The Copacetic Comics Company Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Title	Creator	Publisher	Price
The Push Man and other stories	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	<<•>> edited, designed and with an introduction by Adrian Tomine <<•>> Yet another beautifully produced booik from the fine folks at Drawn & Quarterly, The Push Man is a 208 page hardcover collection of 16 short stories by the "grandfather of Japanese alternative comics." Creating challenging comics for adults that he dubbed gekiga (to differentiate them from manga, which he viewed as relatively unsophisticated) since the late 1950s, Tatsumi was years ahead of his contemporaries ("decades ahead," according to acclaimed designer, Chip Kidd), not only in Japan but pretty much the world over. Here are some hard to ignore accolades: "From the moment I read Tatsumi's stories, he shot to the top of my short list of favorite cartoonists for adults. His direct storytelling style is bracing and raised the bar pretty high for those of us trying to entertain intelligent grown-ups." -- Gilbert Hernandez; "Tatsumi's comics are clean and straightforward without pretentious tricks. Storytelling at its best." -- Jaime Hernandez While Tatsumi's work has appeared once before in America, in Catalan Communication's1987 Good-Bye and other stories, this was an unofficial edition that suffered in translation (it was translated from Japanese into Spanish, and then from Spanish into English; 'nuff said), entirely lacked Tatsumi's involvement, and is long out of print, making The Push Man the definitve North American edition of Tatsumi's work, and a must have for anyone on the lookout for great comics.
A Drifting Life	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly	$25.00 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	OK, this is the one you've been waiting for! Eleven years in the making, a whopping 840 pages in length, A Drifting Life is the graphic memoir of one of the all-time manga greats. Over the last several years, Drawn and Quarterly has been assiduously releasing Tatsumi's classic gekiga, in which he pioneered a street savvy, morally ambiguous form of comics that thrived on grittier material and was more ambivalent about the post-war boom in Japan. A Drifting Life chronicles the years 1945 through 1960, during which the author -- who was born in 1935 -- came of age, discovered his artistic talent and entered the competitive (and combative) world of manga. Personally compelling, narratively engaging, artistically challenging, A Drifiting Life also provides an informative look at the manga industry during the critical post-WWII years. Not to be missed. Be sure to take a look at this PDF preview. retail price - $29.95 copacetic price - $25.00
Good-Bye	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Good-Bye, the third volume in Drawn & Quarterly's series collecting the work of this manga master who pioneered the dark, mature (noir, if you will) genre of manga known as gekiga during the years that followed the cultural upheavals of 1968, has been released in tandem with Red Colored Elegy as the work it contains was produced during roughly the same historical moment. This volume collects storieds originally published during 1971 and 1972 and contains some of Tatsumi's best work. The introduction, by America's foremost expert on the history of manga, sets the work in context and gives the reader a good perspective from which to get the most out of the stories that follow. Those who missed the first two volumes in this series, The Pushman and Abandon the Old in Tokyo (both of which are still in print and available here at Copacetic), are encouraged to take a look at this one, as it's the best yet. Sceptical? Check out this nice nine-page preview.
Drawn & Quarterly # volume 5	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly	$25.47 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This year’s oversize (11" x 13") annual of North American (with the accent on Canadian), European and Asian comics is here. Beautifully produced as always, this issue features covers and end papers and a graphic novella by DuPuy and Berberian, a short work by long ignored Japanese master, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, “Kept,” a Michel Rabagliati short featuring Paul, and more. The highlight for us is ”The Crypt of Bronte” by that master of all styles, R. Sikoryak. Of special interest for jaded know-it-alls is the massive 75 page retrospective on the unknown (at least to us) Canadian artist, Albert Chartier. This retrospective presents a truly rare opportunity to simultaneously discover and then plunge right into a whole new bit of artistic terrain. Reader’s of Seth’s It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken will relate.
Abandon the Old in Tokyo	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is the second volume in Drawn and Quarterly's ongoing project to collect the works of the founding father of gekiga, a gritty, more overtly literary form of manga. Picking up where last year's The Push Man and Other stories left off, Abandon the Old in Tokyo collects Tatsumi's work from 1970. The eight lengthy tales that make up this 200 page hardcover volume present the seamy underside of (then) contemporary urban life, but unlike other often exploitative treatments of this type of subject matter, Tatsumi's approach provides his readers with a very humane perspective on all too real humans struggling to make their way in a world that seems to have changed without them.