Manga: Reviews of Iceland and Fukushima Devil Fish - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Time Codes:

• 00:00:26 - Introduction
• 00:02:29 - More listener mail!
• 00:06:57 - Iceland
• 00:30:51 - Fukushima Devil Fish
• 01:04:49 - Wrap up
• 01:06:13 - Contact us

On the March manga episode, Shea and Derek discuss a couple of experimental works. They begin with Yuichi Yokoyama's Iceland, released last fall from Retrofit Comics/Big Planet Comics. The plot of this book is minimal -- two characters are searching for a third, they find him, and then they drive off in a taxi -- and it's something like you might find in Samuel Beckett narrative. But it's Yokoyama's art that propels the text. As the guys discuss, there is something kinetic, claustrophobic, and even frantic about the visuals. For Derek, futurism comes to mind.

After that they look at a book that both Shea and Derek have been eagerly anticipating, Susumu Katsumata's Fukushima Devil Fish(Breakdown Press). The core text comprises nine short stories that provide a diversity of tone. The first two are the most contemporary, originally published during the 1980s and focusing on the dangers of nuclear power. The remaining pieces reflect Katsumata's style from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, stories originally appearing in the legendary Garo andCOM. Some of these are folklore-inspired narratives, presenting a pre-modern Japan inhabited by kappa and tanuki and reminiscent of the stories found in Red Snow. Others are instances of "I-manga," introspective and highly personal pieces driven more by tone than cohesive storyline. Four critical and biographical essays, two written by Katsumata himself, round out the collection.

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