The Swamp: 1 (Yoshiharu Tsuge)

Description

Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of the most influential and acclaimed practitioners of literary comics in Japan. The Swamp collects work from his early years, showing a major talent coming in to his own. Bucking the tradition of mystery and adventure stories, Tsuge s fiction focused on the lives of the citizens of Japan. These mesmerizing comics, like those of his contemporary Yoshihiro Tatsumi, reveal a gritty, at times desperate post-war Japan, while displaying Tsuge s unique sense of humor and point of view. Chirpy is a simple domestic drama about expectations, fidelity, and escape. A couple purchases a beautiful white bird with a red beak. It is said that the bird will grow attached to its owners and never fly away. While the girlfriend is working as a hostess, flirting with men for money, the boyfriend decides to draw a portrait of the new family member and disaster strikes. In The Swamp, a simple rural encounter is charged with sexual tension that is alluring but also fraught with danger. When a young woman happens upon a wing-shot goose, she tries to calm it then suddenly snaps its neck. Later, she befriends a young hunter and offers him shelter, but her motivations remain unclear, especially when the hunter notices a snake in the room where they ll both be sleeping. The Swamp is a landmark in English manga-publishing history and the first in a series of Tsuge books Drawn and Quarterly will be publishing. Review: Another Great Collection - Great start to the series. As a fan of previous gekiga collections published by D+Q this book promises much the same. If your new to this type of avant garde comic I'd start with Tatsumi prior as this volume only shows a small slice of what the medium is capable of (but will surely be corrected soon in following volumes). Review: Nice - Got it for a class and it was pretty good, I recommend this book