High Coup

As the clever pun of the title indicates, Yoshida is one of Japan's best-known illustrators. The workreproduced in color or black and white when appropriateruns from 1974 to 1985, and constitutes a rogue's gallery of cultural superstars. Rendered in Yoshida's nervous, nervy style are a wide-mouthed Elvis Presley; Rod Stewart almost lost in a red-and-yellow welter of Oriental-looking hieroglyphic slashes; artist M. C. Escher's head divided into six stacked portions; and a fleshy, brushy abstraction of actor Al Pacino. Yoshida maintains that he does not want to be considered an artist, but rather an illustrator. The publisher has obliged him with a suitably pulpy production that is hard to put down. (June