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Great news for international Suehiro Maruo fans, the Spanish edition of "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island" debuted at FICÓMIC (Salón Internacional del Cómic de Barcelona) recently [UPDATED! - Thanks, Manuel!]. The book was published by Maruo's longtime Spanish publisher Glènat.
I don't know any specific details, but I assume Maruo/EnterBrain's long-running relationship with Glènat may be the reason this edition came out so quickly. The book is available now and sells for 15€. Enjoy, Spanish-reading manga fans!
UPDATE: Glenat posted a little something about their Spanish edition on their manga blog.
Great news for international Suehiro Maruo fans, the Spanish edition of "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island" debuted at FICÓMIC (Salón Internacional del Cómic de Barcelona) recently [UPDATED! - Thanks, Manuel!]. The book was published by Maruo's longtime Spanish publisher Glènat.
I don't know any specific details, but I assume Maruo/EnterBrain's long-running relationship with Glènat may be the reason this edition came out so quickly. The book is available now and sells for 15€. Enjoy, Spanish-reading manga fans!
UPDATE: Glenat posted a little something about their Spanish edition on their manga blog.
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! We are extremely excited to share the news that Last Gasp has licensed and will be publishing Suehiro Maruo's beautiful masterpiece "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island" (パノラマ島綺譚). Kudos to readers that guessed the book already! :)
As with Tokyo Zombie, Evan Hayden and I will be adapting the title for English audiences-- with Evan handling the book production, design and lettering, and me tackling the translation (with friends' help) and editing the book with Last Gasp's Colin Turner.
The Japanese edition was published by EnterBrain and is around 275 pages. This English edition will be only Suehiro Maruo's third book released in English (after Creation Books' "Ultra-Gash Inferno" and Blast Books' "Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show"). The publication is planned for Spring 2010, and some of the book release details are still being hammered out. Generally speaking, it's rare for a publisher to announce a title license this early in the process, but we are all so excited we wanted to share the news as soon as possible.
About the book, from previous posts:
Panorama is an adaptation of a novella by Japanese detective fiction godfather, Edogawa Rampo. The story takes place at the end of the Taisho era, and follows an unsuccessful science fiction author with an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate/son of a rich industrialist family. When the industrialist's son dies, the author fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man's body, then washes himself up starving on a beach in a town where the dead man's family lives. After some more intrigue and scheming, he proceeds to take redirect all of their money to build a mysterious pleasure palace island, and live like a sensual weirdo king. Crazy and amazing stuff!
Evan, Colin and I will be working hard over the coming weeks and months, and I probably won't have any updates in the immediate future. But later on, I'll be sharing tons of details on the process and title here at Same Hat.
So um... is anyone excited?!
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! We are extremely excited to share the news that Last Gasp has licensed and will be publishing Suehiro Maruo's beautiful masterpiece "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island" (パノラマ島綺譚). Kudos to readers that guessed the book already! :)
As with Tokyo Zombie, Evan Hayden and I will be adapting the title for English audiences-- with Evan handling the book production, design and lettering, and me tackling the translation (with friends' help) and editing the book with Last Gasp's Colin Turner.
The Japanese edition was published by EnterBrain and is around 275 pages. This English edition will be only Suehiro Maruo's third book released in English (after Creation Books' "Ultra-Gash Inferno" and Blast Books' "Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show"). The publication is planned for Spring 2010, and some of the book release details are still being hammered out. Generally speaking, it's rare for a publisher to announce a title license this early in the process, but we are all so excited we wanted to share the news as soon as possible.
About the book, from previous posts:
Panorama is an adaptation of a novella by Japanese detective fiction godfather, Edogawa Rampo. The story takes place at the end of the Taisho era, and follows an unsuccessful science fiction author with an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate/son of a rich industrialist family. When the industrialist's son dies, the author fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man's body, then washes himself up starving on a beach in a town where the dead man's family lives. After some more intrigue and scheming, he proceeds to take redirect all of their money to build a mysterious pleasure palace island, and live like a sensual weirdo king. Crazy and amazing stuff!
Evan, Colin and I will be working hard over the coming weeks and months, and I probably won't have any updates in the immediate future. But later on, I'll be sharing tons of details on the process and title here at Same Hat.
So um... is anyone excited?!
I just read some very exciting news from Suehiro Matuo's site. Maruo announced that his latest comic will begin serialization in the anthology COMIC BEAM, starting with the current June 2009 issue. That issue came out in Japan on May 12, and features a cover illustration by Maruo.
