I think I have used up my good Karma allotment for the foreseeable future. I was very pleased to ad a smaller piece of art by Osamu Tezuka to my collection earlier this year but I was lamenting having missed out on 2 panel pages. As good chance would have it, I got a response to my CAF posting and was contacted by a very professional and easy to work with French collector named Francois. He told me he had a Tezuka page for sale and when he sent me a scan it was a done deal. A little help for Timothy on making up my mind and within a week of the first contact the art is safely here in Toronto.
For those unfamiliar with Osamu Tezuka's work other than Astroboy, boy are you in for a treat. Only a portion of his life's work has made it into English translation but they are all excellent reads and quite a different fare than you may be use to. One of my early favorites was Black Jack, probably Osamu's most personal work other than Phoenix. Osamu had been been in medical school before his gift for sequential art finally pulled him to his true calling and many see the character as some reconciliation of that aspect of his life. Black Jack is a brilliant but rogue surgeon, a Robin Hood of sorts and his short morality plays are always enjoyable. This page is from early in the series in volume 4, page 14(within the first 110 pages of the roughly 3500 pages in this series unless the English editions are out of order). See additional images for the page as printed with English translation. Although Tezuka likely used assistants, the main figures were almost all certainly drawn by him and with little background or filler, I'd say he had a pretty strong hand personally in this early page. Remember this page is layed out to read from right to left.
This series was originally produced from 1973 to 1983 and published in Shukan Shonen Champion and later collected in Barakku Jakku in the late 80's in Japan.
Sadly, after much has come to light about the original source of this art (Manga-Legends) it appears the art work is likely a forgery as is much of the other Manga pages by Tezuka, Otomo, Miyazaki and others in CAF. Google search Manga-Legends to find out more information.
Update 2016
I have had this piece on my wall for a few years now. I was pretty sure it was a forgery. Not because it looks fake but because of its origin. A fellow collector of Manga art that got burned with Manga legends was able to shed some insight into what happened there. I am starting to suspect that the art from them may not have been forged(at least not all of it) but unauthenticated because it came from assistants and other sources that were not through official channels. I have looked at this page every day. I have compared in many times with the published page (English, Black Jack #4 page 14). I have compared it to scans of other Black Jack art. I am more experienced at comparing original art to published pages and the changes that can occur prior to or from the printing process. I am having trouble convincing myself that this is a fake anymore even though that was my presumption. If the null hypothesis is that this is not by Tezuka, I am finding it easier to disprove. I am not sure where this leaves the art. Perhaps in a few more years I'll post another update.
2021
I am still of the impression that his is a forgery. Although some of the inconsistencies I see from the art to the published page I could probably explain with printing, there are a number I can't. The same goes for the Miyazaki I got in at the same time. It is too bad but understandable. It is still on my wall and it will always remain there as a reminder of how great Tezuka art is and to be careful. I've written about this piece twice in article on forgery for CFA-APA and so it is now public record about the concerns I have for this art and how great some forgers are in this hobby. Beware!
