Underground Manga
Comics Underground Japan. Ed. Kevin Quigley. Blast Books, 1996. Out of Print.
Secret Comics Japan. Ed. Chikao Shiratori. Viz, 2000. Out of Print (I think, but still available from Viz).
Following up on my previous manga post, I took some recommendations and purchased these two books. As I haven’t yet gotten to writing about (or rereading even) the manga titles I really like, I’m going to cover these two books which honestly disappointed.
I’ve never been a fan the underground “comix” work in the US. While I accept the historical importance of the work and the avenues it opened for subsequent comics creators, the work itself, far too often based on shock value and excess, is not to my taste. I’ll admit to not having read a lot, but its the image I get from what I’ve seen. The works in these two manga anthologies seems to drink from that same stream.
Both of these books are largely made up of creators appearing in the Japanese publication Garo (the editor of Secret Comics is even a former editor of Garo). The stories all date from the 80s and 90s. Quigley provides some background in his introduction and I am surprised (even moreso after reading the various works) to see that Garo started out publishing Shirato Sampei’s Kamui. Kamui was one of the first manga I read, published by Eclipse as pamphlets, and later by Viz in book form. It’s a historically detailed samurai/ninja drama with a realistic drawing style. Not much of the work was published in translation, but apparently it was a very popular work among 60’s student protesters. Either the political element passed me by or did not appear in the translated volumes (I may have to look them up again) (Wish Viz would publish more of the series). Anyway, the Kamui I remember is very far from the works in these two anthologies.
There’s a lot of ugliness in these books, both art and story, purposefully so, I think. It makes me want to put down the books. Many of the comics in Comics Underground are obvious political and social statements against Japanese society (and thus often rather opaque to the English reader). The stories in Secret Comics seem less socially rebellious and many are even artistically rather conventional. Almost all the stories revel in the grotesque, the strange, the violent, the sexual. They leave me with nothing but a desire to not read them again.
There are a few creators that I did enjoy. Kiriko Nananan’s two short stories (in Secret Comics), drawn in a simple realistic style, are almost documentary like in their small moments of dialogue. Pan Migiwa’s “Volvox” (in Comics Underground) is a tiny piece about a girl walking her dog and seeing specks of dust floating in the air.
Another manga attempt bites the dust. Maybe I’ll have more success with some of the other books I’m getting.
Tags: Manga
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