Garden – Yuichi Yokoyama
Garden by Yokoyama Yuichi / ISBN 9780982632710 / A 328-page paperback with jacket, published by Picturebox in 2011 and long out-of-print / one copy available in like-new condition (lightest shelf wear)
***
A group of friends is attempting to enter a garden just beyond a wall. When they succeed, the garden they finally enter is no Eden, but rather a massive landscape of machines, geometric forms and all manner of nonorganic objects. In Japanese comic-book artist Yuichi Yokoyama’s newest and longest (at 328 pages) work of graphic magic, his characters become enmeshed in a fantastic wonderland of distorted mirrors, photographic equipment, massive libraries and complex pathways. To his signature vivid visual style, Yokoyama has added more dialogue than in past works, fleshing out the characters and allowing them equal billing with his spectacular architectural creations, thus yielding a reflection on the myriad ways human interact with the complex mechanical world we have created. Douglas Wolk, writing in the New York Times Book Review, declared that few cartoonists of the moment are “weirder or more original than Yuichi Yokoyama.”
Yokoyama is the author of Travel, New Engineering, Color Engineering and Garden (all published by PictureBox). He was the subject of a one-man show at The Kawasaki City Museum in 2010, and has exhibited in galleries and museums in Tokyo, Singapore, Rome and San Francisco. He lives and works in the suburbs of Tokyo.
