Word: comix
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...comix. Both explore the nature of love, the intransigence of death, the possibility of time travel and a cosmos full of parallel lives. One has its origins in a failed Hollywood A-list movie; the other comes from the alt-auteur world of the small comix press. The first, The Fountain, written by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (?, Requiem for a Dream) and drawn by Kent Williams, arrived in late 2005 from Vertigo/DC in the form of a high-end, full color hardcover graphic novel (166 pages) with a price ($40) that reflects its luxurious production. The other book, Ganges...
...written and directed by Aronofsky, whose indie movie ? combined sci-fi, mysticism and math to much critical acclaim. Reportedly budgeted at $75 million in 2002, The Fountain was well into pre-production when Pitt dropped out, closing the project. Continuing an emerging trend of turning failed film projects into comix (see Birth of a Nation), The Fountain represents a visualization of that lost picture. However, simultaneously with working on the book, Aronofsky developed a scaled-down movie version, starring Hugh Jackman, which is now in post-production and is due for release this year. From the look...
Seyeong O's Buja's Diary may be even more shocking to U.S. readers given the dearth of comix from South Korea. Called "manwha" in their native country, the few examples published in the U.S. by the likes of Tokyopop are indistinguishable from their Japanese counterparts in their adolescent focus. Buja's Diary, which, like The Push Man, is also a collection of short, naturalistic stories (originally published between 1988 and 1993) may be the first U.S.-published manhwa that feels truly Korean both in setting and unique cultural concerns. Though O shares with Tatsumi an interest in telling tales...
...they are endlessly inventive, compact tales full of cruel irony, quiet desperation and schadenfreude. Editor Adrian Tomine (author of Summer Blonde), correctly points out in the introduction that the naturalism of Tatsumi's 1969 stories are wildly ahead of their time in comparison with the U.S., when the underground comix scene had only just barely begun...
...spite of its printing drawbacks anyone with an interest in Asian or Korean culture - and anyone with an interest in fresh, humane comics storytelling - should seek out Seyeong O's Buja's Diary. Along with Yoshihiro Tatsumi's The Push Man, the two books reveal a side of Asian comix that could redefine the manga/manwha "genre" for most Americans by telling small, mature stories that are rich in complexity, humor and meaning in their unique way as any Western graphic literature...