Y. Tatsumi, Black Blizzard

Adrian Tomine has done American comix lovers a great service by pushing for the translation and republication of the works of gekiga master Yoshihiro Tatsumi. The power and economy of the collected stories in The Push Man, Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and Good-Bye are a testament to the form's compatibility with savvy plots and convincing human characters. Black Blizzard, an early effort from Tatsumi, evinces neither of these traits. Rather, it is a demonstration of the obvious problems of fanboy publishing. This quick-and-easy, dashed-off tale--to Tomine's credit the book is self-consciously so--can only be of interest to the Tatsumi completist, as there is little to merit its purchase otherwise.