 What’s Shaking at Living the Line HQ? Well hello! I hope you all are having a wonderful January. It’s been too long since one of these missives, mainly because, as usual, I’m slammed preparing our next slate of books. We have prepared a shocking ten books for 2025, which will almost double our existing backlist of titles. So what’s new then?Living that SMUDGE LifeRyan Holmberg in JapanIf you follow Ryan Holmberg on Instagram, you’ll have seen that he’s been travelling in Japan since the new year, working on research for his various translation projects, and also securing new titles for our SMUDGE line of horror manga as well! So far this has included a ton of stuff that we can’t talk about, and a handful of things that are already public, including his visit to a killer exhibit of the tattoo work of upcoming SMUDGE artist Bonten Taro, whose short story collection FACE MEAT will be arriving in stores and mailboxes as early as May.  …and how about a real announcement?Living the Line/SMUDGE Signs Multi-volume deal with the estate of Marina ShirakawaLiving the Line Books is proud to announce a multi-volume book deal with the estate of Shirakawa Marina, whose gonzo science-fiction horror book UFO Mushroom Invasion has won its author acclaim and an audience almost fifty years after its first appearance in Japanese. UFO Mushroom Invasion, Shirakawa’s first English-language publication, is a spore-horror classic which mixes extreme body horror and deeply-researched science fiction speculation with a calm, philosophical take on the extinction of humanity. The book received critical acclaim upon release in October 2024, even being nominated prior to publication as Best New Edition of a Classic Manga for the inagural American Manga Awards. “It’s a real honor to be able to introduce more of Shirakawa’s manga to English readers,” says Ryan Holmberg, SMUDGE curator and translator. “Though his books are avidly sought out by collectors, he’s underappreciated by manga fans even in Japan.”  “We see this as the next phase of our SMUDGE line,” says publisher Sean Michael Robinson. “It’s not enough to excavate the hidden gems of the past and find moving, shockingly-resonant works from half a century ago. We want to take it further, and bring the authors of those works into English just as you might introduce a living author, by carefully-curating books from their catalog of work.”Special thanks to Kunisawa Hiroshi, the manga researcher who facilitated contacts with the estate. SHIRAKAWA Marina (1940-2000) was an artist of many talents. As a cartoonist, he drew bizarre and harrowing manga about such things as UFO invasions, time-traveling vampires, and zombie cats. As an illustrator, he worked on projects related to Japanese folklore and H.P. Lovecraft. He was also a folklorist himself, authoring manga and illustrated anthologies about Japanese ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. All of these interests come together in UFO Mushroom Invasion (1976), his most famous manga. The books, titles unannouced so far, will see release in 2026 and early 2027.   …and speaking of title announcements…The Complete C.D. GibsonI’ve spent the past few days working on completing the long essay for our October title, The Complete CD Gibson: A Widow And Her Friends by Charles Dana GIbson, the first released book in our long-awaited survey of the works of one of America’s greatest cartoonists, the legendary CD Gibson. After a lot of deliberation, I decided to start mid-way through Gibson’s career for the publication order of the series, mostly because I wanted the first book released to be the most graphic novel-like of his work. Specifically, this book will include his two long-form narratives, The Education of Mr Pipp, and its follow-up, A Widow And Her Friends. Both books offer an excellent entry-point to Gibson’s work, as they are filled to the brim with his peculiar mixture of humor, social criticism, and streaks of sadness that puncture the humor a bit and bring a real humanness to even his most exaggerated characters. The page featured here is from The Education of Mr. Pipp, which first appeared in the September 8, 1898 issue of Life. The titular Mr. Pipp is a new-money American iron magnate who travels to Europe on a pleasure cruise with his stout, stern wife and his two lovely daughters. This fish-out-of-water story of cultural collision was a runaway success with the public, prompting Gibson to extend the serial to meet demand. Only one of four Gibson works that will appear in this inagural volume of the Complete CD Gibson! Available October 2025, lovingly-restored from several different original editions of the book overseen by Gibson himself during his lifetime.This Year’s Full LineupWanted to end with our current schedule for the year! As some of you might have noticed, there’s been a pretty big shakeup at our distributor in the past week, so that uncertainty might lead to some time shifts in the lineup for logistical reasons, but the first three books are already printed, currently being shipped from their three respective printers, and will definitely be on time as indicated below. More about Mansect (Koga Shinichi), Roihu (Kutikuti) and the Pit (Erik Kriek) very soon! |
