Yuichi Yokoyama: Travel

As a newcomer to the manga experience, I was intrigued by Yuichi Yokoyama's book Travel. It is a multifaceted exploration of travel, time and human interaction with an increasingly technologically dependent society. The artist's work leaves ample room for the viewer's own responses and interpretations. As I "read", I became interested in why there were no female characters included in this work. Surely women ride trains in Japan. Given the artist's attention to detail, this must have been a choice. Once again, this work has me thinking, but this time about what has been left out and its significance. All in all worth a look or two.

Manga for the BLDGBLOG crowd, Yokoyama's second book just seems like it's from 2053. A handful of his doll-like characters go on a train trip through radically terraformed landscapes. He riffs on the small things, like a coffee dispenser, and the large, like Tokyo's traffic. 200 pages race by. And the silent journey ends with a droll payoff. I wrote about Yokoyama for the Comics Journal in 2004 and 2006; in both cases, I struggled to find comparisons. It's manga, but not like any other I've read. While he shifts between art gallery and comics page like some American and European cartoonists, his work doesn't look like theirs. It's handmade but sharp; deadpan but open; and it has ducks. For a reader searching for the new, it's a thrill. And well adapted by Picturebox. I can't think of a better home for Yokoyama's work, outside an architectural press. And Travel has a special appeal if you've seen Japan by rail. The snapshots are just a touch more constructivist than laconic.