| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 17, 2025 Living the Line’s Smudge Imprint Earns Two American Manga Award Nominations St. Paul, MN – Living the Line Books is proud to announce that two titles from its Smudge imprint have been nominated in the 2025 American Manga Awards:Face Meat by Bonten Taro (translated by Ryan Holmberg) – Best TranslationMansect by Shinichi Koga (translated by Ryan Holmberg) – Best New Edition of Classic MangaThese nominations follow last year’s recognition of UFO Mushroom Invasion, which helped establish Smudge as a bold new presence in English-language manga publishing. The imprint launched with strong critical attention in 2024, including a starred Publishers Weekly review for debut title Her Frankenstein, and has maintained momentum ever since.   FEATURED PRESS for the first four SMUDGE titles Mansect by Koga Shinichi Publishers Weekly (starred review): “ Admirers of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezz will revel in this.” Face Meat by Bonten Taro Publishers Weekly wrote: “Readers who don’t mind a bit of trash with their treasure will have a blast.” Library Journal added: “Bonten’s remarkable illustration makes use of bold, inky linework and exaggerated body language and facial expressions to evoke a nightmarish atmosphere and to depict characters who appear contorted by obsession, desire, rage, or to the whims of an oppressively violent world.” UFO Mushroom Invasion by Shirakawa Marina Publishers Weekly: “This gonzo apocalyptic cult manga from the 1970s explodes on impact with environmental catastrophe, body horror, and bizarre science-fiction concepts.”Library Journal: “Shirakawa plumbs the existential dread of the unknown to audacious effect…” Her Frankenstein by Kawashima Norikazu Starred Publishers Weekly review: “Kawashima’s suspenseful thriller is cinematic and beautiful, full of indelible imagery… a must-read for fans of Junji Ito and Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.”  Call for Voters Voting for the American Manga Awards is open to industry professionals—including editors, creators, translators, librarians, and other qualified manga professionals. You must register by 5 PM ET on July 21, 2025, and cast your ballots by 5 PM ET on July 24, 2025. Registration and voting are done via the official Awards website and are not open to the general public. A Word from the Publisher“We’re deeply honored,” says Sean Michael Robinson, publisher at Living the Line. “The American Manga Awards are doing something incredibly important—giving a platform to innovative work from all corners of manga publishing. We’re in astonishing company this year, and it’s a genuine thrill to see our books listed alongside so many other brilliant titles. We’re grateful to the organizers for filling a longstanding gap and doing it with such care.” Back In Print (Soon!)Both Mansect and UFO Mushroom Invasion are currently out of print at the distributor level, but new editions are on the way. Release dates to be announced soon via Living the Line’s newsletter and website.   More SMUDGE in 2025 And that’s not it for Smudge in 2025! This fall will see the release of My Gorilla Family by Iijima Ichiro, a manic short-story collection of the early horror work of a pioneering and powerfully weird artist, and two months later, we’ll see a follow-up release from Her Frankenstein‘s Kawashima Norikazu, entitled The Girl Who Raised the Dead.About Smudge & Living the Line. Smudge is a boutique imprint of Living the Line, specializing in Japanese genre manga—horror, sci‑fi, and pulp—that have never been published in English. Founded by scholar‑translator Ryan Holmberg, with artist‑publisher Sean Michael Robinson, Smudge is committed to historical care, sharp design, and pushing narrative boundaries.Broader Living the Line publishing includes original graphic novels, memoir comics, and other archival rediscoveries that explore overlooked corners of visual storytelling. Media Contact: Sean Michael Robinson Living the Line Books livingthelinepublishing@gmail.com 1477 Ashland Ave, St. Paul, MN 55104 |
