(W) Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Over four decades ago, Yoshihiro Tatsumi expanded the horizons of comics storytelling by using the visual language of manga to tell gritty, literary stories about the private lives of everyday people. He has been called 'the grandfather of Japanese alternative comics' and has influenced generations of cartoonists around the world. Now the visionary creator of The Push Man and Good-Bye has turned his incisive, unflinching gaze upon himself. Over ten years in the making, A Drifting Life is Tatsumi's most ambitious, personal, and heart-felt work: an autobiographical bildungsroman in comics form, a massive 840 page book edited and designed by Adrian Tomine. Using his life-long obsession with comics as a framework, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and most importantly, what it means to be an artist. Alternately humorous, enlightening, and haunting, this is the masterful summation of a fascinating life and an historic career.