A Nobody Artist

A revealing glimpse into the life and times of alt-manga’s most intriguing comics auteur

Tsuge Yoshiharu, one of manga’s last living legends, remains an elusive and highly influential character as he moves into the final phase of his career. 

A Nobody Artist features a number of loosely (and disputably) semiautobiographical vignettes often concerning a young cartoonist trying to make a go of it in the shifting manga market. True to form, Tsuge delivers much more than a straight accounting of a cartoonist’s life. Lust routinely distracts our young artists while older artists again and again provide a model for what not to do, or more likely, where a cartoonist’s life will lead you. Fleeting moments of domestic happiness are upset by bouts of self-doubt. As always, Tsuge’s art is succinct and glorious—a beautiful document of a changing Japan.

This penultimate volume in Drawn and Quarterly’s complete collection of the legendary manga-ka’s oeuvre collects richly-detailed and deeply human comics stories originally published between 1981 and 1985. Translated by prolific manga scholar and art historian Ryan Holmberg. | “Tsuge throws open his inner gates of possibility and lets the world rush in with all its complexity, humanity, beauty, uncertainty and violence.” —Chris Ware, The Washington Post

“A gritty and humorous postwar Japan is depicted in these early works by the influential manga cartoonist.”—The Guardian

“Tsuge’s raw and profound work is equal parts pathos and poetry, streaked with irony and ribaldry.”—Kirkus, Starred Review | Yoshiharu Tsuge was born in Tokyo, Japan 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 during his explosion of popularity in the 60s. In 1968, working for Garo magazine, Tsuge published the ground-breaking story “Neji-shiki” (commonly called “Screw Style” for Western readers.) This story established Tsuge as not only an influential manga-ka but he also became 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 Angouleme International and in 2017 he won the Japan Cartoonists Association Grand Award for Yume to tabi no sekai.