From The North American Post introduction to a 2017 interview with cartoonist Sam Goto:
Sam Goto drew his Seattle Tomodachi strip for five years. He passed away on New Year’s Eve 2017, but he left the North American Post with enough new comic strips to last well into 2018. For five years, Sam told mostly true tales about Nisei life in the Pacific Northwest. His strips were funny, whimsical, silly and sometimes a little serious or sad. But collectively, they tell a story of what it was like to be a new immigrant to the US, what the community did to maintain its culture and values, and how, little by little, people would assimilate into the mainstream culture.
From The Mercer Island Reporter:
Kelly Goto said her father loved comics like the Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and Li’l Abner. She said her home’s shelves were full of comic books.
“He just loved this storytelling through comics, and he would make us comics growing up, my sister and I. He would make us comic books and draw these funny events that happened,” Goto said. “He just had this way of storytelling through his illustrations with his weird sense of humor.”
When Sam was thinking about retiring, his wife convinced him to begin drawing a weekly comic strip in The North American Post, which is the Japanese American newspaper in Seattle, to help pay for the Japanese Community & Cultural Center of Washington’s ad in the newspaper. He contributed his comics to the newspaper from 2012 until his death in 2018.
His daughter has written a book about Sam, his comic, and the Japanese Americans of the Pacific Northwest.
Chin Music Press is thrilled to announce the release of Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience, the latest work by renowned author Kelly Goto. The book is scheduled for an official release on October 22, 2024.
Seattle Samurai offers a unique and engaging exploration of the Japanese American experience, blending Kelly Goto’s insightful narrative with Bushido-inspired cartoons drawn by her father, Sam Goto. This semi-biographical work weaves together cultural history and personal narratives to depict the rich heritage of Japanese Americans in Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest.
