Katsuhiro Otomo by Katsuhiro Otomo

BOOM !

This one YOU did not see coming, right? A doodle by one of (THE?) most influential comic book artists worldwide still alive ?

OF course there is a story attached to it ;)

Otomo was invited to the Angouleme festival in 2016 as the Grand Prix winner of the previous year and as custom dictates, he drew the festival poster that came with his appearance.

Anybody knowing his stuff and how un-approachable he is (even in Japan) knew this was just a geek wet dream to even contemplate being in front of him to say thank you. No signings were organised, basically no interviews, etc…

On the first day of the convention (Thursday) I noticed a small group of persons quickly forming at the entrance of the main “room” of the show (the biggest). I recognized a manga-oriented collector I know and went there to say hello. I learned that, completely unannounced anywhere, the Festival had produced a large size silkscreen print edition of the poster Otomo had drawn for the festival that was limited to 50 copies.

(for those who don’t know what that is, look for it online as it is a fascinating process and a word that is sadly one of the most misused worldwide in the comic book hobby by fans, “professional” sellers and auction houses).

We were later told by the organisation that half of that run would be released to customers during the four days of the show, meaning 6 per days and the rest would be mailed away to important people of the comic industry or set aside for top collaborators of the show. I was 7th in line on that first day and began sweating my wait super anxious that I would not get any as I knew it had to be the first day or nothing. Why the anxiety? Because I had actually seen Otomo sign those, not knowing then what they were, from far away while walking the festival floor, in a remote part of it to which I only paid attention as I had recognized him, and noticed he was actually “sketching” on them. I mean the silkscreen alone was already highly desirable (despite its hefty price) but a sketch?

OMFG! (insert the fainting onomatopoeia of your choice here).

When the person handling the sale finally arrived after hours of waiting, it took all my sweettalking, argumentative skills and Jedi mind tricks to convince him to sell one more that day. 6 only per day remember? I was 7th in line but I think that the main argument I used was that they could/should release one more on any day to reach the first half of the run being sold to customers. And it obviously worked.

(why is mine number 6 where I was 7 I line? I don’t recall but it is likely a case of the 6th in line being away for a moment at the time the actual selling took place as I remember all 7 were sold on that day).

Due to the silkscreen being a fragile material (often printed on heavy museum art paper), I had to go the printing atelier to secure sturdy transport material for it. The organisation offered to ship to me to avoid me the stress of carrying it home myself and all the risks that this would generate but something this valuable, I could not risk leaving in someone else hands. What if it got damaged? Lost? Stolen?

Now the story does not end here. Believe it or not, I only cracked the package open this year (so close to 9 years later) on the prospect of meeting with another manga enthusiast collector this October. Why wait so long you ask? I was procrastinating on verifying that my copy had an actual drawing on it. Because while I saw Otomo sketching some, I had no guarantee he sketched all of them (in fact my intuition is that he only sketched those that were sold and not the other half).

If you take the Manga/Animé industry in Japan insularly, the biggest names to come to mind locally to then consider their worldwide influence are Tezuka, Miyazaki, Otomo and Toriyama to a lesser extent (Amano, Shirow and Terada may belong in that group but that’s more debatable). So I feel incredibly blessed.

(because I’ll take this over any Akira cell as I’m 100% sure he actually worked on this one, even for 3 seconds ;p)

This is doodle week part 7 and concludes this year offerings.

(a special note to my fellow collectors, from Japan or elsewhere, especially those with NO active gallery who register on CAF only to try to buy pieces, lowballing or not?

THIS.
IS.
NOT.
FOR.
SALE ;)