Tezuka and Miller -- Compare

Tezuka and Miller -- Compare and Contrast Cartoon Styles

The comics produced by Japanese artist / writer Osamu Tezuka are so very different from the comics produced by American artist / writer Frank Miller that contrasting the two styles is a worthy endeavour. A great deal of research and writing has been employed in contrasting the difference between Japanese comics and American comics in other written materials. For this paper, using the Miller / Tezuka productions as examples, specific comparisons are offered. The aspect of comics that makes comparisons and contrasts will be made in the context of Tezuka's "Buddha" comic juxtaposed and contrasted with Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns."

Contrasts in Presentation

Japanese comics (also known as Manga), are more exaggerated in their presentation than American comics are, and this is true with the comparison between Tezuka's work and Miller. Japanese comic are more stylized, more original, more surreal when they need to be, and one could say American comics tend more towards realism. Normally Manga comics are printed in black and white and the comic frames are smaller than American comic frames. The Manga comics can in fact be half the size of the frames of American comics, and this holds true with Buddha vs. Dark Knight. American comics are almost always printed in full color, and this too is true in Miller's comic book vs. Tezuka's book.

Another big difference between Japanese comics and American comics has to do with the size of the book in which the comics are presented. The Buddha work is presented in several volumes, running into thousands of pages, but American comic books may be only thirty or so pages long. The American comic book can be done by one person (artist / writer) but generally the American comic is done in assembly-line format. One person writes the story, another pencils in the sketch, a third person takes pen to paper, another person might be the one to add the dialog (doing lettering) and still another talent adds color to the frame. That said, in Japan (and with Tezuka) the great majority of the work is completed by the same person.

Meanwhile, Miller's story of course involves a fictional superhero (Batman) who is created when a real bat emerges from a the ceiling of a cave to cast a shadow over the future Batman, Bruce Wayne. The fictional value of Batman is strictly related to entertainment, which revolves around the concept of style. The frames are in color and the style Miller uses is full color, with fairly realistic characters and scenes. The story is dramatic, the scenes are near realistic and the characters (with the exception of Batman) are posed to stand out in the frame; they look like (or somewhat like) people that everyone has seen or has known at one time.

In Buddha, the characters are more tightly woven into the image in that frame and the scenes are surreal in many instances, not landscapes and other scenes that comic readers have seen before. And moreover Tezuka's work is a story that is fictionalized but is based on one of the most iconic spiritual leaders in the history of civilization. So there is a sharp style contrast to begin with between these two comics. Indeed Tezuka takes great liberties with Buddha, invents scenarios, but his Manga generally stays true to the life of Buddha (Siddhartha) and his spiritual journey to battle injustice (including the caste system), to help those in need during famine, warfare and drought.

Hence, Buddha is editorially far, far apart in style and in concept from Dark Knight, which in comparison, is frivolous and cliched. Aside from the superhero antics -- and saving people from villains -- Dark Knight is a pithy formula-riddled comic that delights readers in a totally different way from the readers' pleasure while going through the many volumes of Buddha. Indeed, many people who are not Buddhists, and have no real knowledge of Buddha and his travels, have been getting an education of sorts by reading Buddha.

Tezuka has brilliant story-telling abilities but his ability to combine the story with the dramatic visual effect brings out a warm human feeling in the style used in the frames. The emphasis in his frames is on action, conflict, character development, movement and emotion, and one could say the same thing about Dark Knight except that the context is wholly different. There is plenty of action and conflict in Dark Knight -- and it's in color, which American audiences favor by far over the black and white found in Tezuka's Buddha -- but there is nothing really philosophical in Dark Knight but in Buddha the pages are a rich blend of art, action, motion, interesting scenes and philosophy based on a real spiritual leader from the past.

Tezuka seems to want to keep readers' attention with his drawing acumen. Not that Miller's work isn't also very excellent with the pen, but his frames reek of sameness vis-a-vis the absurd juxtaposition between the good guy and the evil villain. It helps Buddha too that Tezuka invokes a lavish amount of humor. This is part of the plot, of course, and this paper is about style not plot, but the use of Jedi images and ironies adds to the originality and potency of Buddha.