After the break, check out the latest episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell!
On this episode, the gang's all here! You can listen and be surprised by their choices, but if you want to do that you better stop reading immediately because I'm about to list this episode's points of interest:
- Emily Carroll's Through The Woods
- Julia Gfrorer's Palm Ash
- Junjo Ito's "The Bully", published in Museum of Terror Volume 3
- Kazuo Umezu's Drifting Classroom
- Marbles in my Underpants by Renee French
- Schizo by Ivan Brunetti
- Tom Spurgeon's Grit Bath story
- Pim & Francie by Al Columbia
- Comics by Josh Simmons
that wuz a grate show and here i thouhgt youd be talking about bprd or some shit thankz you all ars the beest
Posted by: Jonlost_log | 2014.08.27 at 09:39
I'm only familiar with the Japanese stuff and some of Emily Carroll and Al Columbia. I might go for some of these others someday.
That really sucks that Museum Of Terror seems to have been stopped due to the public intolerance to short stories. I gave my copies away years ago and haven't been able to get replacements because they are more expensive to find than Uzimaki and Gyo. I'm actually holding out for a reprint if someone wants to attempt that again. Maybe the Tomie parts will get their own book again.
The "Pigeons From Hell" (Robert E Howard) adaptation in Spookhouse 2 (specifically that version) by Scott Hampton is by far the scariest comic I've ever read, quite possibly the most memorable comics experience I've ever had. It was actually terrifying (although I was in my late teens at the time; since everyday is Halloween for me I'd be less scared now) and for the first time in many years I was scared to go back and look at certain pages.
Those two Spookhouse books (mostly adaptations) made me believe that Hampton is one of the most powerful comic artists who sadly, rarely gets to show what he can do. I bought a number of his later mainstream collaborations and none of them had the same magic.
I try and recommend Spookhouse 1-2 fairly often.
The adaptation of Ramsey Campbell's "Again" that appeared in Taboo had a really powerful final image that chilled me.
Hino wasn't all that scary (actually, the start of Red Snake was pretty scary but it promised a bit more than it delivered).
As annoyed as I am about the lack of translated horror manga in the past several years, we did get lucky with Hino, we got Hino Horror 1-14 (15-16 were cancelled), Panorama Of Hell, Hell Baby, Lullabies From Hell, Art Of Hideshi Hino and a story in an anthology (which I sadly don't own).
I wish I could read French because a lot more Junji Ito and Maruo was translated into French.
Really drives me nuts that after a few good years, horror manga in English totally dried up. Some of the Hino was a bit samey and a few of the Umezu books were not so great and I think people might have got tired of the stuff (also tired of J-horror films and the remakes) and manga sales in general went downhill but for fuck's sake! Some publisher needs to get it going again.
I wonder if the Uzimaki hardback book sold well? Maybe they would have translated more if it sold better?
Posted by: Robert Adam Gilmour | 2014.08.28 at 17:35
I don't even know if anyone reads these comments but when you talked about Junji Ito I started thinking about the scariest manga I'd ever seen. All I remembered was this person on a mountain getting crushed by the rocks around him. Turns out it was Enigma of Amigara Fault by Ito. Holy crap.
http://openawesome.com/junji-ito-horror-manga/enigmaofamigarafault.html
Posted by: Not Amigara's Fault | 2014.09.11 at 21:37
I am reading, and yeah, when I think of Ito - I think of that.
Posted by: Joe McCulloch | 2014.09.11 at 23:52
OH: Robert, that Taboo story is *amazing*... lots of little gems scattered around that series. I vividly recall this one piece from #2 (the one nobody wanted to print or bind) by Tim Lucas and Simonida Perica-Uth with this really allusive art... I'd say #4 is the overall best, dominated by Eyes of the Cat, Jodorowsky/Moebius, but also boasting what's secretly among the best-ever Neil Gaiman things (Babycakes, with Zulli again), a weird turn by Philippe Foerster from the pages of Fluide Glacial(!), and an Elaine Lee/Charles Vess short that doesn't exactly fit but still manages to work pretty well.
The gold standard in hidden, potentially damaging manga horror from those brief boom years is definitely Beauty Labyrinth of Razors, a Creation Books custom blend of guro stories by Jun Hayami, which encountered some Taboo-like objections from printers and eventually, briefly, saw life as an ebook before vanishing into history, though a very small number of print editions also purportedly made it into the world... not that I've ever seen one!
Posted by: Joe McCulloch | 2014.09.12 at 00:26
AND WHILE I'M AT IT: I should mention for the record that there's an *earlier* English-language collection of Ito shorts out there - Flesh Colored Horror, ComicsOne, 2001, which only has one story in common with the Dark Horse Museum of Terror vol. 3. ComicsOne also put out their own Tomie books, which I don't have, although I understand the Dark Horse books (Museum of Terror vols. 1-2) are more complete.
Posted by: Joe McCulloch | 2014.09.12 at 01:02
Beauty Labyrinth of Razors sounds like a Manga name generator, but after looking it up I think I need to find it.
Posted by: Not Amigara's Fault | 2014.09.16 at 11:53