Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92518 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Released on: 2005-09-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Tatsumi's brief, disturbing stories, originally published in 1969, have a tone somewhere between contemporary short fiction and EC Comics' old "shock" comics. Each hinges on some kind of prurient or sexually twisted situation: a man's bedridden lover turns out to be a physically mutated sex slave; an office worker puts on his girlfriend's makeup and clothes and has an affair with another woman; a man who disinfects telephones for a living calls a prostitute, but can't think of anything to do but pull out his disinfection kit. Produced over a short period of time, the stories are variations on a theme of social maladjustment. Tatsumi draws marvelously evocative settings, and his stories flow with dreamlike ambiguity, speeding toward the inevitable tragedies at their ends, but his characters appear practically identical. This reinforces both the repetitive nature of his themes and Tatsumi's view of the common man's continuing struggle in a merciless world of menial jobs, impotence and abortions. Tatsumi is known as the "grandfather of Japanese alternative comics," and this is the first in a proposed series of authorized English-language collections of his work. His work anticipates American alternative comics, making it clear why American cartoonist Adrian Tomine, who edited this collection, was attracted to the work. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Tatsumi has drawn groundbreaking comics in Japan since the 1950s, but Americans have had few opportunities to view his work. As the first in a proposed Tatsumi series edited by admiring alternative comics artist Adrian Tomaine, this volume of stories from 1969 starts to make amends. Tatsumi works in a powerfully straightforward manner that eschews manga's quirks in favor of naturalism. Combining the Japanese words for drama and art, he called his style gekiga to set it apart from the more commercially pitched anga. The latter shows much about Japanese culture, but gekigareveals the nation's psyche as Tatsumi depicts men living lives of quiet frustration--powerless, often sexually impotent, confined by social propriety. In one story, a factory worker mangles himself to collect an insurance payment so his girlfriend can buy a nightclub. Another portrays an auto mechanic fixated on a glamorous TV star. Others feature a sewer cleaner, a porn-film projectionist, and a "push man" who crams commuters into packed subway cars. It took American comics decades to begin tackling subject matter approaching the gravity of Tatsumi's. These 35-year-old stories are the precursors of today's serious graphic novels. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

What a wonderful surprise!
I have no idea what pulled me to this book when I first heard about it, but I am glad it did. I have not, as many others have not, heard of Tatsumi and that is a shame. It is good to know, however, there is a plan to release more volumes of work (please hurry). Sixteen stories comprise the first volume and all are powerful. Angst ridden? You don't know the meaning of angst until you read this book. There is very little hope in this with tales of unrequited love, murder, abortion, prostitution and transvestism, peeping toms and suicide. The central character is always a man in some state of despair. The tales, though, some quite wordless, and the drawings, beautifully rendered, pull the reader quickly from one to the next. Despite being a potential downer (and some may cursorily say misogynistic), the stories are actually darkly comic and well told. I paid full price for this book because I didn't want to wait for it - I'm very happy I did. Buy this book!

"I myself am a very normal person"
"I myself am a very normal person. Please do not interpret these stories as representative of the author's personality." This plea to the reader appears on the very last page of this book, and upon coming across it, most readers will probably think the disclaimer belongs at the front of the book. Because by the end of these 16 short graphic stories, which represent a "best of" anthology of Tatsumi's work from 1969 (the plan is to continue releasing a "best of" for each year), it's very hard not to suspect the author of having some major dysfunctions with both society at large, and especially with women. According to the introduction by Adrian Tomine, Tatsumi is considered "the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics", and coined the term "gekiga" to distinguish naturalistic, more adult comics from the popular "manga" fare for kids. The material in this collection certainly falls into the "gekiga" category, as it encompasses very adult material. Not "adult" in the sexual sense (although there is sexual explicit material), but in the more metaphysical sense that is brought on by feelings of urban alienation

The stories are set in late '60s Japan, in what is presumably Tokyo, and Tatsumi writes that he found inspiration in newspaper human interest stories and the police blotter. If that's the case, it seems he was drawn to tragic stories about men who just couldn't cope with their lot. In every story, the protagonist is a kind-faced everyman figure (visually, he is the same in almost every story), who works some kind of menial job either on his own or with men who don't respect him. He either lives alone or at home with a wife or girlfriend who either works as a bar hostess or openly cheats on him. Stripped of his manhood on all fronts, he either lashes out in violence, takes cold-blooded revenge, or commits suicide. Indeed, it's impossible not to notice the misogyny that pervades the stories -- literally every woman is either wanton, scheming, drunk, greedy, or somehow tainted. The urban setting, dominant theme of alienation, outbursts of violence and disgust, and sexual disgust are perhaps best compared to the film "Taxi Driver" in terms of tone, and yet are ones that seem to crop up over and over in modern Japanese fiction and film.

in contrast to the gritty subject matter, the artwork tends to be very clean and crisp, and as with everything published by Drawn & Quarterly, the book is beautifully produced. The panels haven't simply been "flopped" from the original Japanese layout, but have been rearranged for Western formatting, and the results are spectacular. Fans of Adrian Tomine's work will appreciate both the visual style, and the use of silence throughout the stories. However, this is a book that should be read not only by comics aficionados, but by anyone interested in the literature of modern Japan. It will be interesting to see if Tatsumi's stories change tone and theme over time, and I look forward to the 1970 volume.

Like Urban Japanese Bukowski
I was pulled to this title via news of the Adrian Tomine-written introduction. The material there and in the prodigious Optic Nerve artist's interview with Tatsumi (also included) bolster an already astounding collection of short stories in comics. Tatsumi's male protagonists wreak of the the unlikeably distanced and misanthropic worldviews of Charles Bukowski's work, but the salient simplicity of Tatsumi's stories within scripts of several pages apiece is Hemingwayesque in its poignant and open-ended "conclusions." This is a book for lovers of adult manga, R. Crumb, Tomine, Harvey Pekar, or really any other realm of colorfully personal comics narratives. Fascination with selfishly disdainable male characters can only bring one further into these stories--ranging from tales of mutilated factory workers to Western military presence in Japan. All of them, however, orbit around the plights of men who can't relate, can't get ahead, or just plain can't like themselves in a crowded Japanese urban environment.