Created in the late 1950s, BLACK BLIZZARD is Yoshihiro Tatsumi's remarkable first full-length tankobon and one of the first published examples of Gekiga. With BLACK BLIZZARD, Tatsumi explores the dark underbelly of his working-class heroes that five decades later will make him one of the most well known Japanese cartoonists in North America. Susumu Yamaji, a 24-year-old pianist, is arrested for murder and ends up handcuffed to a career criminal on the train that will take them to prison. An avalanche derails the train and the criminal takes the opportunity to escape, dragging a reluctant Susumu with him into the blizzard raging outside. They flee into the mountains to an abandoned ranger station, where they take shelter from the storm. As they sit around the fire they built, Susumu relates how love drove him to become a murderer.