The new comic is 芋虫 [The Caterpillar], which will be an adaptation of the 1929 Edogawa Rampo short story of the same name. The Caterpillar is a haunting psychosexual tale of Lt. Sunaga, a disfigured and limbless veteran of WWI who returns home to his young and beautiful wife. Sunaga initially is given a hero's welcome, but is quickly forgotten and shunned because of his injuries. Unable to speak or care for himself, he is completely at the mercy of his wife as she grows to loathe and toy with him. There's more, but I'll leave it there for now.
It sounds like this will be another collaborative project working in tandem with the Rampo estate, like Maruo's loving and beautiful adaptation of Panorama-tou Kidan.
Elements from Edogawa Rampo's original short story have already been seen in Suehiro Maruo illustrations and muzan-e works; Rampo's The Caterpillar was previously translated into English as part of the Edogawa Rampo short story collection, "Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination". (This is one of my absolute favorite books! If you have not read this book, YOU NEED TO GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW!)
Exciting news for Maruo/Rampo fans! I will be heading to Kinokuniya to try and get a copy reserved, and post more as I hear it.
UPDATE: Just got myself talked into a 6-month subscription to COMIC BEAM at Kinokuniya in SF. Will be picking it up in person each month starting with the June issue, SCORE! I also added a bigger image to this post.
I just read some very exciting news from Suehiro Matuo's site. Maruo announced that his latest comic will begin serialization in the anthology COMIC BEAM, starting with the current June 2009 issue. That issue came out in Japan on May 12, and features a cover illustration by Maruo.
The new comic is 芋虫 [The Caterpillar], which will be an adaptation of the 1929 Edogawa Rampo short story of the same name. The Caterpillar is a haunting psychosexual tale of Lt. Sunaga, a disfigured and limbless veteran of WWI who returns home to his young and beautiful wife. Sunaga initially is given a hero's welcome, but is quickly forgotten and shunned because of his injuries. Unable to speak or care for himself, he is completely at the mercy of his wife as she grows to loathe and toy with him. There's more, but I'll leave it there for now.
It sounds like this will be another collaborative project working in tandem with the Rampo estate, like Maruo's loving and beautiful adaptation of Panorama-tou Kidan.
Elements from Edogawa Rampo's original short story have already been seen in Suehiro Maruo illustrations and muzan-e works; Rampo's The Caterpillar was previously translated into English as part of the Edogawa Rampo short story collection, "Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination". (This is one of my absolute favorite books! If you have not read this book, YOU NEED TO GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW!)
Exciting news for Maruo/Rampo fans! I will be heading to Kinokuniya to try and get a copy reserved, and post more as I hear it.
UPDATE: Just got myself talked into a 6-month subscription to COMIC BEAM at Kinokuniya in SF. Will be picking it up in person each month starting with the June issue, SCORE! I also added a bigger image to this post.
ANN and other sites are reporting that Asahi Shinbun recently announced the winners of the 13th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, which honors the highest achievements each year in manga in Japan.
The grand prize was shared between two worthy and cool titles, Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga and A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.
The coolest part? Suehiro Maruo's book, Panorama-tou Kidan (The Strange Tale of Panorama Island) won the New Artist Prize! CONGRATS, UNCLE MARUO!
As I've blogged about before (and any self-respecting Same Hat reader should know), the book is a ~300 page adaptation of a novella by Japanese detective fiction godfather, Edogawa Rampo. The story takes place at the end of the Taisho era, and follows an unsuccessful science fiction author with an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate/son of a rich industrialist family. When the industrialist's son dies, the author fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man's body, then washes himself up starving on a beach in a town where the dead man's family lives. After some more intrigue and scheming, he proceeds to take redirect all of their money to build a mysterious pleasure palace island, and live like a sensual weirdo king. Crazy and amazing stuff!
I've read this book 4 or 5 times now, and I absolutely love it--- It's by far Maruo's most elegant and beautiful line work to date, and his pages coupled with Rampo's excellent (albeit crazy/abrupt at the end!) and twisted tale = TOTAL WIN.
In addition to the prestige and bump in book sales, "1 million yen (US$10,000) goes to the winner of the New Artist Prize. The prize will be awarded to the winners in person on June 5 in Tokyo. FRESH.
ANN and other sites are reporting that Asahi Shinbun recently announced the winners of the 13th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, which honors the highest achievements each year in manga in Japan.
