Hold Your Horses for Jiro Matsumoto

I received another question about the horse bus driver in issue one. As always, thank you for reading and thank you for your questions. One of my favorite manga artists is Jiro Matsumoto. I think his best works are Tropical Citron and Revolutionist in the Afternoon. They are gritty, weird, foul, and plain disturbing.

I read most of them in a big chunk in the winter of 2008-2009 while doing my work study in 10 hour shifts during the winter break. I'd go for days or hours without seeing a soul in that building. It is certainly a strange circumstance to connect with such nihilistic work.

The horse taxi driver shows up across decades and countries in Matsumoto's work. He is one of very few anthropomorphs in the works. He seems to show up as times where fate must intervene and steer the course of events in a different, sometimes calamitous direction.

I personally wanted to make an homage to Matsumoto. The bus ride is a central part of Jeff's fate. Therefore, it seems fitting that the horse driver should be a part of that moment.