Something In Common

You know that expression about the person who has excellent taste because it so closely resembles your own?

As a big fan of manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi and his epic memoir "A Drifting Life" about growing up in post-war Japan and being part of the dawn of the manga takeover of pop culture there, I was tickled to discover buried within his meta-narrative that his protagonist and I had two things in common.

First, a passion for the hard boiled noir crime novels of writer Mickey Spillane.

Second, check out this scene of the characters going to attend the Japanese showing of Rene Clement's "Plein Soliel" starring Alan Delon as the "scheming villain". Almost 40 years later, I produced "The Talented Mr. Ripley" based on the same Patricia Highsmith novel as the Delon picture.

Funny how certain pop culture influences ripple across time and borders.

Mr. Tatsumi, I admire your taste!

william

Comments

[dutchbaby]

I've only read "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiel Hammett (loved it!) Maybe I ought to give Spillane a go too.

You produced Mr. Ripley too? My you are so talented! It was a great movie but I must confess I got nightmares from it.

I think you have great taste too :-)

[Maiz]

I can't wait to check out "A Drifting Life." I just read "The Impostor's Daughter," which I really enjoyed. Even though I had heard that it was a graphic memoir, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it that it was graphic, as in "illustrated" rather than graphic as in "explicit!" It made me realize that this is one of my favorite genres. (I think calling them "autobiographical comics" might be less confusing.)

I'm glad you like them, too. That's one of our somethings in common!