The grand prize was shared between two worthy and cool titles, Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga and A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.
The coolest part? Suehiro Maruo's book, Panorama-tou Kidan (The Strange Tale of Panorama Island) won the New Artist Prize! CONGRATS, UNCLE MARUO!
As I've blogged about before (and any self-respecting Same Hat reader should know), the book is a ~300 page adaptation of a novella by Japanese detective fiction godfather, Edogawa Rampo. The story takes place at the end of the Taisho era, and follows an unsuccessful science fiction author with an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate/son of a rich industrialist family. When the industrialist's son dies, the author fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man's body, then washes himself up starving on a beach in a town where the dead man's family lives. After some more intrigue and scheming, he proceeds to take redirect all of their money to build a mysterious pleasure palace island, and live like a sensual weirdo king. Crazy and amazing stuff!
I've read this book 4 or 5 times now, and I absolutely love it--- It's by far Maruo's most elegant and beautiful line work to date, and his pages coupled with Rampo's excellent (albeit crazy/abrupt at the end!) and twisted tale = TOTAL WIN.
In addition to the prestige and bump in book sales, "1 million yen (US$10,000) goes to the winner of the New Artist Prize. The prize will be awarded to the winners in person on June 5 in Tokyo. FRESH.
Getting this one out before the end of the day... I wanted to take a second to note that today marks the birthday of one of my absolute favorite authors, Edogawa Rampo. Dude is well-known and beloved in Japan as the godfather of mystery and detective fiction.
114 years ago today, he was born Hirai Taro in Mie Prefecture. As a young author, he turned his love of the macabre master (and America's favorite anti-transcendentalist) Edgar Allan Poe into his nom de plume, Edogawa Rampo. Hint: say it 5 times fast, let the syllables blur together and the verbal connection should become clear.
Rampo has long been one of my favorite authors, and even if you haven't read the translated stories collected in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination or The Beast in the Shadows (And if so... what is wrong with you, lazypants?), most everyone reading this blog has surely felt the influence of his works via some of their favorite manga, film and fiction from Japan...
(Amazing flyer for a museum exhibiting celebrating Rampo's influence)
+ Do you like the kid detective manga, Conan? (His full name: Conan Edogawa!)
+ Do you like the nihilistic realism of contemporary detective fiction writers like Natsuo Kirino or Miyuki Miyabe?
+ Did you see the film Gemini by Shinya Tsukamoto? (Based on one of the short stories in JTOM&I)
+ Are you a Mishima nerd who checked out his cameo in the psychadelic, psycho-sexual film version of Rampo's Black Lizard?
+ Did you see the art horror film Rampo Noir (Adapting four of his short stories) or the fictional and fantastic biography film Rampo?
and most recently...
Remember the newest Suehiro Maruo manga, a sprawling and faithful adaptation of Rampo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island?
(Homey's grave, with his given name Hirai Taro on the headstone.)
Rampo passed away on July 28, 1965, but his works are continually reprinted and collected in Japan. On a personal note, my first translation of a Japanese work was during my senior year of college, and the story I translated was his short mystery, "The Death of a Sleepwalker". My translation was not very deft or well-done, but I spend many weeks reading and living with Rampo's original texts and came to really love the dude and appreciate his gentle wit and writing craft.
Ending this on a high note... For English readers, the rad indie press Kurodahan is putting a brand new collection of translated short stories and critical essays, The Edogawa Rampo Reader, in 2009!
Getting this one out before the end of the day... I wanted to take a second to note that today marks the birthday of one of my absolute favorite authors, Edogawa Rampo. Dude is well-known and beloved in Japan as the godfather of mystery and detective fiction.
114 years ago today, he was born Hirai Taro in Mie Prefecture. As a young author, he turned his love of the macabre master (and America's favorite anti-transcendentalist) Edgar Allan Poe into his nom de plume, Edogawa Rampo. Hint: say it 5 times fast, let the syllables blur together and the verbal connection should become clear.
Rampo has long been one of my favorite authors, and even if you haven't read the translated stories collected in Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination or The Beast in the Shadows (And if so... what is wrong with you, lazypants?), most everyone reading this blog has surely felt the influence of his works via some of their favorite manga, film and fiction from Japan...
(Amazing flyer for a museum exhibiting celebrating Rampo's influence)
+ Do you like the kid detective manga, Conan? (His full name: Conan Edogawa!)
