So far, the latest book by manga legend and gekiga pioneer Yoshihiro Tatsumi is getting a hero's welcome in several mainstream media outlets. Released in mid-April by Drawn & Quarterly, A Drifting Life is an 800+ page manga memoir of Tatsumi's personal and professional journey, from his beginnings as a budding high school manga artist in awe of another manga trailblazer Osamu Tezuka to his stints as an artist for the manga rental market and his efforts to create realistic and artistically innovative manga for adults, gekiga ("dramatic pictures").
The New York Times Review of Books recently featured an article on Tatsumi and A Drifting Life, leaving reviewer Dwight Garner raving about its "rolling, rumbling grandeur."
"It’s a book that manages to be, all at once, an insider’s history of manga, a mordant cultural tour of post-Hiroshima Japan and a scrappy portrait of a struggling artist. It’s a big, fat, greasy tub of salty popcorn for anyone interested (as Americans increasingly are) in the theory and practice of Japanese comics. It’s among this genre’s signal achievements."
National Public Radio also jumped into the fray by interviewing Adrian Tomine, a graphic novelist in his own right, and one of the main creative forces behind Drawn and Quarterly's English edition. You can check out a rebroadcast of this interview online at The World's website.
Manga editor, translator and reviewer Anne Ishii also gave Tatsumi kudos for his epic memoir with her feature for Publishers' Weekly on Tatsumi, by describing A Drifting Life as a tale that
"...resembles less the comics memoir of a fellow auteur like Harvey Pekar, and more the Homeric legends of Greek myth.... It’s the story of Tatsumi’s growth as a man and an artist as well as the epic retellling of the growth of a manga culture in Japan."
Want to see what's got the critics all a-buzz? Check out an excerpt of the first chapter of A Drifting Life , as featured on the New York Times website.
Also, if you're near New York City or Toronto, Canada, don't miss your opportunity to see Tatsumi-sensei in person as he makes a few appearances at the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature on Thursday, April 30 and Saturday, May 2.
Also, here's a few more details about Tatsumi-sensei's appearances in Toronto, Canada as part of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival. Tatsumi-sensei will be appearing with Tomine and Seth at Harbourfront Centre on Friday, May 8, 2009 at 7:30 pm. Admission is $8.00 and tickets can be purchased in advance through Harbourfront Centre's online box office.
Tatsumi is also one of the honored guests at TCAF, and will be appearing on both days of the festival, which will be held at the Toronto Reference Library at 789 Yonge St. from 10 am - 5 pm on Saturday, May 9 and from noon to 5 pm on Sunday, May 10. Admission is free. Visit the TCAF events page for more information about that weekend's schedule of happenin' happenings. I'll be in Toronto covering some of the more manga-centric events, so stick around for photos and updates from Toronto!
Image credit: © Yoshihiro Tatsumi
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