This is the Buddy for January 28th. He’s looking a bit like Claude Raines, right? Or, at least he would be, if you could see him. Invisibility potion and whatnot.
The Invisible Man was an interesting book. I used to think it’d be like a supervillain story where he uses the invisibility as a superpower, to sneak up on people, spy, murder… but really, it’s more of a mastermind criminal who has to live in secrecy because of his “condition” - and of course, it makes sense. Griffin is only invisible when he’s naked, after all, and even then people would be able to hear him move, see stuff move when he touches it…
So it’s really not at all like other stories about invisibility. It works better as a metaphor about how people turn to crime because society perceives them as invisible, i.e., out of sight, out of mind.
And after reading it, having read Osamu Tezuka’s Alabaster, I think there’s some similarities in the stories. Might’ve been an inspiration. Alabaster himself doesn’t turn invisible as much as he has transparent skin (like our loveable Sally Impossible in Venture Brothers), but he’s also like a criminal mastermind whose appearance sets him apart as a freak.
And he was black before being transformed. Reminds me a little bit of Michael Jackson.
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I think Alabaster was one of the first Tezuka manga I’ve read. It’s a pretty memorable story. Sometimes I think about re-reading it, but there’s so much stuff I haven’t read yet, I feel like by reading old books again I’m keeping myself from new interesting stories.
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