Seiichi Hayashi: Gold Pollen and Other Stories Hardcover – November 30, 2013

Bottom Line First:Seiichi Hayashi was a very respected artist of the 1960’s and 1970’ Manga scene. His work was considered experimental and well in the forefront of this field. This collection published under the name of one of his pieces, Gold Pollen is a sampling of some of his best regarded pieces. These are not so much graphic novels as partially novelized drawings. Hayashi experiences with his mother insure an emotional intensity to every panel was well as a lingering sadness. Other themes draw from the mythical characters and minor demons of earlier Japanese mythology. Unless you are well informed on the artist, Japanese Mythology and experimental Manga, Golden Pollen will be a test of your artistic sensibilities. The right person will love this book, many others will be confused by it.Unless you know this art from and this artist, the introductory auto bio and essays will be essential your understanding of the pages. Each selection is more of a muti-paneled art show than anything like a novel. Themes, like the crying woman and the origami cranes are not incidental images. They speak directly to the Hayashi mother, her metal issues and the mixed feeling of the son who had to deal with near poverty and his only parent’s problems.By the 1960, Japan culture was crossing from its recent dominance by all things American, challenging its vision of America with its feelings about the Viet Man War. The art of this period questions not just America but how to fit ancient Japanese mythology, for example the Mountain Hag and her demon/hero son into its more modern society.For me, Golden Pollen works as a display of highly stylized and creative visual art. Story lines worked only to the extent that the essays informed the text. The images span a variety of emotions, politics and level of esthetic enjoyment. I cannot say that the textual portion of these drawings had near the same positive effect. A reader with a greater understanding of the artist, the conventions of 1970’s Manga would know what to expect. An outsider coming in with no preparation may leave this book dazed and confused.

I've never read his Red Colored Elegy, a story that got much love on samehat and other comix blogs across the 2000s. I picked this up and was smitten by its shameless worship of the material, all picked from the legendary Garo magazine. A nice oversized package with excellent cardstock holding an almost watercolor look in its printed pages, which again, are so nice looking they don't even look like prints. Starting from right to left presents you with 4 curious alternative comic pieces; staring from left to right grants you 2 excellent essays (one autobiographical—"Azami Light") that deepen the readers' understanding of the pictures. And that *is* the -ahem- drawing point of this collection of stories; the art is fantastic. I recommend going thru the stories once with no knowledge and then reading the essays before going back to the pieces a second time. "Dwelling In Flowers" (1972) is a story of familial disassociation and home life's ennui, and also introduces Momoko, the author's mother's character that reappears in his work and while confusing initially becomes intriguing with the knowledge the essays bring. Wonderful full colored piece. "Red Dragonfly" (1968) is a black and white piece drawn with little attention to details in the drawings but packs a punch as Hayashi tries to capture a very specific childhood trauma. "Yamanba Lullaby" (1968) is pure pulp art and stars western celebs, super heroes and Japanese battling robots. Fans of "fun" stuff like Mizuno and Sakabashira will like the amusement park ride that is this story. Its final pages go into a crimson/b&w ink fight between boy and bot.The self titled story here is a surrealist masterpiece and even without the back story that the supplements give becomes a spiraling nightmare of Lynchian and Maruo-esque imagery. It concerns, like "Yamanba," a darker side of traditional Japanese story telling, using a minimalist approach to script and relies heavily on its complementary red/blue gorescapes of feudal Japan and its more demonic, Shinto mysticism.The book was curated with a fervent love for the material and the research given to the essays makes a somewhat short book more succulent to the alternative manga fans (what few of us there are) and makes me eager for the Tsuge book and any other of what PictureBox is calling their "Masters of Alternative Manga" series. Sign me up.(x-posted from my goodreads)

The sequencing of this collection is quite excellent, beginning with the mournful "Dwelling in Flowers" and ending with the deranged (and intriguingly unfinished) fantasy "Gold Pollen." Hayashi's stories lull with a curious sense of sadness and mundanity before pulling the rug out from under you with sudden bursts of breath-taking lyricism. Of course, "Gold Pollen" is a trip right from the beginning, but the overall feel is similar; it is the avant-garde action movie counterpart to the deep psychedelic depression of "Dwelling in Flowers." The two stories in the middle and the essays are nice, too.

This is a well crafted reprinting of work by the alternative manga artist Seiichi Hayashi. This manga and the others recently published by Picturebox ( Osamu Tezuka's The Mysterious Underground Men and Shigeru Sugiura's Last of the Mohicans ) are literally some of the best Japanese comics available in English. In addition to the comics there are two insightful essays included, one by the artist and the other by Ryan Holmberg.

I lucked into hearing about this book. Hayashi was a comic artist in the 1960s, but there is a feeling that he was making comics as art. There is something unmarketable about what he is doing here. At the same time, he was doing poster design, and there are some stories in here that use flat colours that reflect that influence. This is definitely "art comics," a good 20 years before that idea fully formed in America.If you like the work of a gekiga artist like Yoshihiro Tatsumi, this book is a must have. As the publisher, Picturebox, closed shop a few years back, best to get your copy sooner rather than later.