Comics Underground Japan

A Manga Anthology,British and European comic fans are swiftly,embracing Manga, the unique Japanese graphic novel,art form. This new collection selects the best,from the Manga underground presenting material,from the leading artists that is unlikely to be,seen outside of Japan. Outrageous, mind-bending,and 'adult,' this is nihilistic humour at its very,best.

From the surreally beautiful to the graphically gruesome, the selections in this anthology represent the best of manga fiction. Chosen by the former editor of Garo, Japan's standard-bearer of underground comics, the artists in this collection are the latest generation of manga taboo-breakers from the '80s and '90s.

An influential and experimental work, in an all-new paperback edition! Ichiro and Sachiko are young artists, temperamental and discouraged about what life has to offer them. They fall in and out of love, jealous of each other's interests and unchallenged by their careers. Red Colored Elegy charts their heartache, passions, and bickering with equal tenderness, creating a revelatory portrait of a stormy love affair. A cornerstone of the Japanese underground scene of the 1960s, Seiichi Hayshi wrote Red Colored Elegy between 1970 and 1971, in the aftermath of a politically turbulent and culturally vibrant decade that promised but failed to deliver new possibilities. Sparse line work and visual codes borrowed from animation and film beautifully capture the quiet lives of a young couple struggling to make ends meet. Ichiro and Sachiko hope for something better, but they're no revolutionaries; their spare time is spent drinking, smoking, daydreaming, and sleeping together and at times with others. Red Colored Elegy is informed as much by underground Japanese comics of the time as it is by the French New Wave. Its influence in Japan was so large that Morio Agata, a prominent Japanese folk musician and singer/songwriter, debuted with a love song written and named after it. This new paperback edition features an essay on Red Colored Elegy and Hayashi's contributions to contemporary Japanese comics from the art historian Ryan Holmberg.

An Expat in Japan experiences all things Japanese as ordered online! In Tokyo, Dirk had a comics blog where he had people dare him to try all sorts of different exotic, disgusting and revealing things and then describe them with humour online. The result is a fascinating look at the Japanese; how they live, how they think and what they eat. The title is the Japanese pronunciation of Moleskine, the books the comics were written in, and comes exactly like a Moleskine: black cover, rounded edges. What a fun idea' said Neil Gaiman.'

A surprisingly honest and touching account of a trans girl surviving through sex work in Seattle. With excerpts published in the Eisner-nominated anthology ISLAND, the full-color volume, drawn and painted by REMY BOYDELL, is an unflinching debut graphic novel. Written by MICHELLE PEREZ.

A teacher tortured by his students finally explodes in a violent rage. Exhausted Salarymen are pushed beyond the brink. Blood, sweat and screams of 'FUCK YOU!' pour out of the characters within The Pits of Hell, and yet a sense of humour always shines through. Bold, absurd and all too real, Ebisu Yoshikazu's work feels distinctly underground, almost punk. The Pits of Hell collects eight classic stories by Ebisu Yoshikazu, originally published between 1969 and 1981. The collection features a foreword by Minami Shinbo and an essay by Ryan Holmberg placing Ebisu Yoshikazu and his work into context.

The epic autobiography of a manga master Acclaimed for his visionary short-story collections The Push Man and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and Good-Bye--originally created nearly forty years ago, but just as resonant now as ever--the legendary Japanese cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has come to be recognized in North America as a precursor of today's graphic novel movement. A Drifting Life is his monumental memoir eleven years in the making, beginning with his experiences as a child in Osaka, growing up as part of a country burdened by the shadows of World War II. Spanning fifteen years from August 1945 to June 1960, Tatsumi's stand-in protagonist, Hiroshi, faces his father's financial burdens and his parents' failing marriage, his jealous brother's deteriorating health, and the innumerable pitfalls that await him in the competitive manga market of mid-twentieth-century Japan. He dreams of following in the considerable footsteps of his idol, the manga artist Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Apollo's Song, Ode to Kirihito, Buddha)--with whom Tatsumi eventually became a peer and, at times, a stylistic rival. As with his short-story collection, A Drifting Life is designed by Adrian Tomine.