(Continued)Mizutama:
I think there was a considerable number of people who were introduced to "SciFi" through your manga. In fact, weren't there many girls who were first exposed to Bradbury through reading your adaptations in Weekly Margaret?
Hagio:
Yes, I got several fan mails to that effect back then.
Mizutama:
In those days, Hagio-san, I feel you were not only letting your readers enjoy "SciFi" through your manga, but also providing the chance for them to encounter SciFi in traditional literary form [as opposed to manga form]. It came across from your works that you were not only an excellent cartoonist who drew SciFi manga, but also an ardent reader of SciFi. What hit me like, "Ah, this cartoonist really loves SciFi," was in "March Hares in Droves…" There was a little scene on the side, off the main plot, where a bespectacled girl and boy ran into each other and she dropped some books she was clutching in her arms. As he picked up the books, the boy said, "Wow, those are all Ballard—do you like New Wave?" As he was helping her, the girl said, "Yes, but I like Aldiss even more." That sort of conversation.
Sakai:
Sheesh, what a dialog! (laugh)
Mizutama:
But it was like this: If you are an adolescent SciFier who meets and falls in love with SciFi, you go on happily reading the various SciFi stories, but all the while feeling a bit lonely because you have no one to talk with about it—if you have that kind of feeling, then this is a fantasy you would dream of at least once! (laugh) Of course it is not that you need the opposite sex, but it's like, "If only I had a friend I could talk about SciFi with!"
Hagio:
Wow, thank you for remembering such an old piece. I probably got "Long Afternoon of Earth" from a rental bookstore and read it. Naturally, it is sad if you don't have a SciFi fan you can talk to.
(Continues)
No comments:
Post a Comment