When an American journalist, remarking on Yoshihiro Tatsumi's growing popularity in the United States, suggested that the manga master must be similarly well-known in his own country, Tatsumi laughed and explained that there are not, at present, any venues in Japan willing to publish his work. That being the case we must be particularly grateful to his Canadian publisher, Drawn & Quarterly.
Usually when a publisher picks up an arcane foreign artist we are likely to get one example, more or less well chosen, of that artist's work. And then nothing more. Vertical, for example, another enterprising publisher concerned with things Japanese, brought us a single volume by Genichiro Takahashi, one of Japan's most interesting postmodern writers, and then, apparently, lost interest.
Drawn & Quarterly's treatment of Tatsumi couldn't be more different. They committed themselves to bringing out a volume for each year of Tatsumi's career, beginning with 1970. The fourth volume, Tatsumi's manga memoir, "A Drifting Life," appeared this year.