Friday, March 14, 2008

Ff/Iron Man: Big in Japan 1 page 1

I have not finished going through Seth's sketchbook with his working out of pages from Vertigo Pop Tokyo; but last night I was looking through the contents of his hard drive, and I found quite a few scanned pages that I did not have previously. Since doing the sketchbook/Tokyo comparisons will involve some photography (I haven't yet taken photos of all the pages either of the sketchbook, or of the Tokyo books), I'll leave that thread until later, and show a few of these.
This is page 1 of Big in Japan. This page of street scenes has a few personal references that always make me smile. In the top right panel, there are two signs on the top of the prominent building. One has a picture of Bob the Slug, and the other has a heart and 寿 which is Hisa, and stands for Hisako, his wife. The sign directly above the man on the left says セスwhich is SeSu, or Seth. The sign on the far left middle of the bottom panel has another slug with a sign that says ボブ, BoBu: Bob. And I love the fat figure atop the rounded building genially holding his arms out to the populace.
Seth was at the height of his abilities in this series. Even though the people's faces are quite cartoony, their bodies and clothing , their poses, and the surroundings are rather natural, drawn with a sure hand. This combination of intricate, realistic backgrounds with cartoony faces is one of the charactistics that Seth found very interesting and intriguing in Japanese manga. I think it was a conscious decision on his part to give this series, set in Japan, a manga feel.


1 comment:

j_ay said...

Seth was at the height of his abilities in this series

I agree. My favourite Seth book. Every page, every panel, is flawless.