Anthony Bourdain is a celebrity chef and the host of CNN’s Parts Unknown. But on the side, Bourdain is also a comic book writer and a big fan of the medium. Back in 2013, Bourdain and co-writer Joel Rose released Get Jiro, a graphic novel that was published by Vertigo Comics.
Bourdain and Rose have reteamed for Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi, a prequel to their original collaboration with Ale Garza providing the sequential artwork. The new story pulls Jiro in two directions: his desire to be a sushi apprentice and his family’s demand that he join their underworld business and help them take over the Tokyo underworld.
While speaking with Maxim, Bourdain joked that “The Yakuza are a fun subject…so I wanted to meld that with my own desires for a world where people who disrespect sushi are killed.” He added that “it’s an imagined world that I like to spend time in. And in the real world I like to spend time in it, as well. I love sushi and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Tokyo, and the yakuza are hard to miss. They operate in a very overt way, even in modern day Japan.“
“I’m a frustrated underground comic artist,” admitted Bourdain. “I was a comic book collector as a kid and wanted to be a comic book artist. I wanted to draw my own filthy, ultraviolent underground comics until I was about 14 or 15 and realized that, while I was considered to be good at drawing, I was in no way dedicated or talented enough to approach in quality the kind of stuff I admired. So when I was given the opportunity very late in life to collaborate on a graphic novel, I jumped at the chance. I’m just living out my frustrated little boy dream.”
Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi will be available on Amazon beginning on November 11. It is also available in comic book stores everywhere.
