TATEISHI, Tiger
Cheat Sheets

A new edition of Tiger Tateishi's incredible 1982 comics collection Tora No Maki. Tiger Tateishi first began drawing cartoons in 1964, inspired by copies of MAD Magazine which occupation forces had left behind. Before moving to Milan in 1969, Tateishi regularly contributed to manga magazines. In Milan, while working for Ettore Sottsass at Olivetti, he began creating the incredible comic panel layout paintings posthumously collected in the book Moon Trax. Also around this time, as Fumiko Tateishi explains, Tiger "had a strong desire to make a real comic book, and spent almost five years working on the pictures for Tora No Maki. At first, Penguin Books in London were considering publishing it, and they had the originals for quite a while, but after a love call from Seigow Matsuoka at Kousakusha in Tokyo, the book was eventually brought out in Japan."

Tiger Tateishi, from a 1976 letter to SD Magazine: "Apart from my work as a painter and illustrator, I have started doing cartoons again and am currently labouring away on those. All of them are very short pieces of a single page or at most three, and when I have accumulated 60 or 70 pages or so, I plan to start looking for a publisher in the UK or perhaps the Netherlands."  Cheat Sheets presents these comics in a single volume for the first time outside of Japan. Welcome to the strange world of the hermit Arara Sennin.

Kōichi “Tiger” Tateishi worked in a variety of media including comic books, illustrated books, painting, sculpture and ceramics during his prolific career. Inspired by science fiction, including Robert Sheckley’s early stories, his enigmatic works explored reality and its limitations. In 1966, his work was featured in the acclaimed 15th Yomiuri Independent Exhibition. In 1969, Tateishi relocated to the city of Futurism, Milan in Italy, and began working in the studio of Ettore Sottsass, bringing the ideas of the architect and designer to life. During this time, Tateishi’s personal artwork moved closer to visual narratives as he made several oil tableaux infused with science-fiction themes. Upon his return to Japan in 1982, he produced daily comics embracing the nonsense genre. Tiger Tateishi passed away at only 56 years of age, but is fondly remembered for the zest and energy of his mind-bending works, which invigorated the Japanese pop-art scene.

[publisher's note]

Published by Nieves / 50 Watt, 2023
Monographs / Comics & Illustrations