week 3- cigarette girl

cigarette girl is a collection of short stories by Masahiko Matsumoto, published in the 70s . Originally these gekiga (Japanese alternative-comics) were published as newspaper comic strips, the first of Matsumotos collection of mature english work. Each story explores  the fleeting impressions between strangers,  a single woman's troubles finding a partner, and  a new couple in their honey-moon phase ready to take on the world. Although the themes are heavy with everyday life troubles, there is a trademark lightness and humor that Masahiko is known for in his work.

Personally I don’t really like the comics, they were too open ended for my taste. They hop between stories and none of the interactions between the characters have any weight. They’re drawn in a way that takes away from the serious themes and makes any exchange feel mediocre at best. The eyes are bulbous and don’t really focus on anything in particular, and don’t even get me started on the beak mouths that somehow made it into publishing. Those things are cursed and shouldn’t even be a style. Nothing about this comic makes me want to continue reading it and I struggled to even get through half of it .

 Its depressing, general consensus from the class during discussion was that no one really enjoyed the book , it wasn't something we wanted to keep participating in because it was just  total downer.