Panel discussion

Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s naturalistic, low-key brand of manga runs counter to Japanese cartooning’s most popular overdramatic works. His new memoir, A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly, $29.95), nimbly parallels his own coming-of-age with that of the art form he’s working in. As a child growing up in the immediate aftermath to WWII, Tatsumi thrills to the playful escapism of manga greats like Osamu Tezuka and takes up the pencil in homage to the Astro Boy creator. The author eschews college for an artistic career and struggles to find his own voice, but still works his way up in the shady, ultracompetitive world of postwar publishing. The book’s most resonant success comes from unveiling an entire cultural history, as Tatsumi goes from adoring fan to exploited professional. Throughout, A Drifting Life reveals how Tatsumi became a great comics artist, all the while mirroring the poignant melodramas of everyday Japanese life.

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Weighing in at 600 pages, Luba (Fantagraphics, $39.95) charts the ups and downs of its bosomy titular character, her equally endowed half sisters Fritz and Petra, and their melodramatic brood. As readers page through vignettes of the family’s erotic, neurotic and impulsive misadventures, they’ll see creator Gilbert Hernandez navigate passion, pratfalls and angst with equal aplomb. In one particularly chaotic passage, showbiz fever reigns as Fritz becomes a sleazy B-movie actress and niece Venus goes from awkward tween to budding director. Older may not equal wiser in Luba’s world, but it’s still fun.

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The Swamp Thing, the villainous Floronic Man and many other haunted entities moving through Saga of the Swamp Thing (Vertigo/DC Comics, $24.99) have all abandoned their humanity for the promise of something better—such as communion with the planet’s flora or a lost love. In this reissue of his first major American work, Alan Moore takes this key mythological tenet and produces scenes of intimate cruelty. The chilling sequence where the Floronic Man overoxygenates a sleepy suburb—turning every home into a firebomb waiting to happen—will make you wonder if you’ll ever be able to trust a fern again. The Swamp Thing painfully realizes that he’ll never go back to being a regular person, but in the process he finds a deeper connection to the planet, protecting the dark corners that big-league heroes like Superman overlook—like a group home plagued by an oozy demon that feasts on the fear of autistic children. If you only know Swamp Thing from the cheesy 1980s movies, then grab this book and head for the bayou, pronto.

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