Barbara - Osamu Tezuka

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 to the episodes of the book and, like Hoffmann, Mikura has trouble with women; "a pathological abnormality", a deviancy that sees him searching for the ideal woman, that in the first episode even sees him fall in love with an automaton, a doll, like Olympia.

In the second episode he falls in love with a woman who is really a sleek dog that appears to him in human form and is rescued again from committing an act of bestiality by Barbara's intervention. These are the kind of outlandish adventures that take place in the first half of the book while the relationship between Miura and Barbara is undefined. Barbara holds a strange fascination over Mikura, even though he is partly repelled by her drunken slovenliness and casual nudity. He experiences a similar contempt for the decadent society and world he lives in, the intellectual groups, but yet they inspire his creativity.

The second half of the book has a very different tone as Tezuka takes in more cultural, political and esoteric references. Miura discovers that Barbara is a Greek goddess, a genuine muse, albeit an unconventional one who often deserts him. This means that Mikura encounters a lot of strange characters as he navigates the creative arts and publishing world, as he deals with his urges and as he tries to hold onto Barbara. A failed wedding has something of an occult flavour to it and Mikura's brief flirtation with politics goes awry, as does Barbara and his ability to follow up on his successful literary career.

Barbara is a bold work, adventurous and imaginative in its ideas and presentation. For the main part the artwork is impressive in layouts and expressiveness, although maybe a little rushed and crude in places. As usual there are issues with racial sensitivities and cultural details, abuse and treatment of women, but there it nothing exploitative or sensationalist about this, Although varied in tone, it's a serious work that explores culture, society, people and questions where certain problems and attitudes come from, as well as challenging aspects of it.

Reading notes: Barbara by Osamu Tezuka is published by Digital Manga Publishing. Paperback copies are hard to come by but the digital version is available from their US website.