Gon

AUTHOR: Tanaka, Masashi

ARTIST: Masashi Tanaka (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Kodansha (Japanese); DC Comics (English)

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1991-2002

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1992-2002 (English translation 2007-2009)

Publication History

Gon, a black-and-white series by Masashi Tanaka, was first introduced to the Japanese public in 1991 in the thirty-ninth issue of Kodansha’s Weekly Morning magazine. The tremendous success of the comic resulted in its trade publication by Kodansha beginning in 1992. In the early 1990’s, dinosaurs were prevalent in popular culture, from the zany children’s television character Barney, a purple, anthropomorphic Tyrannosaurus rex, to the fiercely realistic dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park, an adaptation of the novel by Michael Crichton. This public interest in dinosaurs extended to comics, and in 1996, Paradox Press (DC Comics) began publishing the first U.S. version of Gon. The pages of the manga were reversed so that the comic could be read in the standard Western left-to-right reading order. The series included a color issue, Gon Color Spectacular, published in 1998. Later, in 2007, this highly popular series was published in its original format (reading right to left) by CMX (WildStorm, also an imprint of DC Comics). Kodansha Comics USA began to reprint the series in 2011.

Plot

The twenty-four wordless episodes in Gon follow a small but tough anthropomorphic dinosaur named Gon who lives in the modern animal world. There are no humans in these stories. Gon’s adventures involve conflict with a variety of animals indigenous to specific regions on every continent. Readers experience the beauty and drama of nature through Tanaka’s rich portrayal of flora and fauna.

Gon is a free spirit who roams the earth and defends animals from easily identifiable antagonists. He always subdues his foes with his indomitable spirit and a ferociousness that crushes the most powerful beasts, from grizzly bears to tiger sharks, and sends a shiver of fear through the onlooking animals. Because of his size, he befriends young animals that are often the prey of larger animals.

In the early episodes, Gon is portrayed in a gritty manner, with a determined gaze and an annoyed expression. He is intent on dispensing retribution for injustice and does not rest until the antagonist is punished in what appears to be a savage and cruel manner. One example from “Gon Goes Flying” involves a hungry bobcat who attempts to kill one of the young golden eagles that Gon has befriended. Gon pursues the bobcat relentlessly and finally, in a falling flight from the sky, crashes through tall trees that fall on the bobcat, pinning him helplessly under their weight.

Gon evolves after the first few episodes, developing a more playful nature; however, his true, savage nature resurfaces when he is threatened or disturbed. Many of the episodes show Gon coming to the aid of unfortunate animals.

Gon serves as a guide through the brutal animal world in stories that include a mix of humor and violence. In the episode “Gon Glares,” a hungry dingo chases after a koala. The koala escapes the dingo’s snapping jaws by climbing a tree, where it joins hundreds of other koalas and Gon, who looks menacingly down on the dingo. Resembling a swarm of bees, the koalas follow Gon’s lead and plummet down on the dingo. With his exceptionally large feet, Gon kicks the dingo out of the jungle. In a series of vaudevillian events, the dingo is surprised to find Gon wherever he goes; the dinosaur emerges from a kangaroo’s pouch and leads an army of gnashing crocodiles. In the final scene, the dingo prepares to fight Gon but cowers in fear. The dingo is humiliated in front of his cubs, and in a gesture of peace, Gon tosses a large fish out to the dingo. His cubs run to eat the fish until their father growls; in a show of pride, the cubs follow their father, turning their backs on Gon’s offering and walking away.

In one uncharacteristic episode, “Gon Builds a Mansion,” Gon destroys an entire forest as he attempts to replicate a beaver dam on a large scale. This destruction results in extensive flooding, leaving the animals in the forest homeless and angry at Gon’s indifference.

Volumes

• Gon, Volume 1 (2007). Includes “Gon Eats and Sleeps,” featuring grizzly bear, sockeye salmon, and American black bear; “Gon Goes Hunting,” featuring spotted hyena, blue wildebeest, and lion; “Gon Builds a Mansion,” featuring three-toed woodpecker, coyote, and North American beaver; and “Gon Goes Flying,” featuring golden eagle and bobcat.

