Nagai Be

This wonderful comic, made (so far as I can tell) to accompany the Royal Ontario Museum's Silk Roads exhibit from the 1980s, is just as fun now as it was then. This is impressive, considering that I've gone through puberty and several shoe sizes since the 80s.

From the appendix I learned that this book (ostensibly the tale of a buddhist monk's journey to take the sacred scriptures of Buddhism from India to China, aided and abetted by a colourful cast of gods, animals, demons, humans, spirits, and at least one bodhisattva) is based on a collection of Chinese folk tales about the trickster Monkey King. The art is colourful and funny, but not remeniscient of superhero comics; Odum Anker gives it a European-style sophistication (think Tintin).

Kids and graphic novel fanciers should pick it up. It's out of print, but a bookfinder.com search turned up many copies.… (altro)