Lars Martinson (born 1977) is an American cartoonist. Life Lars Martinson was born in 1977 in Minnesota. From 2003 to 2006, he lived and worked in Japan as an assistant English teacher with the JET Program. In 2007, he received a Xeric Grant for Comic Book Self-Publishers that allowed him to work on his graphic novel Tōnoharu. He went back to Japan in 2008 to study East Asian calligraphy with a two-year research scholarship from the Japanese government. He returned to Japan in July 2011 again to work with the JET Program. Work Tōnoharu is the story of Dan Wells, an American assistant English teacher in rural Japan. It is inspired by Martinson's experience. It is a self-deprecatory, tender and humorous description of the daily life of an isolated dull unimaginative foreigner in a country whose language he does not master. Books Young Men of a certain Mind, self-published, 2003 Tōnoharu, Part One, Pliant Press, 2008 (Paperback edition: Top Shelf Productions, September 2014, ). Tōnoharu, Part Two, Pliant Press, 2010 Tonoharu (French translation of both volumes), Le lézard noir, 2011 Tōnoharu, Part Three, Pliant Press, November 2016, . References External links American cartoonists American graphic novelists 1977 births Living people American male novelists