[Buddha-l] Life of Buddha by Tezuka

[Jim Peavler]

On Mar 4, 2008, at 6:59 PM, [DPD Web] Shen Shi'an wrote:

> To share...
>
> A negative review of Tezuka's 'Buddha' series:
> http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=618

It seems a little naive to me to expect a manga to be "literally"  
accurace in every detail of each character and event from as complex  
a story as the complete life of the Buddha (particularly when there  
are about 1000 "literal" versions of the stories.  A work of art (and  
that is what Tezuka' Buddha series is) has to be accomplished within  
its own context and form. Some liberty with detail might be essential  
from time to time.

I hated the (original) movie of "All the Kings Men" based on the  
novel by Robert Penn Warren. I later had the opportunity to talk  
about it with the author himself and complained about how awfully  
they had mangled his movie. He said that he thought they had done a  
pretty good job of shortening a rather long and detailed novel into a  
fairly coherent movie, and he reminded me that the maker of a movie  
has a completely different set of constraints and requirements from  
those of a novelist.

The maker of a single, unified story of the Buddha's life, and the  
creator of a graphic version to boot, has a completely different of  
constraints and requirements from those of the original authors/ 
commentators on the Buddhas life.  I would not complain too much that  
Tezuka mangad the story a bit in the interests of telling an  
interesting and engaging story in a graphical format.

>
> A positive review of Scott McCloud's 'Understanding Comics':
> http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1925

Yes! This is an excellent book, and it would be to any one's benefit,  
who has not read manga or graphic litrature to read this first. You  
might become a bit more flexible about details of Tezuka's rendition  
of the life of the Buddha.


>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Franz Metcalf [mailto:franz at mind2mind.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, 05 March, 2008 6:18 AM
> To: Buddhist discussion forum
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Life of Buddha by Tezuka
>
> Joanna et al.,
>
> Thanks for the reminder of Tezuka's series. I have the first two
> volumes and I enjoyed them a great deal. I'm not a comics reader, but,
> as Duffy says, Tezuka brings you into that world with ease. Back at
> the height of my flickering fame, I had some back-and-forth with
> Vertical, the publishers (though the series is now published by
> HarperCollins), and even blurbed the books. I really did enjoy them.
> Now I reckon I'll have to get the rest of the series. Perhaps I'll
> read them to my daughter (though there's plenty of violence).
>
> Great countercultural jibes from Duffy, too.
>
> Franz
>
> On Mar 4, 2008, at 1:19 PM, jkirk wrote:
>
>>
>
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>

Jim Peavler
jmp at peavler.org


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