X Man Frontispiece by Batmanga Artist Kuwata Jirou
Artists: Jiro Kuwata (Penciller) , Jirou Kuwata (Inker)
9 Comments - 1,844 Views - 6 Likes
Additional Images:
X Man Manga Panel Page Sequence
X Man Manga Collection
Artwork Details
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DescriptionHappy New Year!After a busy 2018, I had planned to curb my purchases in 2019, but I just couldn't help myself when I saw this frontispiece was available and the price was not too crazy. I have long wanted art by Jiro Kuwata, and this was too good to resist. Kuwata's "8 Man," which he co-created with science fiction writer, Kazumasa Hirai, was the first Japanese anime that I saw when I was a kid. It ran on a local UHF channel and I watched it every day after school. It was fascinating for the odd look of the characters (it certainly wasn't Hanna Barbera), the level of action and violence in the stories and the odd things the main character did like, well, smoke energy cigarettes to maintain his many powers. These days, more Western comic fans know Kuwata for "Batmanga" which Kuwata drew after the Adam West Batman TV show made it over to Japan. However. he started working in the manga industry professionally soon after the end of WWII when he was still a teenager. One of his hits came in the late 1950Ős when he drew the manga adaptation of the hit Japanese TV show, "Gekko Kamen" (AKA "Moonlight Mask"). Soon after that run, the people at "Shonen Gahou" asked him to come up with a new masked hero. To change it up, Kuwata and company gave the story a science fiction setting and created "X Man." According to information I found on the Net, the series ran from September 1960 to August 1962, at that time, a pretty long length. It was reportedly popular enough that the series was made into a radio program. (After he finished "X Man," he would start "8 Man" in 1963.) The storyline of X Man takes place sometime in "the space age" after earth has formed the Space Police to counter extraterrestrial crimes. They often come into conflict with a group known as the "Black Cross," whose various members plot world conquest using a mysterious ore contained in a meteorite. Space Police Ace, Saigo Eijiro, and his boy sidekick, Daisuke, set out to stop that group's various conspiracies. However, whenever, Daisuke, finds himself in a pinch, a mysterious hero, X Man, wearing a helmet and a scarf (for whatever reason, a lot of Japanese heroes during this era wore scarves the same way American comic book heroes tended to wear capes) enters the fray. Who could this mysterious masked hero be? Social/Sharing |
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Comments on this Artwork
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Aaron N. 
Member Since 2009
1 - Posted on 1/1/2019
BOOOM! Happy New Year!!! What a score! How cool!!!!
Timothy Finney
Member Since 2006
Posted on 1/1/2019
Aaron N. wrote:
BOOOM! Happy New Year!!! What a score! How cool!!!!
Not, if I recall correctly, as cool as the Kuwata piece in your collection, but, yeah, it is asimple and straightforward image, recognizable as the artist's style and it has kind of a retro-cool feel to it that made it irresistible to me.
kent mansley
Member Since 2015
1 - Posted on 1/1/2019
Wow! Blown away by how beautiful and rare this piece is. Congrats on a huge score!
Alex Johnson
Member Since 2006
Forum Moderator
1 - Posted on 1/2/2019
Excellent start to the New Year and an even better write-up on why it is.
Chris K.
Member Since 2008
1 - Posted on 1/6/2019
This is fantastic, Tim - and what a great story! 'Energy cigarettes'? Who would have thought?!
John Espinoza
Member Since 2014
1 - Posted on 1/13/2019
Even without knowing anything about this character or artist before reading your description, I can already see how amazing this piece is!
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