Yesterday in Les Mots a la Bouche I stumbled on this first-ever Genogoroh Tagame opus in English, a greatest hits by the genius of gay manga, edited by Chip Kidd and introduced by Edmund White. The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame: Master of Gay Erotic Manga pubbed in the US too quietly in May and critics predictably called him "Japan's Tom of Finland." Fair in that they both portray hyper macho characters but unfair to them as artists. Just look.
UPDATE: Garth Mitko Greenwell sent me this wonderful short by Max Freeman and a link to Freeman's interview with Tagame. I love this: "I started drawing comics in middle school, and it was mostly comical comics, funny comics, for classmates and teachers and that kind of thing. And they all liked it a lot. And there was a main character that developed, and he was the captain of the soccer team, who is kind of my first love. I have no idea why, but I suddenly started drawing him getting captured by the rival team and being stripped and humiliated, and this was in middle school, before I came out, or before I was thinking about myself as a gay person, so I was like, "Why am I drawing this?" But I also gave that comic to my friends. They said they liked it, but I don't know what they really thought."
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