News
Free Manga Lecture in London on Monday
posted on by Andrew Osmond
On Monday September 25, the Japan Society will present a lecture on manga author Susumu Katsumata, who often wrote manga on nuclear themes. Entitled 'Fukushima Devil Fish: Susumu Katsumata's Anti-Nuclear Manga', the talk is free but must be booked - call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email [email protected]
The venue is The Swedenborg Society near Holborn station (directions), with the talk starting at 6.45 p.m.
The talk will be delivered by Ryan Holmberg, an art historian and critic (pictured above). From the website:
One of the regulars of the legendary alternative manga monthly Garo in the magazine's heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Susumu Katsumata (1943-2007) has the curious distinction of having risen within the world of political cartooning and literary comics while studying toward a graduate degree in nuclear physics in Tokyo.While best known for his stories about life and myth in the Japanese countryside, Katsumata also drew frequently about political and social issues since the mid 1960s, including numerous satirical strips about nuclear arms and the influence of big science within Japanese universities. After the anti-nuclear power movement gelled in Japan in the late 70s, Katsumata began illustrating critical science books about the history and dangers of nuclear power. He also drew frequent humor strips on related topics, as well as moving stories about the “nuclear gypsies” who maintained Japan's nuclear plants under oppressive work conditions.
This talk will survey Katsumata's work on the subject of nuclear power, which is the largest, most diverse, and most trenchant such oeuvre in Japanese visual art prior to the 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima. The talk will serve as a preview of two forthcoming publications, a collection of Katsumata's manga titled Fukushima Devil Fish (SISJAC and Breakdown Press) and a history of antinuclear thought, protest, and cartooning in Japan around Katsumata's career, titled No Nukes for Dinner: How One Japanese Cartoonist and His Country Learned to Distrust the Atom (publisher TBD).
Via Otaku News Twitter Feed.
