H-Japan New Publication: Abe Shinichi's I-Novel

Discussion published by Ryan Holmberg on Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Dear Colleagues.

I am happy to announce that a book I translated, Abe Shinichi's That Miyoko Asagaya Feeling, is now out from Black Hook Press in . https://blackhookpress.bigcartel.com/product/shinichi-abe-selected-works

From my blurb on the back: "This is an important collection of stories about the artist’s struggles with romance, art, alcohol, and mental illness, originally published in the early and mid 1970s, mainly in Garo. Yoshiharu Tsuge is usually credited for pioneering quasi-autobiographical shishosetsu-style manga in the 1960s, but these Abe stories are really the first case of a Japanese writing regularly and in a brutally frank way about his personal life. They are more or less contemporaneous with Justin Green's Binky Brown (1972), but without all the cartoony absurdities and neurotic self- flagellation. Abe's freeform drawing--sometimes scratchy sometimes fluid--was also groundbreaking, paving the way for the heta-uma movement. Interestingly, a couple of the stories are told from his partner Miyoko's point of view. This will be a must-have book for both alt-manga fans and people interested in the history of comics as literature."

With close to 150 pages of manga, an essay by Asakawa Mitsuhiro (who also edited the book), and a biographical chronology, the book is designed for both casual readers and researchers. Black Hook Press does not have distribution, so all purchases will have to be directed to the publisher. They have also published manga by Bonten Taro, Tsuge Tadao, Takashi Fukutani, and other historcally important , so please also consider the other titles on their site.

Best,

Ryan Holmberg

Citation: Ryan Holmberg. New Publication: Abe Shinichi's I-Novel Manga. H-Japan. 09-24-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/discussions/4799067/new-publication-abe-shinichis-i-novel-manga Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1