Tezuka on Carl Barks

[Nagi]

[Whitelion]

Funny how everyone says Tezuka invented manga, yet there was manga before his time, oh well. XD Cracked also touched on this subject, the greeting card link doesn't seem to work on my internet, in case other people are experiencing the same problem i'll upload an image of it. (Hope it works)

[strobe_z]

Yeah the "invented manga" statement is such short short-hand that it becomes an erroneous statement. It's an extremely thin way of trying to capture the idea that Osamu Tezuka was basically the primary catalyst for reinventing manga after the war and creating many of the characteristics and conventions that define modern manga.

The only statement that makes me cringe more than the "invented manga/anime" statement is the "Tezuka is the Walt Disney of Japan". It certainly doesn't fit as a description of reality other than to equate the relative popularity of both men's most famous creations (i.e. Mickey Mouse and Astro Boy). Disney wasn't really a great animator, and was really more of a back seat driver when Ub Iwerks created the famous mouse design. Disney's greatest success was in getting teams of people to buy in to a system with him acting more as a quality control agent rather than as the creative force behind a project. Tezuka, on the other hand, was more like a creative force of nature that swept people up in his wake.