Nagata Kabi, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality
“If pain has a value, it’s in the experience, the lesson.” The Japanese artist Nagata Kabi’s manga, printed in the four-alarm contrast colors of orange and black, begins with her admission to the hospital. At just thirty years old, she’s dangerously close to death. In her book’s first panel, the specter of an IV bag hovering above her like a paper lantern, she receives her diagnosis: acute pancreatitis, caused by alcohol consumption. Orange streaks and stars crowd these pages, gesturing at the tumult the author is experiencing, physically and emotionally.