+ Do you like the nihilistic realism of contemporary detective fiction writers like Natsuo Kirino or Miyuki Miyabe?
+ Did you see the film Gemini by Shinya Tsukamoto? (Based on one of the short stories in JTOM&I)
+ Are you a Mishima nerd who checked out his cameo in the psychadelic, psycho-sexual film version of Rampo's Black Lizard?
+ Did you see the art horror film Rampo Noir (Adapting four of his short stories) or the fictional and fantastic biography film Rampo?
and most recently...
Remember the newest Suehiro Maruo manga, a sprawling and faithful adaptation of Rampo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island?
(Homey's grave, with his given name Hirai Taro on the headstone.)
Rampo passed away on July 28, 1965, but his works are continually reprinted and collected in Japan. On a personal note, my first translation of a Japanese work was during my senior year of college, and the story I translated was his short mystery, "The Death of a Sleepwalker". My translation was not very deft or well-done, but I spend many weeks reading and living with Rampo's original texts and came to really love the dude and appreciate his gentle wit and writing craft.
Ending this on a high note... For English readers, the rad indie press Kurodahan is putting a brand new collection of translated short stories and critical essays, The Edogawa Rampo Reader, in 2009!
I'm working on organizing the 600+ photos I took on my recent Japan trip, and hoping to start posting a recap (with tons of pics of manga, t-shirts and other Same Hat-related oddities) this week. But before that, I wanted to first blog a flyer I scanned today featuring an illustration by Suehiro Maruo.
While at the Tower Records in Shinjuku, I came across a free flyer featuring Maruo's art and grabbed a pile of them. This piece is from a similar set of drawings in the opening section of Panorama-tou Kidan. (I'm hoping to send flyers to folks that buy Electric Ant or win a future Same Hat contest of some sort).
Here is a tour flyer, featuring Suehiro Maruo's cover illustration for the CD/DVD 呪恋 by the band 犬神サーカス団 (Inugami Circus Troupe):
I feel like I've read the name before (also known as Dog-God Circus Troupe online), but never heard their music. For more info you can visit Inugami Circus Troupe's website, or check out their videos on YouTube. Interesting to note, Wikipedia says that "They started in 1994 when Kyoko placed an advertisement in Garo, a manga magazine."
Other album covers by Inugami Circus Troupe include a parody of King Crimson's famous In The Court Of The Crimson King cover, and an album called Panorama of Hell, with a cover illustrated by Hideshi Hino:
I'm working on organizing the 600+ photos I took on my recent Japan trip, and hoping to start posting a recap (with tons of pics of manga, t-shirts and other Same Hat-related oddities) this week. But before that, I wanted to first blog a flyer I scanned today featuring an illustration by Suehiro Maruo.
While at the Tower Records in Shinjuku, I came across a free flyer featuring Maruo's art and grabbed a pile of them. This piece is from a similar set of drawings in the opening section of Panorama-tou Kidan. (I'm hoping to send flyers to folks that buy Electric Ant or win a future Same Hat contest of some sort).
Here is a tour flyer, featuring Suehiro Maruo's cover illustration for the CD/DVD 呪恋 by the band 犬神サーカス団 (Inugami Circus Troupe):
I feel like I've read the name before (also known as Dog-God Circus Troupe online), but never heard their music. For more info you can visit Inugami Circus Troupe's website, or check out their videos on YouTube. Interesting to note, Wikipedia says that "They started in 1994 when Kyoko placed an advertisement in Garo, a manga magazine."
Other album covers by Inugami Circus Troupe include a parody of King Crimson's famous In The Court Of The Crimson King cover, and an album called Panorama of Hell, with a cover illustrated by Hideshi Hino:
...and Shintaro Kago manga, courtesy of Trevor Brown!
Panorama-tou Kitan
Ana, Moji, Ketsueki ga Arawareru Manga
CLICK TO VIEW A FEW PAGES FROM EACH AT TREVOR'S BLOG...
Many thanks for posting these!
[UPDATE]: More pages can be seen at the Span Art Gallery shop here, which is selling an autographed copy it seems. (thanks for the link, Substrom!)
...and Shintaro Kago manga, courtesy of Trevor Brown!
Panorama-tou Kitan
Ana, Moji, Ketsueki ga Arawareru Manga
CLICK TO VIEW A FEW PAGES FROM EACH AT TREVOR'S BLOG...
Many thanks for posting these!
