A Drifting Life

by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, 834 pages

This hefty graphic autobiography recounts the youth and early career of a manga-ka coming of age in the years following the end of World War II. Hiroshi Katsumi--Tatsumi's stand-in self for the book--grows up avidly reading and drawing comics, trading books and ideas with his older brother Okimasa, and idolizing the now iconic Osamu Tezuka. The brothers save up for book binges and mail off submission after submission of their own works to popular magazines in the hopes of being published and getting their feet in the door of an industry still in its infancy. Over the years, they experience setbacks and triumphs, rivalries and teamwork, all in pursuit of a paycheck and their passion for good stories told with pictures.

Tatsumi, a trailblazer in Japanese alternative comics, hesitates to call his work "manga," often preferring the term "gekiga" in an attempt to convey his departures from mainstream story, tone, and format. His style is heavily cinematic, working within the parameters of lots of variously-sized rectangular frames, sometimes with no (or, conversely with tons of) dialogue or narration, therefore spreading the telling of a story out over more pages than was standard at the time. This boxy, long-form style gives him more in common with American comic books of the day rather than the freer form, minimalist manga of many of his peers. The communicating of this creative ambition to his employers and fellow artists takes up a portion of this autobiography, but he also focuses on the personal details of his and his family's struggles within the context of the ever-changing nation around them as the Japanese adjust to post-war then post-occupation existence, economic booms and busts, and wave after wave of Western influence.

I found this look into Japanese history and one man's life in the comics world to be engaging, enlightening, and engrossing (oh, alliteration, I love you). Don't let the book's brick-like nature or industry-specific focus intimidate you. I didn't recognize most of the authors and artists (with a very few exceptions) whom Tatsumi mentions and I still enjoyed it muchly. Many histories on manga focus on the greatness of Tezuka alone, overlooking contributions of other talented creators who also shared popularity and wide readership at the time. It's good to see that gap filled a little by Tatsumi's ten-plus-years-in-the-making memoir, which won the 13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009 and, in the States, two Eisner Awards in 2010.