Cigarette Girl (last copies) – Masahiko Matsumoto
Cigarette Girl by Masahiko Matsumoto / ISBN 9781603093828 / A 264-page paperback published by Top Shelf (light shelf wear, seems to be out-of-print)
***
Welcome to the quiet, evocative urban dramas of Masahiko Matsumoto, one of the leading lights of the Japanese alternative-comics movement known as “gekiga.” Originally published in 1974, these eleven stories now form the first English-language collection of Matsumoto’s mature work. His shy, uncertain heroes face broken hearts, changing families, money troubles, sexual anxiety, and the pressures of tradition, but with a whimsy and lightness of touch that is Matsumoto’s trademark. With a new introduction by Matsumoto’s well-known colleague, the late Yoshihiro Tatsumi.