Yoshiharu Tsuge: Where He Started, Where He Stopped

After the break, check out the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell, with Tucker Stone, Chris Mautner, Matt Seneca & Joe McCulloch!

On this episode, Joe, Matt, Chris & Tucker talk at great length about Yoshiharu Tsuge's comics in English--both of which just arrived, courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly and the NYRC. The Swamp and The Man With No Talent are up for discussion, and yes, these are books they have a lot of affection for.

You can take a look at some of the other books talked about on the podcast here. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner. 

Comments

[Chris Vaillancourt]

I love the potted history of Tsuge's attitude towards his career: "I've made a comic...Everyone hates it... I suck, I'm through with comics...I've made another comic...it's awful...I quit". It reminds me of one of Brunetti's old bio strips where Louise Brooks or James Thurber would walk around and lament how crappy their lives were.

I haven't read The Man Without Talent so maybe this is covered in the background info by Holmberg, but I remember reading years ago that Tsuge's wife (Maki Fujiwara) was *pissed* and Tsuge was apologetic that readers thought he based the book's unsupportive, haranguing wife on her, especially since by all accounts she had been extremely supportive of him and put up with all his shit over the years.

[Joe McCulloch]

Holmberg’s take is quite different... he alludes to “standoffs and blowouts” between the spouses that dwarf the material in Man Without Talent, drawing from both Tsuge’s published diaries and Maki Fujiwara’s own 1982 book Watashi no e-nikki... neither available in English, of course!

[jon]

Thanks so much for turning me on to this!!