 Hello everyone!It’s been a busy month here at LTL headquarters. On top of mind currently is the release of HER FRANKENSTEIN, which has (hopefully!) arrived at all preorder destinations, as well as being released in comic stores yesterday! Bookstore release will follow in another nine days or so. We’ve been extremely gratified by the enthusiasm for the project we’ve seen so far, as well as all of the press and early reviews that SMUDGE, our line of historic horror and genre manga, has been met with so far. Here’s a little sampling of the recent press (including some spoiler-heavy reviews, so if that sort of thing bothers you, best not click the reviews!)REVIEW: Her Frankenstein reviewed at Publishers Weekly (starred review). “”Kawashima’s suspenseful thriller is cinematic and beautiful, full of the indelible imagery―an eerily calm seascape, a discarded mask, a featureless face―that established him as one of the leading names in Japanese horror comics. It’s a must-read for fans of Junji Ito and Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.” “PRESS: SMUDGE overview, interview at Publishers Weekly.PRESS: UFO MUSHROOM INVASION discussed at ICV2.REVIEW: Her Frankenstein reviewed at Anime News Network. “…grim and fascinating, and the extensive essay about the creator adds some excellent context and history to the book. “REVIEW: Centralia review at The Low Countries. “an extraordinary acid adventure that ingeniously mixes the genre of the western with science fiction, all against the backdrop of global warming and civil war. But the work is also, and above all, a breathtaking graphic immersion that gives meaning to what is referred to as the ‘ninth art’. “INTERVIEW: Brandon Graham talks comics, Moonray, pinups, porn, and more on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast.PRESS: Her Frankenstein on Publishers Weekly Spring 2024 Manga Preview (This is as good a place as any to mention that we have a 100 percent satisfaction goal here at LTL, so if there was something wrong with your preorder, anything, please let me know as soon as you can so we can make the issue right! I’ve had to send out replacements for a handful of our Her Frankenstein packages so far, due to damage sustained in shipping. In addition to the normal levels of Postal Aggression, I believe this is mostly an issue due to the new type of mailer we used, which doesn’t have as much corner support/reinforcement as the older ones, so I’m planning on not using these for any future shipments.) Moonray news…There’s not a ton of news yet on Moonray, other than the shipper will be attempting delivery at Diamond warehouses today! Barring anything else unusual about this shipment, we will hopefully receive our forwarded portion of the shipment in a week or two and begin fulfillment on preorders immediately. It’s a lovely book, a lovely series, and it’ll be very gratifying to get this latest installment in your hands. In other SMUDGE news…We’ve also sent our second SMUDGE title, UFO MUSHROOM INVASION by Shirakawa Marina, off to the printers! This is going to be another very exciting one, an unusual book in every way. Diamond sent out a press release on our behalf recently, regarding the book. Full text below! “Living the Line and Diamond Book Distributors are proud to present the second title in LTL’s SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg. A flying saucer crashes deep in the mountains of Japan. Wary of the hyper-intelligent beings they find inside, the government hides from the public all news of the alien craft. But it’s not the strange visitors themselves that they should be afraid of—the real danger is the parasitic spores smuggled aboard! Will Earth survive the UFO MUSHROOM INVASION?! Originally published in 1976, Shirakawa Marina’s UFO MUSHROOM INVASION is a masterpiece of sci-fi horror. Drawing on his deep knowledge of Japanese folklore and the supernatural, Shirakawa created one of manga history’s cult classics and an unforgettably creepy entry in the canon of spore-horror. The book includes an illustrated color essay by Udagawa Takeo, author of MANGA ZOMBIE (1996), a classic survey of weird manga soon to be released in English by Ultra Gash Records. It also includes a “The Best of Marina Shirakawa” section by Smudge editor/translator Ryan Holmberg that offers a career survey with synopses and a color cover gallery. Shirakawa’s unique and wild work has been making waves in Japanese-language manga collector circles for decades. The ambitious Smudge manga line aims to provide the most extensive survey of classic horror and dark fantasy manga in any language, complimenting the Ito Junji and Umezz Kazuo titles put out by Viz Media and the Hino Hideshi and newer horror manga titles put out by Star Fruit Books. “Though he wasn’t super productive by workaholic Japanese standards, Shirakawa is one of the most adored artists within the history of weird, cult manga,” says Holmberg. “UFO Mushroom Invasion is by far his most famous work, with new editions appearing every ten years or so from fringe publishers in Japan. Shirakawa speaks to me not only as a lifelong fan of dark fantasy, but also as a Japanophile and cultural historian. You don’t find many manga authors who are, at the same time, interesting artists, believers in fringe science and pseudo-history, and respected amateur researchers of Japanese yokai, folklore, and the supernatural.” “Shirakawa is a remarkable author whose classic art and meticulously researched, oddball perspective make his rediscovery inevitable,” says Smudge publisher Sean Michael Robinson. “We couldn’t be more pleased to be bringing him to English language audiences. Although this is only our second book in the Smudge line, UFO Mushroom Invasion makes it clear that we are taking our mission statement seriously, to bring previously unknown genre classics to the English language market, key books and authors that have been virtually unknown outside of enthusiastic collectors.” The first Smudge title, HER FRANKENSTEIN by Norikazu Kawashima, will be released in May, and has already garnered significant accolades, including a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which stated: “Kawashima’s suspenseful thriller is cinematic and beautiful, full of the indelible imagery—an eerily calm seascape, a discarded mask, a featureless face—that established him as one of the leading names in Japanese horror comics.” UFO Mushroom Invasion will hit comic shops on September 18th and the wider bookstore release will follow on October 1st.Thanks for reading!I hope all is well with you! Thanks for reading, and keep your eye on this spot for more news about future releases…Living the Line, 1477 Ashland Ave, St Paul, Minnesota 55104, United States, 6193986473Unsubscribe Manage preferencesSend free email today |
