My Comics Reading List Manga Roundup

138. OROCHI VOLUME ONE (Interlibrary Loan)

My tiny local library deserves a big round of applause for getting me a copy of this classic horror Manga by Kazuo Umezz! I got interested in this particular series after hearing Comic Kkrakk mention it on one of the Sunday Chats (1:12:10 mark). I loved this book, from the unusual art style to the different approaches to horror in the two stories included in this first volume. The art is very stiff seeming, however this is needed to reign in the horrors unleashed through Umezz's tight narratives. "Sisters" is a 70s Gothic family drama to the Nth degree, and a weak twist ending with a razor sharp tense narrative to get there. "Bones" is the longer second story. It, on the surface, reminded me of those great EC horror tales of Graham Ingels or Jack Davis. When you get to reading further into the story, however, Umezz makes those EC horror stories look like a segment on fucking Sesame Street! This is without a doubt one of the saddest, sickest, most harrowing stories I've read yet. All that in Orochi"s attempts to sooth the overwhelming grief of a widow. I don't want to go any further into the plot, suffice to say I want to read more Umezz in the future. I'll leave you with a sample page of the horrors within...

139. OKINAWA (Hoopla app)

I discovered this with the recent announcement of the partnership between MANGASPLAINING substack/podcast and Fantagraphics Books. The book starts out with the author's and his parent's tense, conflicted experiences on Okinawa during WWII. The second part of the book is more fictional, while dealing with the very real effects of US military occupation and, in particular, military bases impact on Okinawan civilians. There is a nice thread of religion, prayer, and sacred places running through the background of the whole book. Susumu Higa is an incredible storyteller, sacrificing a slick streamlined style for a cruder cartoony style more suited to his character-driven narrative. This is probably my favorite modern Manga series, so far. Here's a page from the first chapter available on MSX: THE MANGASPLAINING EXTRA substack (be sure to subscribe!)...

140.HEAVEN'S DOOR EXTRA WORKS (lastgasp.com)

This is such a beautiful package put together by editor Colin Turner and designer Evan Hayden. Keiichi Koike definitely deserves the extra special treatment. Equal parts Moebius and R. Crumb, Koike goes from realism to transgressive comedy, but almost always ends up in a dream-like surrealism. Words fail me when trying to describe this book...

Yeah, pretty much 200 glorious pages of that⬆️

141. GUNSMITH CATS VOLUME 1: REVISED EDITION (Hoopla app)

One of the problematic Manga of my youth. Rally and Minnie May were two of my favorite characters back in the 90s, although looking back now the latter character's back story is a bit on the icky side. The realistic guns and cars and not so realistic violence and villains still hold up fairly well. Definitely won't continue on this nostalgia trip, though.

(images from here)