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I do not have the proper mindset for decent comics bloggery this week, but I still thought I’d quickly post a link to this fascinating essay by Kentaro Takekuma (co-creator of one of my favorite books of comics meta-criticism, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga) writing on Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki.

One of the most interesting parts of this essay, I think, is where Kentaro describes why he feels that Miyazaki’s Nausicaä manga series is “hard to read”, including this bit:

The individual panels are too “complete” as illustrations. This is only true for each singular frame (panel), and there isn’t enough of an attempt to connect one frame to the next, or to guide the reader in following the flow of the manga.

This probably has something to do with why people so often describe Nausicaä as aesthetically “Western”. The whole thing is worth reading, especially for Miyazaki or Tezuka fans.

Oh, and for the record, I personally didn’t find Nausicaä hard to read at all.

[H/t to J.O.G. McCullochuddy]

Ok. And while I was writing this, Chris Butcher linked to it, so this meager post is even more superfluous now. I’ll put it up anyway.

[And apparently D. Deppey posted it yesterday. Whatever. I’m done.]