Lúgubre ( )

These sixteen stories from 1969, republished by Drawn and Quarterly in English in 2005, brought a master of gekiga manga to recognition in North America. The stories are dark, typically with underclass protagonists with little or no hope, yet with all of the drives and will of their better-off brothers. Sexually frank, violent, and usually involving the shredding of personal vanity to the point of self-harm. Stories like “Piranha,” or “Black Smoke,” or the title story “The Push Man,” see protagonists pushed (literally in some cases) beyond the breaking point. Others, such as “Projectionist,” “Test Tube,” “Bedridden,” peel back the surface on real but repulsive individuals.

Uneasily riveting. ( )

Quick short stories that are goodish. ( )

Yoshihiro Tatsumi's art and storytelling style is brilliant. Every single panel is expressive and conveys a lot. The stories themselves, set in a modernising, urban Japan are bleak and miserable with dark humour. Our lead characters are all lonely, broken and confused working class men who often act in shocking and violent ways. They are frequently depicted in their daily drudgery, and walking alone through the city streets. Silent witnesses to a meaningless society.

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Tatsumi is a consummate cartoonist and storyteller, which when applied to a cartoonist means "visual storyteller," like, he can put together a panel and a page, and that's fine, but so many of the stories here are so lacking, well told as they are. Salt of the earth Japanese blue collar dude works hard, is tormented by his woman, works hard, x-factor introduces itself (whether that's another woman or a scorpion he's gonna put in the first woman's purse or, in no less than three cases, a dead baby), dude works hard, woman or work pushes dude over the edge, usually violent climax, newspaper headline dénouement. Yeah? Sometimes he transcends, like in the title story where the ending is the "push man" (the dude who pushes people onto Japanese trains) getting pushed on himself and going "but--but--I'm the push man! noooooo!" which is very funny) but so often it's just "gritty tales from the street," Japanese neo-noir that purports to say something real but amounts to just a cartoonish view of the dark side of everyday life. ( )