A review by kurtwombat
Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

5.0

There is a line that runs through our lives. It is where we would like our lives to go. We straddle it as best we can. Some gifts of birth make it easier, some make it virtually impossible. Then life intervenes. Somewhere along the way most of us fall off that line to the one side or the other--by events we couldn't foresee or the myriad choices we are forced to make. Some stray so far from that line that they forget it may have ever existed. That describes many of the characters in Yoshihiro Tatsumi's GOOD-BYE. A ground-breaking writer/artist who re-imagined what comic books could be in Japan the way western writers did by differentiating Graphic Novels from Comic Books. The writing is sparse, the images seem simple but as they flow one to the next the stifling frustration and angst, desperate grasping for hope beyond their reach....seeps into the reader. It is sad but beautiful in it's honesty. A fine collection of stories...my favorite being the first entitled HELL set right after the atomic bombing of Japan but they all are marvelous. There is hope here....but it costs...and it's worth it.