A Japanese manga legend's autobiographical graphic novel about a struggling artist and the first full-length work by the great Yoshiharu Tsuge available in the English language. Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of comics' most celebrated and influential artists, but his work has been almost entirely unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The Man Without Talent, his first book ever to be translated into English, is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs -- used camera salesman, ferryman, and stone collector -- hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. Accompanied by an essay from translator Ryan Holmberg that discusses Tsuge's importance in comics and Japanese literature, The Man Without Talent is one of the great works of comics literature.

The Man Without Talent

Comics & Graphic Novels

TSUGE, YOSHIHARU

Manga

New York Review Comics

The essential early work by the modern master of Japanese literary comics 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 into 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 postwar 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 purchase 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 &amp; Quarterly will be publishing.

The Swamp (Yoshiharu Tsuge, 1)

Drawn and Quarterly

Product Description 
The influential cartoonist hits his stride as he celebrates the charms and oddities of rural postwar cultureYoshiharu Tsuge leaves early genre trappings behind, taking a light, humorous approach in these stories based on his own travels. Red Flowers ranges from deep character studies to personal reflections to ensemble comedies set in the hotels and bathhouses of rural Japan. There are irascible old men, drunken gangsters, reflective psychiatric-hospital escapees, and mysterious dogs. Tsuge’s stories are mischievous and tender even as they explore complex relationships and heartache. It’s a world of extreme poverty, tradition, secret fishing holes, and top-dollar koi farming.The title story highlights the nuance and empathy that made Tsuge’s work stand out from that of his peers. A nameless traveler comes across a young girl running an inn. While showing the traveler where the best fishing hole is, a bratty schoolmate reveals the girl must run the business because her alcoholic father is incapable. At the story’s end, the traveler witnesses an unusual act of kindness from the boy as the girl suffers her first menstrual cramps ― and a simple travelogue takes on unexpected depth.Red Flowers affirms why Tsuge went on to become one of the most important cartoonists in Japan. These vital comics inspired a wealth of fictionalized memoir from his peers and a desire within the postwar generation to document and understand the diversity of their country’s culture. 
 Review 
"Quirky... a must-read for collectors [that] proves accessible and fun for manga newcomers as well."―Publishers Weekly"A dozen compelling, mostly peripatetic, stories by the inventor of literary manga."―Shelf Awareness, Starred Review"It’s easy to declare that this series, and Tsuge’s work, is fantastic."―Manga Bookshelf“Fascinating… one of Japan’s most celebrated and reclusive artists.”―The Guardian“A revered creator of gegika manga [who works] in a style both spare and lush."―New York Times Book Review"Reading Red Flowers gives a feeling of following Tsuge on his travels, an early example that comics can evoke as much as any form of literature."―BlogCritics"[Red Flowers is] a strong contender for the best book you could read this year, and it doesn’t really matter which year you happen to pick it up."―SOLRAD"These stories are interesting and unusual, and it’s great to see them given the opportunity for a new audience, and a chance for manga fans to learn more about the history of manga and what has paved the way for what we have today."―Otaku USA 
 About the Author 
Yoshiharu Tsuge was born in Tokyo in 1937. Influenced by the realistic and gritty rental manga of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, he began making his own comics. He was also briefly recruited to assist Shigeru Mizuki in the 1960s. In 1968, working for 
Garo magazine, Tsuge published the groundbreaking story “Neji-shiki” (commonly called “Screw Style” by Western readers), which established Tsuge as an influential manga-ka and a cultural touchstone in the changing Japanese art world. He is considered the originator and greatest practitioner of the “I-novel” method of comics-making. In 2005, Tsuge was nominated for the Best Album Award at Angoulême International and in 2017 won the Japan Cartoonists Association Grand Award.

Red Flowers (Yoshiharu Tsuge, 2)

The most critically acclaimed comic of the Japanese counterculture Nejishiki unveils the most iconic scenes from Yoshiharu Tsuge's highly respected body of work alongside his most beloved stories. A cornerstone of Japan's legendary 1960s counterculture that galvanized avant-garde manga and comics criticism, the title story follows an injured young man as he wanders through a village of strangers in search of emotional and physical release. Other stories in this collection follow a series of weary travelers who while away sultry nights and face menacing doppelgängers. Even banal activities like afternoon strolls uncover unsavory impulses. The emotionally and erotically charged imagery collected in this third volume remains as shocking and vivid today as it did upon its debut fifty years ago. Tsuge's stories push boundaries, abruptly crossing the threshold of conventional storytelling. Unassuming protagonists venture further into eerie symbolism against a shadowy, perceptibly dreamlike landscape easily mistaken for the real world. The angst that pervades postwar Japanese society threatens to devour his characters and their pastoral sensibilities as each protagonist's wanderlust turns surreal.

Nejishiki (Yoshiharu Tsuge, 3)

An alt-manga legend strikes out on his own, creating some of his most revealing and personal works Oba Electroplating Factory is a startlingly bleak but nonetheless captivating portrait of mid-century Japan in its most unglamorous iteration. Glimpses of the artist reflecting upon his life, his work, and his contemporaries pepper the narrative landscape: a wife teases her husband about a former fling on a trip to the hot springs, a young cartoonist is aghast at the cavalier conduct of his supposed betters, and imperfect men must grapple with the discomfort of their own honesty. Tsuge's stories are studies in staging nature, working to evoke stillness and movement in such a way that renders his chosen setting a character all on its own. Following the breakthrough success of Nejishiki, Yoshiharu Tsuge forges a path for autofiction in manga and changes the cultural landscape of comics forever. Some of his most revealing and personal works were published between 1973 to 1974. As much as it is a testament to the author's predilection for addressing sensitive and mature themes in response to his culture, this volume also collects works from the only period in which Tsuge tries his hand at writing for a mainstream audience in earnest. This fourth volume in the complete works of a legendary manga-ka is an indispensable addition to the literary comics canon and shining example of world literature at its most human. EditBuild

Oba Electroplating Factory (Yoshiharu Tsuge, 4)

El hombres sin talento

Gallo Nero Ediciones

Nejishiki

Oblomov Edizioni

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