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Drawn & Quarterly Publishes Nazuna Saito Short Manga Collection Offshore Lightning

The Comics Beat website announced on Monday that publisher Drawn & Quarterly will release Offshore Lightning, a collection of short manga by author Nazuna Saito, in February 2022. According to Drawn & Quarterly's solicitation for the book, the book will collect many of Saito's earlier works, as well as the stories "In Captivity" and "Solitary Death Building," which debuted in 2012 and 2015, respectively. The book will have 384 pages and will retail for US$21.95.

An excerpt from the solicitation reads:

Stories like “Buy Dog Food and Go Home” and “Offshore Lightning” focus on middle-aged men caught in a cycle of self pity and self reflection. Saito gently pokes fun at their anguish and self-involvement while capturing the pathos of these men as they revisit childhood friendships and lost loves. By contrast, “In Captivity” follows three siblings visiting their ailing mother who is succumbing to dementia and resentful at her loss of agency. The siblings take a drive as they reckon with balancing the painful legacy of her caustic personality with attempting to honor this woman at the end of her life. “Solitary Death Building” documents an eccentric cast of elderly gossips as death descends upon the housing complex where they all live.

Saito debuted as a manga creator in her 40s, winning Shogakukan's Big Comic Newcomer Award with her story "Dahlia" in 1987. She published "Solitary Death Building" ("Bocchi Shi no Yakata") in Shogakukan's Big Comic Original magazine in December 2017.

Source: Comic Beat (Dean Simons)