Along with
Joe Sacco's
Palestine and
Art Spiegelman's
Maus series, Barefoot Gen shows that comics can be a serious artform. The story is
gripping, the characters are believable, and the author doesn't pull any punches. I got sick several times while reading this book. The art is an interesting combination of standard issue
manga style drawing and precision detail
medical illustration quality drawing.
The comic also has tremendous value as a documentary work. The author includes many details about the everyday life of Japanese during the war, regular people's ambivalent attitudes about the war, and lots of gory medical facts about radiation sickness and other diseases of post-bombing Hiroshima.