Hergé, The Castafiore Emerald (1963)

 

The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé.

In many ways the best Tintin album but also the least typical. In place of the usual globe-trotting adventure we get an exquisite farce with all the precision of a stage-play or classic film.

Shigeru Mizuki, Akuma-kun (1963)

Akuma-kun by Shigeru Mizuki.

Groundbreaking series by the yokai horror mangaka about a little boy who can summon demons. Very similar to Mizuki's long-running Kitaro series, Akuma-kun is full of the same inventive grotesques and monsters. 

Daniel Clowes, Lloyd Llewellyn (1986)

Lloyd Llewellyn #1 by Dan Clowes.
 

Lorenzo Mattotti, Fires (1986)

 

Fires by Lorenzo Mattotti. 

Art Spiegelman, Maus, Volume One: My Father Bleeds History (1986)

 

Maus, Volume One: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman.

Ernie Bushmiller, Nancy (1938)

 

Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller (1938)

Ernie Bushmiller took over Larry Whittington's "Fritzi Ritz" comic strip in 1925 and introduced the character of Nancy, Fritz's niece, in 1933. By 1938 Nancy had taken over the strip and it was renamed simply "Nancy" as Bushmiller focused more on the surreal antics of the little girl and her working class boyfriend Sluggo.

Over the years, and until Bushmiller's death in 1982, Nancy became something like the ne plus ultra of the American newspaper comic strip; a stripped-down, elegant gag-a-day work of art that explored quotidian absurdities using the language of cartooning like few others. Deceptively simple, Nancy with form, time, and space with a supremely modernist outlook.

The critics:

"Ernie Bushmiller is my comics Kafka."

---Jerry Moriarty, 1988.

Osamu Tezuka, The Mysterious Underground Men (1948)

 

The Mysterious Underground Men by Osamu Tezuka (1948)

Tezuka's first longform "story manga" is a charming children's science fiction tale of a boy inventor and an anthropomorphic rabbit on a quest to tunnel through the earth in their rocket train. Equal parts Jules Verne, Tom Swift, and Floyd Gottfredson, the feverish plot revolves around an apocalyptic war with the titular subterranean civilization. The common Tezuka theme of what it means to be human is embodied in the highly capable Mimio, the rabbit character given intelligence by a cadre of Frankenstein-esque scientists, who must prove his worth by saving his friends and humanity. In his Pinocchio-like agonizing, Mimio anticipates later heroes in the Tezuka pantheon like Astroboy.

The critics:

Initially published in 1948, The Mysterious Underground Men is a lot of things: a straightforward adventure story, a funny-animal book, a demonstration that manga can incorporate serious drama, and, paradoxically, a fun read. The hero’s name is Young John, and the introductory pages describe him as “a science whiz kid [who] invents a rocket train and conquers the center of the earth after fighting monsters and criminals.” His sidekicks are Uncle Bill and Mimio. The latter is a humanoid rabbit whose creation stands as one of the most interesting and visually-striking sections of the book. Early in the story, Mimio’s animal nature is forced out of him through surgery and electrification, which combine to domesticate and civilize him. The progression is violent, odd, and rather Disneyfied in its execution.

On that note, some consider Tezuka the Walt Disney of Japan for his influence on pop culture there, and the imagination on view here is prodigious. Our heroes fight both a villainous group of men led by a gentleman named Ham-Egg and a legion of termite soldiers commanded by their queen. The termites aim to take back the surface after being forced underground, and their method for retribution is straight-up terrorism, with bombs setting cities afire and toppling skyscrapers. One wonders how this imagery was received at the time, a mere three years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the firebombing of Tokyo and other major cities. Regardless of the intent, it adds a darker edge to what appears to be a children’s book.

--Hillary Brown, Paste Magazine, 2013