Cigarette Girl

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.

Edited by Sean Michael Wilson, with a new introduction by Matsumoto’s well-known colleague, the late Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Also included: a biographical back section by Mitsuhiro Asakawa. For more information, go to www.topshelfcomix.com