Yoshiharu Tsuge (b. 1937) is the most internationally cited author of the alternative manga magazine Garo. His work in the late 1960s β particularly Nejishiki (1968) β applied dreamlike imagery and elliptical structure to the medium and is treated as a foundational document of literary manga.
Career
Tsuge began publishing in kashihon-market magazines in the 1950s and worked as an assistant to Shigeru Mizuki in the late 1960s. His first contributions to Garo, the SeirindΕ-published alternative monthly founded in 1964, appeared in 1965; Nejishiki ('Screw-Style') was published there in June 1968.
His work alternates between autobiographical pieces drawn from his travel through provincial Japan and surreal short fiction; the two registers sometimes appear in the same story. Tsuge largely withdrew from publishing in the 1980s and is now read mainly through retrospective collections.
Influence
Tsuge is among the most-translated authors of literary manga internationally. New York Review Books and Drawn & Quarterly have collected his work in English. He is cited by Western alternative-comics authors including Adrian Tomine and Dan Clowes as a direct influence.