[UPDATE]: More pages can be seen at the Span Art Gallery shop here, which is selling an autographed copy it seems. (thanks for the link, Substrom!)
Trying to stick to a more frequent posting schedule, so here's three separate tidbits from the past week.
+ NEW COMIC BY SUEHIRO MARUO!
Via the TACO CHE blog, I learned that BEAM COMIX released a new Suehiro Maruo book on 2/25/2008! The new manga is an adaptation on the of Edogawa Rampo's infamous classic, パノラマ島奇談 (The Strange Tale of Panorama Island - panorama-tou kidan).
Rampo wrote The Strange Tale of Panorama Island back in 1926, during the height of the erotic-grotesque nonsense literary stew of the Taisho era. From what I gathered on Maruo's site, it's partially a faithful adaptation of Rampo's story, and partially a visual reinterpretation-- perhaps akin to his take on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or Philip K Dick's stories?
Maruo seems indebted to Edogawa Rampo's themes and style more than almost any other figure, so this seems like an perfect match. I'm DEFINITELY gonna pick this up during my trip, and will post some images when I get back. Has anyone checked it out yet?
+ RED-COLORED ELEGY AND THIRD TATSUMI COLLECTION DELAYED
Heard this week from Drawn & Quarterly that their two big announced (so far) manga titles for 2008 have been delayed. Instead of April releases, Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy and Goodbye, the third in their series of Yoshihiro Tatsumi collections, have been delayed until July.
This change is already reflected on Amazon, which shows both titles coming out on July 8. I'm bummed that we have to wait two more months for these books, but if it's to finalize the production and get everything ironed out just right for the release, then it'll definitely be worth the wait.
+ TOMINE'S NEXT COMIC WILL BE... IN COLOR?
According to a friend who was at a recent signing and talk by Adrian Tomine, his next comics project will be a story for the next volume of Kramer's Ergot, and it will be a color comic. It sounds like Tomine is consciously trying to break from his previous materials, habits and subject matter, and told attendees of the talk that he won't be using his usual materials on this story either.
Tomine all loosey goosey and in color? I'm actually pretty interested to see how that'd turn out. He's already shown he can do funny and spontaneous (in his Scenes from an Impending Marriage mini comic that was given out to wedding guests), but can he do... experimental stuff? We'll see...
Trying to stick to a more frequent posting schedule, so here's three separate tidbits from the past week.
+ NEW COMIC BY SUEHIRO MARUO!
Via the TACO CHE blog, I learned that BEAM COMIX released a new Suehiro Maruo book on 2/25/2008! The new manga is an adaptation on the of Edogawa Rampo's infamous classic, パノラマ島奇談 (The Strange Tale of Panorama Island - panorama-tou kidan).
Rampo wrote The Strange Tale of Panorama Island back in 1926, during the height of the erotic-grotesque nonsense literary stew of the Taisho era. From what I gathered on Maruo's site, it's partially a faithful adaptation of Rampo's story, and partially a visual reinterpretation-- perhaps akin to his take on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or Philip K Dick's stories?
Maruo seems indebted to Edogawa Rampo's themes and style more than almost any other figure, so this seems like an perfect match. I'm DEFINITELY gonna pick this up during my trip, and will post some images when I get back. Has anyone checked it out yet?
+ RED-COLORED ELEGY AND THIRD TATSUMI COLLECTION DELAYED
Heard this week from Drawn & Quarterly that their two big announced (so far) manga titles for 2008 have been delayed. Instead of April releases, Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy and Goodbye, the third in their series of Yoshihiro Tatsumi collections, have been delayed until July.
This change is already reflected on Amazon, which shows both titles coming out on July 8. I'm bummed that we have to wait two more months for these books, but if it's to finalize the production and get everything ironed out just right for the release, then it'll definitely be worth the wait.
+ TOMINE'S NEXT COMIC WILL BE... IN COLOR?
According to a friend who was at a recent signing and talk by Adrian Tomine, his next comics project will be a story for the next volume of Kramer's Ergot, and it will be a color comic. It sounds like Tomine is consciously trying to break from his previous materials, habits and subject matter, and told attendees of the talk that he won't be using his usual materials on this story either.
Tomine all loosey goosey and in color? I'm actually pretty interested to see how that'd turn out. He's already shown he can do funny and spontaneous (in his Scenes from an Impending Marriage mini comic that was given out to wedding guests), but can he do... experimental stuff? We'll see...
