Moto Hagio – författare

Moto Hagio has been reinventing Shojo manga (Japanese comics marketed at teenage girls) since 1969. Unconstrained by boundaries of genre, she has sculpted a career characterised by intellectual curiosity, psychological authenticity and an aesthetic sense that has often been at odds with a Shojo manga mainstream littered with Sailor Moon knockoffs and sub-Mills and Boon romance cliches. Now, for the first time in English, Fantagraphics offers a selection of Hagio short stories spanning four decades of groundbreaking work by an artist at the peak of her powers.

The setting is a boys' boarding school in Germany, sometime in the latter 20th century. 14 year-old Thomas Werner falls from a lonely pedestrian overpass to his death, immediately after sending a single, tragic letter to a schoolmate. Thus begins the legendary and enigmatic The Heart of Thomas. Inspired by Jean Delannoy's 1960 film, Les Amities Particulieres, the result of this effort was a complex and compelling shojo manga that ranks as one of the all-time greats since its original inception in 1974.

In the second (and concluding) volume, Nanami had sworn to never see her granddaughter, Aoba, again. A despairing Kiriya had rejected his father, Tokio. Yet now both are traveling with Tokio to Engaru, where Aoba has slept and dreamt of the island of Barbara for seven years. The poltergeist phenomena becomes more intense. Can the dreamer become the dreamed, and the dreamed the dreamer?

The Poe Clan: a race of undead that feeds on the energy of the living, whiling away the centuries in a village of roses where time and geography have no meaning. Circumstances lead to a brother and sister, Edgar and Marybelle, being initiated into the clan too young, doomed to live out eternity forever on the brink of adulthood, until a wooden stake or a silver bullet should cut them down. In this groundbreaking manga, through three immortal adolescents and the mortals whose lives they touch, Moto Hagio explores what it means to live and to die, to have loved and to have lost.

In our concluding second volume, an amnesia-stricken Edgar is found alone on a snowy night in England. Separated from his 'vampirnella' clan, who feed on the energy of the living and while away the centuries in a village of roses, he struggles to remember his own name. Fantagraphics is proud to present the second and concluding volume of this best-selling manga, which has been adapted into various media, and is published here in English for the first time.

The Poe Clan: a race of undead that feeds on the energy of the living, whiling away the centuries in a village of roses where time and geography have no meaning. Circumstances lead to a brother and sister, Edgar and Marybelle, being initiated into the clan too young, and therefore doomed to live out eternity forever on the brink of adulthood until a wooden stake or a silver bullet should cut them down. The Poe Clan's narrative spans the mid-1700s to the 1970s: generations of humans' lives are profoundly affected by Edgar, Marybelle, and Alan Twilight, a 14-year-old whom Edgar embraces in the 1800s. In this groundbreaking manga, Moto Hagio explores what it means to live and die, to have loved and lost. Fantagraphics is proud to present the complete 1970s run of this best-selling manga series in English for the first time. Please note: This title is a traditional work of manga and reads back to front and right to left.