to blend in (the idea of taking human form too disgusting to contemplate). The t

At the end of Blood Crazy we were left with the grim acceptance that the situation the world had been plunged into was irresolvable. With the adult population having been altered in a way that would drive them to tear their own children apart, everything had changed and the world wasn't ever going back to the way it was. Without giving away any spoilers, while some interesting theories were proposed to explain what had happened to trigger this apocalyptic situation overnight, it still meant that it would be up to small communities of survivors to rebuild society and find a way of defending themselves from the ever present threat of the “Creosotes”. That doesn't mean that there aren't more stories to tell and new revelations to be told, but it has taken almost 30 years for Simon Clarke to get a sequel in print. It's a long time for some fans of the original novel (recently republished by Darkness Visible), but by the end of Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia , I'm sure f

Right from the first sentence you get a sense of what The List of Suspicious Things is about and the tone it is going to adopt; there's an element of childhood reminiscence of what it was like to live in a northern Yorkshire town in the late 70s/early 80s with a little nostalgia for more innocent times without overlooking the hardships endured in the Thatcher years. That view is expanded to take in the dangers faced by women in those times and the more openly racist attitudes expressed, but you also get a sense that it's not going to be all grim, that there is an affectionate look at the peculiarities of growing up with friends and family from a bookish young girl who hasn't quite grasped why things are the way they are. What is key of course is the way the story is told, and this one has a nice little macabre twist. Horrified by the snippets of news that she hears, Miv decides that she is going to find out who is the Yorkshire Ripper with the assistance of her friend Shar