A Life Not in the least Drifting

The day before, I decided to immerse myself in the massive semi-autobiographical tome that is A Drifting Life by the artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi.  Although it would be considered a graphic novel, I would not put this (or any book) in that category, as that term has been often been merely a replacement for the old-fashioned comic book meant to be seen as something grown-up (when it is still the same old good guy versus bad guy funnybook).   What it is is a whole lot more, developed inside and outside of the comic (or, more correctly, manga) genre.

The book as published in English by Drawn and Quarterly

Caught in the whirlwind of its 856 pages, and read at one go, which is perhaps the author's intention, this is no comic book.  While on the surface, it is the "drifting" existence of the thinly disguised author/creator as he makes his way through the ranks of manga and his struggles to establish a new form of art within his chosen medium, there are subtle and more obvious reflections on the changes inside the country (Japan) during the Post War period. That the main narrative begins with the "Surrender" of Japan in 1945 and ends at the point when the suspect "Security Treaty" was ratified is further indication that very near the surface of this book is a kind of subconscious anger at things as they were, are, and will become.

Most interesting of all, the reader is often jarred from the sequestered life of comic making into realizing the world around and the world outside, and that the creation of a comic can itself be a political act.