Anywhere But Here by Tori Miki

Anywhere But Here by Tori Miki. Fantagraphics, 2005. 96p., 6.5″ x 7″, $12.95.

Fantagraphics put out this book early in the year, and until my fiancée pointed it out this summer when we were browsing in Rocketship, I’d never heard of it. Anywhere But Here is probably what you’d expect from a Fantagraphics manga book, it’s very different and it has a bit of a classic style to it.

The book collects 90 single page strips from Miki’s long-running strip Touku e Ikitai which has run in a tv magazine since 1988. Each strip is a nine panel gag featuring an unnamed man. To say the strips are “weird” or “odd” would be to underplay the utter strangeness that suffuses this book. While many of the strips are outright hilarious, others are so obscure as to defy any laughter. Many of the strips play with comics convention and structure similar to some of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy work (at its surreal best). Many make use of surreal juxtapositions or outright fantasy.

The artwork, while still distinctly manga is more akin to American comic strips than most manga. It’s very simply drawn. The color scheme is black, grey, and shades of pink/red.

This is an odd book, but worth reading for fans of weird humor. It often takes a bit of work to get the jokes, but it was worth it.

Here’s a sample strip.

01/10/06: “Toren” (I imagine, Smith of Studio Proteus who worked on this book) commented to say that a second volume is in the works.

Tags: Manga

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