Ryan Holmberg's series of collections of classic and avant-garde manga that he was producing for PictureBox has made an at least temporary home at Breakdown Press with the release of Ding Dong Circus.  This 256 page risograph collection presents, for the first time in English, the best of Sasaki Maki’s work.  Originally drawn for alt-manga super magazine Garo (with a couple drawn for other contemporaneous manga mags) between 1967 and 1974, the fifteen stories here follow Sasaki’s groundbreaking exploration of collage methods in comics storytelling, weaving through references to R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, the Vietnam War, Andy Warhol, the Summer of Love, the Beatles, British humour, and the wacky world of Japanese consumerism. Ding Dong Circus demonstrates what manga fans already knew: that in Sasaki Maki, Japan can claim not only a pioneer in experimental comics, but one of the world’s masters of Pop Art and a trenchant avant-garde critic of the Sixties.   BONUS:  Maki's autobiographical essay, "Still a Cartoonist", also in English for the first time.   Don't miss this one! 

Translator and editor Ryan Holmberg  published an extensive essay about Sasaki at The Comics Journal, which amply demonstrates both Maki's significance and importance as well as Holmberg's critical acumen.

And, we've posted a generous preview of the book on ello, HERE.