Sassy Cats

Yamada Murasaki (1948–2009) debuted as a cartoonist in 1969. Informed by her upbringing—she was raised mainly by her grandmother—and a background in design and poetry, Yamada’s early work was unique in form and content, offering realistic portraits of young women negotiating complicated family situations and the passage to adulthood. In the late ’70s, after having a family of her own, her work shifted to young mothers negotiating children, husbands, and the balance between social responsibilities as a housewife and self-respect as a woman. Yamada published manga in practically every issue of Garo from 1978 to 1986, and is considered the first cartoonist to use the artistic freedoms of alternative manga to explore motherhood and domesticity with an unromantic eye. She is the cartoonist of Talk to My Back and Second Hand Love.