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Cigarette Girl © 2016 Tomohiko Matsumoto. Published under license from Seirin-Kogeisha Co., Ltd, Japan. www.seirinkogeisha.com Edited by Seán Michael Wilson seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com Translated by Spencer Fancutt, with assistance of Atsuko Saisho Book production by Ian Sharman iandsharman.wordpress.com Design and additional book production by Chris Ross Copy editing by Zac Boone and Leigh Walton Foreword © 2016 Yoshihiro Tatsumi Biographical Notes © 2016 Mitsuhiro Asakawa Published by Top Shelf Productions, PO Box 1282, Marietta, GA 30061-1282, USA Editor-in-Chief: Chris Staros
Top Shelf Productions is an imprint of IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Offices: 2765 Truxtun Road, San Diego, CA 92106. Top Shelf Productions®, the Top Shelf logo, Idea and Design Works®, and the IDW logo are registered trademarks of Idea and Design Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. With the exception of small excerpts of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of IDW Publishing. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork. Visit our online catalog at www.topshelfcomix.com. Seán Michael Wilson/ Boychild Productions would like to thank the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation for help towards the creation of this book. Printed in Korea. ISBN 978-1-60309-382-8 19 18 17 16
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“Utterly endearing, unsentimental, and wise… Matsumoto pinpoints the day-to-day troubles and modest triumphs of city-dwellers striving for some independence, security, success, sex, and maybe love.” —Paul Gravett, author of Comics Art and editor of 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die A shared cigarette offers a momentary connection.…A closet hides the evidence of an embarrassed bachelor’s laziness.…A single woman, not getting any younger, sifts through letters from would-be husbands.…A new couple buys two train tickets to anywhere. Here are 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 1972–74, 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.