One Punch Man was originally a crudely-drawn Web comic by a guy calling himself “One”. But then the story, with art by slick manga artist Yusuke Murata, was picked up for publisher Shueisha’s Young Jump Web Comics website in 2012. It subsequently became an anime, and the manga is available in English from Viz.
This week, Tim and Kumar take a look, to discuss whether the story is really served by Murata’s typical manga art, and the good and bad points of the comic as it exists.
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Alex and Ada
FLASHBACK! Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk is easily mistaken for a serious sports manga. Pick it up, though, and you’ll find instead a hilarious ensemble comedy that just happens to involve basketball. Still, the series is credited with basketball’s 90s popularity in Japan, and led Inoue to create several other basketball-related series. But is oeuvre isn’t all hoops; he’s also the creator behind Vagabond, a sometimes-violent but intriguing take on the life of 17th-century historical figure Miyamoto Musashi. Tim and Kumar dig into both series.
While early 1950s anti-comics hysteria eventually resulted in the cancellation of nearly all their books, EC Comics still had one thing going for them: MAD! Written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by some of the best comics artists of the age, this parody comic set the template for much that came after it. But can the humor still be appreciated today? What are we to think of some of the attitudes on display toward, say, women or certain ethnic groups? Tim and Kumar discuss.
Richard Corben has repeatedly adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe — in fact, he’s drawn some of the same stories several times! Most recently he’s done the work collected in Dark Horse’s