Canadian publisher, Drawn and Quarterly extends their manga winning streak with this excellent hardcover collection of ten  short stories.  Susumu Katsumata is yet another of the manga maestros who are woefully under-recognized here in North America that D & Q has taken upon themselves to introduce to what they hope – and so far has been – an appreciative audience.  Katusmata's work is unique in that it falls into the category of gekiga – the grittier form of manga pioneered by Tatsumi and others – yet, unlike the vast majority of those practicing their craft within this form, Katsumata's tales are set in rural pre-modern Japan, giving his work some parallels with that master of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa.  Includes an interview with and biography of the author.

This one's a real beaut!  Edited by Asakawa Mitsuhiro, it collects nine manga works originally executed over the two decades between 1969 and 1989, mosly for Garo, along with four critical essays, two of which are penned by Katsumata himself.  All translated by Ryan Holmberg (of course!).

Here's the scoop:

135 x 268mm -- 268 pages -- offset printed -- dust jacket

More than twenty years before the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in 2011, Katsumata Susumu was using his cartooning skills to alert Japanese to the dangers of nuclear power.

Inspired by Katsumata's research trips to the now notorious facility and his background in physics, Fukushima Devil Fish begins with two stories from the 1980s on the subject of “nuclear gypsies,” the men who labor under oppressive conditions to maintain Japan’s fleet of nuclear power plants. The book then cycles back to the late 1960s and 1970s with a group of stories, originally published in the legendary alt-manga magazines Garo and COM, populated with creatures from Japanese folklore and lonely young men bereft of home and family.

At turns haunting and endearing, Fukushima Devil Fish reveals Katsumata as both a master of comics as a poetic form and a true friend to the victims of Japan’s modernization. The collection is rounded out with a suite of essays by the artist, historian Asakawa Mitsuhiro, and critic Abe Yukihiro, which illuminate Katsumata’s life and career and the importance of his work in a post-Fukushima world.

Fukushima Devil Fish was printed by offset lithography at DeckersSnoeck in Belgium.

 

Here's the first work of indy/alternative originating in India that we've come across. Vérité is the brain child of editor, Bharath Murthy and this first issue combines 126 pages of comics by and/or set in India, 88 pages of manga from Japan and a 22 page essay by the globe trotting manga scholar, Ryan Holmberg.  The real treat here is the chance to finally experience some original, independent comics voice from India! Getting four great manga tales is a nice bonus, and then Ryan Holmberg's essay, " The Eye and the Storm: Speed Lines anf Gekiga FX" is the icing on the cake.  

PLEASE NOTE: We only have a limited number of copies and these were hand imported from India.  In other words, you snooze, you lose, on this one.  GONE!  We'll see what we can do about getting a restock.  It may be awhile...