Dare to read the psycho-horror classic that horror manga master Ito Junji called a “frightening but moving story about an unfortunate individual who, lost in search of his true self, finds his own annihilation instead.”
Little Tetsuo is a wimpy mess. His parents don’t love him. He meets the beautiful Kimiko, an ailing teenage girl obsessed with movies and mayhem in equal amounts. She doesn’t love Tetsuo either, or anyone other than herself. But she needs him. So Tetsuo becomes the man she wants—the monster she wants. He becomes HER FRANKENSTEIN!
Originally published in 1986, Kawashima Norikazu’s HER FRANKENSTEIN marks the bizarre and sadomasochistic finale to a cult era in Japanese horror comics. A few years after it was published, the author burned all of his artwork and abandoned Tokyo, never to be heard from again! HER FRANKENSTEIN is the inaugural volume of SMUDGE, a line of pulp, horror, and dark mystery manga, curated and translated into English by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.
"Though only getting his proper due now, Kawashima is an important figure in the history of horror manga," says Holmberg. "Considered by many to be his best work, HER FRANKENSTEIN was the swan song in a glorious era of horror graphic novels in Japan, which came to a close just as horror manga found its footing in the mainstream magazine market. Without under-appreciated pioneers like Kawashima, there would have been no Ito Junji." This history is further elucidated in an essay included in this 208 page volume by cartoonist Kawakatsu Tokushige and includes almost 20 pages of color extras, including a cover gallery and guide to Kawashima's work.
Learn more about Smudge by reading the Publisher's Weekly profile, HERE.
It took us a minute, but we now have a nice stack of Shirakawa Marina's cult classic SF/horror hybrid manga edited and translated by Ryan Holmberg and including an essay by "weirdologist," Udagawa Takeo, plus an annotated full color gallery of garish and ghoulish covers of some of Shirakawa's original manga publications originally published between 1972 and 1994.
Smudge has posted a 13-page PDF preview of this work, HERE.
The latest from Smudge is the most gruesome and horrific yet! Mansect hails from a half century back – 1975 – and runs 240 monster-filled pages; a landmark work of horror manga. The masking of memories of childhood trauma via the monstrous seems to be an operative psychological aspect of the narrative; have to keep digging to find out... but, for now here's the publisher's' take.
Smudge sez:
"Humans grow and age. They change. But always we are the same person, the same creature. Not so with insects, whose powers of metamorphosis alter not only their shape and size, but also their very beings. And now, because of one young man's unhealthy obsession with bugs, humans also find themselves transformed into disgusting, decrepit, bloodsucking insect monsters!
Published in 1975, Koga Shinichi's MANSECT is a shonen horror classic by one of the undisputed masters of the genre. Swarming with mesmerizingly gnarly imagery and freakish bio-evolutionary speculation, Koga here demonstrates why his name is uttered with the same quivering reverence as horror manga legends Mizuki Shigeru, Umezz Kazuo, and Ito Junji. MANSECT is the third volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg."
The masking of memories of childhood trauma via the monstrous seems to be an operative psychological aspect of the narrative; have to keep digging to find out...
The latest work of horror manga from Living the Line's Smudge imprint has arrived. Translated once again by Ryan Holmberg, who co-edited the book with Kunisawa Hiroshi, Face Meat presents the first English language collection of the work of "outlaw polymath", Bonten Taro. Combining raunch with horror, and mixing sex with gore, the fourteen tales presented in this 240 page softcover were all originally published between 1967 and 1969 in Japanese "men's" magazines (aka smut).
This volume includes a sixteen-page, illustrated essay by Kunisawa, "The Nine Lives of Outlaw Artist Bonten Taro," which cetners on Bonten's life – which is quite a story in itself.
We've posted a hefty gallery of spreads from the book on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.
