20th Century Boys (Volume 1-7), Naoki Urasawa (22 down, 30 to go)

This obsession with Urasawa is putting a wee dent in my little “book-a-week” schedule. I’ve read over 1600 pages of Urasawa’s stuff in the last few weeks - and I could have read more, but I’m been reading the books in French which slows me down a little.

Anyway, 20th Century Boys is a sprawling labyrinth of wonderful stories, sub-stories and characters. Hugely inspiring and highly recommended. No spoilers here - apparently the comic has been optioned for film and is slated for production in 2008. It’s bizarre to think of these things being translated to film - when it feels like two books could make a rich feature film. How does a writer boil down 1800 pages into a 90 page script? Actually Josh Olson (who’s adapting Monster) talks about it in this episode of the Creative Screenwriting Podcast.

My only concern is what I’m going to do when I’ve run out of Urasawa. I’m fairly concerned about withdrawal. Fortunately, my local library is stocked with French translations of many titles. And Kean has generously pointed out the early Pluto scanlations. That should keep me satisfied for a while - and there’s no rush, but maybe one day I’ll read an actual book again.