Forum - View topicManga legend Tatsumi coming to US
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Indie publisher Drawn and Quarterly will be releasing the first of several collections of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's short stories this september, and while he's not exacally well known in the US, his work definitally deserves a look.
Tatsumi was a pivotal in the "Gekiga" (translated-"dramatic pictures") movement. This style aimed to create serious stories for adult readers in the 1960's, a time when manga was thought to be "just for kids". Tatsumi apparently had an enourmous impact on his contemporaries, even Osamu Tezuka himself, who is said to have taken Phoenix in a mature direction due in part to Tatsumi's influence. In addition to promoting the Gekiga style in the manga mainstream, Tatsumi is also considered the godfather of alternative manga. Tatsumi obviously created some pretty powerful stuff to impact the industry so much, and his work is finally seeing release on US shores in the form of "The Push Man & Other Stories". Edited by acclaimed American cartoonist Adrian Tomie and featuring extensive interviews with Tatsumi, Push Man looks like it's going to be one hell of a hardcover. And while it reads left-to-right, it should be noted that the pages weren't flopped. Tatsumi himself supervised the cutting and pasting of individual panels (ala Blade of the Immortal) so as to preserve his storytelling better. This looks like an amazing collection. It's already gotten tons of praise. The stories are apparently straightforward and lack any pretensiousness (according to Jamie Hernandez), so it should be easy to read through for newer readers. To anyone interested in serious manga for adults, definitally check it out (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1896597858/qid=1123736086/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_1/102-5208257-9923322?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). |
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milcor1
 Posts: 337 |
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While I hope I'm wrong, but the number of people who find these *ahem*lesser-known*ahem* manga threads here exciting can probably be counted on one hand
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Which is exacally why I'm posting this under the title "manga legend" and not "godfather of alt. manga". While Gekiga may not be a partcuarly popular style at the moment amoung American readers, and members of this forum, most people here are intellegent. I'm hoping that people here will at least take a look into it.
As for you readers who aren't really interested in this type of manga: at least give it a chance. This guy's stuff helped revolutionize the manga industry, and since his work is accesible and lacks the pompus attitude often associated with alt. comics, it should be a very rewarding read to most manga fans. So give it a chance. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I, for one, am always excited to read alternative manga threads and I am definitely going to look into this. Thanks, as always, for providing more great recommendations, Kagemusha! (I devoured volumes 1 and 2 of Black and White recently and I LOVE them! Thanks for recommending them in passing to me a long time ago!) |
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Wait till you read number three. Un-freakin'-beleivable. Since we're already on the topic of alternative manga, I just found out (from http://www.previewsreview.com/, where I got the prievious info) that another one of Junko Mizuno's books is being brought over here. I guess this was one of her earlier works, and is supposidly even more wacked out than her usual stuff. Speaking of that site, I made the mistake of googling a hardcore yaoi artist's name despite being told not to by the site's author (that of course makes me want to see it more, despite being a heterosexual male with no interest in the subject). And...wow. WOW*shudder*. That's got to be illegal. I don't think I'll ever look at violins the same way again. |
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bitterbohemian
Posts: 10 |
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You can add one more excited person. 
Thank you Kagemusha, your reccomendations always refresh my thoughts of the full potential of manga and comics in general. I'm very picky when it comes to what I read. I should just give you my E-mail and you could send me weekly updates of what is being released
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Neilworms
 Posts: 155 Location: Chicago IL |
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Despite the small number of die hard fans of this sort of manga (which I could be counted as one of), I still think its a great idea to promote stuff that wouldn't be promoted in the anime/manga community otherwise. One look at Tatsumi's anthology on amazon and you'll notice that most of what other people buy who buy it are alternative american comics and not typical manga buyers. (of course there is the reverse problem of a work like Phoenix not getting as much press in the alt comix community as Buddha which has less appeal to that audience IMO). Thanks for doing this Kagemusha :).
Check out what these guys release, but good luck actually finding their releases here. I'd start with Blue by Kiriko Nananan. I have more suggestions that I can PM you with if you'd like. --- Also I've checked out one of Tatsumi's work in the drawn and quarterly anthology that was published over a year ago (this edition has been in work for a long time, they first announced working on it back in 2003), and I was very impressed. It was very different than that I was expecting from the father of Japanese alt comics, I was expecting something more like R. Crumb with more of an emphasis on shock factor than telling a relatively realistic understated story like I got. |
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Pure Trance.  It's fantastic. It's not printed in color like her other works, but the story is really compelling and unique. I read it during the drive to Wizard World. On the way home, I read Black and White, which I had picked up with a couple of Alan Moore works and a volume of Junji Ito's Tomie (the latter is really one of the most horrifying comics I think I've ever laid eyes on.)
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bitterbohemian
Posts: 10 |
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That's great! I had ordered Blue a while ago, (I'm still waiting for it to arrive) and I would be interested in anything else off the beaten path. |
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Now I'm the respected poster of information most people don't care about!
But I really didn't want to make it seem like this guy's stuff was strictly alternative. The impression I get from reviews is that his stories should appeal to anyone interested in mature manga aimed at adults, which is a fair number of ANN readers. It's a shame that Push Man probobly won't appear in bookstores (Barnes and Noble is pretty good about stocking American stuff, but DaQ is pretty obscure). People can still get their bookstore to order it, or better yet get the amazon discount. bitterbohemian: There's actually a suprising amout of alternative manga out there, and Push Man could lead to alot more being licenced. Secret Comics Japan is a good anthology, with stories ranging from high-brow to utterly insane and non-sensical. I was under the impression that Blue appeared in a mainstream josei magazine though. |
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Neilworms
Posts: 155 Location: Chicago IL |
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while writing the entry for Wikipedia on blue, I talked to the guys who were originally going to scanlate it and they said that it was in Comics ARE! which is an alternative or a seinen mag (probably the former)... it also has Taiyou Matsumoto in it for instance.
I thought it was josei also... |
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