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Jiro Taniguchi Wins Italy's Highest Comic Award
posted on by Egan Loo
Italy's Lucca Comics and Game festival gave manga creator Jiro Taniguchi the honor of "La Giuria dei Premi Gran Guinigi 2010 assegna il riconoscimento come Maestro del fumetto" ("Master of Comics" recognition) on Sunday. It is the highest award given at the festival, which has been running since 1966. A judging committee of artists, editors, and other professionals decides the recipients.
Taniguchi's A Distant Neighborhood (Harukana Machi e) manga had already received an award for "Il premio Gran Guinigi 2003 per la miglior storia lunga" ("Best Long Story") in 2003. However, this year's award is not for a particular work, but for Taniguchi himself. Taniguchi has also been officially invited to next year's festival at the end of October 2011.
Fanfare / Ponent Mon has published such Taniguchi works as The Walking Man, The Ice Wanderer, and A Distant Neighborhood in English, and these three particular titles have been nominated for America's Eisner Awards. Viz also published his Benkei in New York manga.
A live-action film adaptation of A Distant Neighborhood opened in Germany in May. The original manga deals with a 48-year-old salaryman who returns to the town he grew up in, and is transported back in time to his youth. The film, which is a production of Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Germany, relocates the story's setting from Japan to Paris.
Sources: The Comics Reporter, Comic Natalie
