<<•>>  produced, designed & edited by Anne Ishii, Chip Kidd & Graham Kolbeins  <<•>>  It is difficult to view the work of Gengoroh Tagame as other than pornography, but it is well worth the effort to do so. Yes, there are (extremely) graphic images of sexual activity (copiously) depicted in these pages, including – but certainly not limited to – graphic S & M imagery, but there is more to this work than what at first meets the eye.  These are nuanced comics by an internationally recognized manga master that, on the one hand, provide a highly charged reading experience, while, on the other, offer up interpretive insights when parsed by those who choose to engage the work in this capacity.  Starting out with a light-hearted send-up of the psychic cop genre, the stories range from the bucolic humor of "Country Doctor" (is that Archie?) to the historicized Samurai drama of "Exorcism" to what is clearly the core of Tagame's passion, the violent S & M fantasies of "Arena", "Standing Ovations" and "Missing" which double as critiques of the nexus of international politics, the media and the military that strive to delineate the ideology undergirding the highly militarized global capitalism of our times, albeit in terms that many may experience difficulty in decoding.   A common thread running through all the works is the erotic charge carried by humiliation.  Any long time reader of superhero comics who dares to venture forth into these pages will likely be given pause when confronted with page after page of muscle-bound men beating the shit out of each other in the context of gay erotica.  Needless to say, this item is only available for purchase by those aged 21 and older.

NOW AVAILABLE ONCE AGAIN IN A NEW EDITOIN FROM FANTAGRAPHICS, HERE.