• Gon, Volume2 (2007). Includes “Gon Plays with a Giant Shark,” featuring giant tortoise, white shark, and giant sand tiger shark; “Gon Struggles Against a Tick,” featuring African elephant, savanna baboon, hard tick, South African hedgehog, and warthog; “Gon Gets Angry at the Forest,” featuring squirrel monkey, tamandua, tarantula, ocelot, and green anaconda; and “Gon Lives with the Penguins,” featuring southern giant petrel, Weddell seal, and Adélie penguin.

• Gon, Volume 3 (2008). Includes “Gon Goes Down the Big River,” featuring piranha, fin whale, and Amazon dolphin; “Gon Glares,” featuring dingo, koala, and red kangaroo; “Gon Goes Mushroom Hunting,” featuring raccoon, emperor mushroom, and poisonous mushroom; and “Gon Fights with Wolf Brothers,” featuring tundra wolf and Siberian tiger.

• Gon, Volume4 (2008). Includes “Gon Becomes a Turtle,” featuring white-nosed coati, swordfish, and squid; “Gon Journeys into the Desert,” featuring savanna monkey and impala; and “Gon and His Posse,” featuring caracal and serval.

• Gon, Volume 5 (2008). Includes “Gon Goes Through the Underground,” featuring prairie dog, giant termite, spider, giant mayfly, king salamander, hog-nosed bat, and pill bug.

• Gon, Volume 6 (2008). “Gon with the Huge Wise Elephant,” featuring spotted hyena, red-tailed monkey, and African grand elephant; “Gon and the Bird Nest on His Head,” featuring brown hyena, wondering locust, giraffe, and weaver bird; “Gon and His Wounded Fellows,” featuring wolf, puma, beaver, marten cat, and eagle; and “Gon Climbs a Mountain” featuring ibex and snow leopard.

• Gon, Volume7 (2009). Includes “Gon Raises a Chick,” featuring shearwater and monitor; “Gon Has Fun with an Orangutan Family,” featuring albatross, orangutan, and gibbon; “Gon Does Some Physical Training,” featuring orangutan; and “Gon Collects Honey with his Friends in the Forest,” featuring honeybee, flying fox, cockatoo, Malayan porcupine, tarsier, and Indian muntjac.

Characters

• Gon, the protagonist, is a tiny Tyrannosaurus rex with abnormally large jaws and feet who has survived the extinction of other dinosaurs and lives in the modern animal world. He has unusual strength and exhibits unrelenting aggression in response to any assault from larger animals. His gentle and humorous nature surfaces after the initial episodes, and this playful side balances his aggressive behavior.

• Other animals are supporting characters whose presence emphasizes various aspects of Gon’s personality and his role in their lives.

Artistic Style

Tanaka’s skillful black-and-white line work is breathtaking, with its realistic and detailed depiction of animals and nature. The focus on detail with little white space in the panels is unusual in comics, which rely generally on caricature and visual suggestion. The intricate drawings, featuring fine lines and cross-hatching, pull readers inside each natural setting and make the dubious action and events seem plausible. Tanaka’s animals are provided with anthropomorphic expressions that are worthy of consideration. He displays a depth of emotion in Gon and the various animals, depicting a range of what American comics theorist Scott McCloud has identified as “pure expressions,” including those of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. These recognizable human expressions personalize the characters and create a visually captivating story. This element is particularly evident in one of the more tender episodes, “Gon with the Huge Wise Elephant,” in which Gon escorts the wise elephant to an ancestral elephant burial cave to die. The wise elephant’s facial expression, which exhibits both his determination to reach the cave and his tears of gratitude for Gon, shows Tanaka’s ability to illustrate heartfelt emotions. Another element that Tanaka conveys effectively is motion, expressed through the use of speed lines. Gon is forever bouncing from one battle to the next, diving from the sky, swimming intently after prey, or ricocheting through the forest from tree to tree.

Tanaka patiently develops every wordless story with a variety of panel sizes, using full-page and two-page spreads to deliver the greatest visual impact. For example, in “Gon Plays with a Giant Shark,” Tanaka displays a calm underwater scene, with a variety of fish casually swimming, in a large panel covering two-thirds of the page. The bottom third shows an expression of fear in faces of the fish and a few speed lines. The next page is broken into three horizontal panels, and a shark appears in the first. The fish swim frantically away in the second panel, and the shark chases after the fish in the third. Tanaka uses numerous speed lines during the chase and dramatically increases the size of the shark in the last panel. On the next page, Tanaka presents an extreme close-up of the shark’s open mouth, displayed as though it were coming right out at the reader.

In addition to his diversity of panel displays, Tanaka makes full use of changing angles within the panel, using low-angle and extreme-low-angle views of Gon consistently throughout the episodes to show the dinosaur’s power over his foes. An extreme-low-angle view and close-up of Gon’s glaring eyes displayed in a horizontal panel across the page is a clear signal of an upcoming burst of aggression.

Tanaka’s mix of panel displays and angle views results in a unique visual experience in every episode. One of the more innovative approaches to angle views is in “Gon Gets Angry at the Forest.” In this story, a squirrel eats a nut that Gon was saving for his dessert. In a rage, Gon chases after the squirrel, inciting the surprise and anger of other animals and reptiles. To provide a glimpse of the towering trees in the forest, Tanaka displays Gon from a low-angle long shot; his small figure gazes up into the canopy of the forest, and through a small opening, a bird can be seen high in the sky. Another scene is viewed from a high angle, from the back of a green anaconda poised to pounce on Gon. In a two-page spread, Tanaka uses a high-angle view that reveals Gon’s feeble figure in relationship to the thick jungle foliage. Later, Gon rams his head solidly into a tree that Tanaka displays in an extreme low angle from behind Gon. He gazes up into the tall tree as many nuts fall and cover him. In a fit of frustration, he chomps on a nut and finds it tasty. The squirrel he was chasing joins him in the feast, and in the last full-page panel, Tanaka, from another extreme low angle, shows Gon sleeping soundly next to the squirrel at the base of the towering tree that rises majestically into the sky. The stunning collection of angles through which Tanaka displays the action is not only visually stimulating but also provides clear relationships between characters and settings.

Themes

The major theme of Gon is the use of personal strength and power to overcome injustice. Despite his small size, Gon does not hesitate to do the right thing, especially in protecting the helpless from nasty predators. On another level, the theme of friendship and the strength of family are consistent throughout these episodes. “Gon Has Fun with an Orangutan Family” is about a happy family of orangutans who wholeheartedly accept Gon, despite his species, and enjoy an afternoon of playfulness in the jungle. Gon’s survival as a dinosaur is the result of his ability to integrate with nature and other species, which is constantly displayed in the series through an assortment of animals and global surroundings.

Another theme is the role of the environment. “Gon Builds a Mansion” exemplifies the effect that indifference has on the environment. It touches on the issue of human responsibility for keeping the environment in a natural state and seems to ask if people are aware of their impact on the environment. Finally, perhaps one of the more important themes is the value of simple outdoor play enjoyed by Gon and the animals. This theme is in contrast to the modern dependence on technological games and devices for entertainment and fun.

Impact

Published amid increasing media interest in dinosaurs in the 1990’s, Gon provides an entertaining view of the animal world through the eyes of an indestructible little dinosaur. It was initially published in English at a time when interest in manga was on the rise in the United States. With Tanaka’s realistic visual depictions and Gon’s entertainment value, the series started to shrink the separation between comics and children’s picture books in publishing, a trend that eventually led to the publication of comics such as Sara Varon’s Robot Dreams (2006), which received a Publisher’s Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year award in 2008.

Further Reading

Bissette, Steve. Tyrant (1994-1996).

Delgado, Ricardo. Age of Reptiles Omnibus (2011).

Murphy, Matthew H. et al. Turok, Son of Stone (1954-1982; reprint 2009- ).

Bibliography

McCloud, Scott. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels. New York: Harper, 2006.

Molotiu, Andrei. “Masashi Tanaka’s Gon Series.” The Comics Journal 242 (April, 2002): 71-74.

Rust, David. “Like Nothing Else Going: Gon.” The Comics Journal 201 (January, 1998): 41-42.