Ryan Holmberg – författare

Have you ever pondered what it would be like to marry a gorilla? Or to have your deepest desires granted by a satanic genie? Have you ever considered sacrificing your children to culinary aliens, separating your soul from your body, or bioengineering a sex beast? If so, MY GORILLA FAMILY is for you! Comprising fourteen mind-melting stories from the early 1970s, Iijima Ichiro's MY GORILLA FAMILY offers an intimate, profoundly humanistic-and profoundly disturbing-introduction to one of the most bonkers imaginations in the history of Japanese comics. With an essay by wacko-manga archaeologist Onishi Shohei, MY GORILLA FAMILY is the fifth volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.

KRRRAK BOOM!! A young woman is struck dead by a bolt of lightning. But then a miracle-her charred body rises into the air and absorbs an eerie orb of light. When the girl comes back to life, she discovers that she possesses amazing telepathic powers. She can move objects. She can force people to do things against their will. She can see the future. She can even raise the dead!Originally published in 1987, THE GIRL WHO RAISED THE DEAD marks the triumphant return of cult horror legend Kawashima Norikazu. Drawn a year after his masterpiece HER FRANKENSTEIN, this brutal yet charming manga shows Kawashima wickedly slathering teen paranormal magic in slasher gore. THE GIRL WHO RAISED THE DEAD is the fifth volume of SMUDGE, a series of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga from the publisher Living the Line.

A classic character of Japanese literature is reimagined as a mischievous, shapeshifting adventurer in this zany, Pop Art–flavored gag manga by a titan of the genre.Ninja! Samurai! Cowboys! Aliens! Amoebas! Join Japan’s favorite ninja, Sarutobi Sasuke, on this psychedelic romp across a land beyond time by the legendary manga author and Pop Art pioneer Sugiura Shigeru. In this 1969 take on the beloved ninja, the carefree young Sasuke pranks his way through a radically reimagined old Japan, opening wormholes to America’s Wild West and outer space as he goes. This wild adventure overflows with eye-popping sights: UFOs, absurd monsters, Hollywood stars, gun-toting outlaws, submarines, towering mushroom clouds, and much more.Available for the first time in English and with an essay by Ryan Holmberg, Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is a must-read for its trippy visuals and outrageous storytelling.

A headless busty blonde, a face-stealing psychopath, a sleazy serial-killer sculptor, a horny handsome hunchback, a vengeful caterpillar cuckold, a torturous hangover in the pits of hell. Welcome to the raunchy and gristly world of FACE MEAT, from the decadent imagination of outlaw polymath Bonten Taro—ex-kamikaze, ex-yakuza, singer, songwriter, actor, world-famous tattooist, husband of seven, and underappreciated pioneer of “pinky violence” femme fatales and adult horror manga. While Mizuki Shigeru and Umezz Kazuo were paving the way for horror in shonen and shojo magazines in the 1960s, Bonten was secretly doing the same in erotic men’s rags—and the results are as trashy as you’d expect. With an essay by Bonten booster and B-gekiga expert Kunisawa Hiroshi, FACE MEAT includes fourteen hair- and pants-raising stories that have never before been assembled under a single cover in any language! FACE MEAT is the fourth volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.

Nejishiki unveils the most iconic scenes from Yoshiharu Tsuge s highly respected body of work alongside his most beloved stories. A cornerstone of Japan s legendary 1960s counterculture that galvanized avant-garde manga and comics criticism, the title story follows an injured young man as he wanders through a village of strangers in search of emotional and physical release. Other stories in this collection follow a series of weary travelers who while away sultry nights and face menacing doppelgangers. Even banal activities like afternoon strolls uncover unsavory impulses. The emotionally and erotically charged imagery collected in this third volume remains as shocking and vivid today as it did upon its debut fifty years ago. Tsuge s stories push boundaries, abruptly crossing the threshold of conventional storytelling. Unassuming protagonists venture further into eerie symbolism against a shadowy, perceptibly dreamlike landscape easily mistaken for the real world. The angst that pervades postwar Japanese society threatens to devour his characters and their pastoral sensibilities as each protagonist s wanderlust turns surreal.

The wife of Japan s most lauded manga-ka documents a year in their lives with her own artistry. In 1981, Fujiwara Maki began a picture diary about daily life with her son and husband, the legendary manga author Tsuge Yoshiharu. Publishing was not her original intention. I wanted to record our family s daily life while our son, Shosuke, was small. But as 8mm cameras were too expensive and we were poor, I decided on the picture diary format instead. I figured Shosuke would enjoy reading it when he got older. Drawn in a simple, personable style, and covering the same years fictionalized in Tsuge s final masterpiece The Man Without Talent, Fujiwara s journal focuses on the joys of daily life amidst the stresses of childrearing, housekeeping, and managing a depressed husband. A touching and inspiring testimony of one Japanese woman's resilience, My Picture Diary is also an important glimpse of the enigma that is Tsuge. Fujiwara s diary is unsparing. It provides a stark picture of the gender divide in their household: Tsuge sleeps until noon and does practically nothing. He never compliments her cooking, and dictates how money is spent. Not once is he shown drawing. And yet Fujiwara remains surprisingly empathetic toward her mercurial husband. Translated by Ryan Holmberg, this edition sheds light on Fujiwara's life, her own career in art, writing, and underground theater, and her extensive influence upon her husband's celebrated manga.

“UFOs are one of the world’s greatest mysteries...and I hope they stay that way. For the day that aliens reveal themselves may very well become the beginning of the end of life on Earth as we know it!”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. With an essay by weirdologist Udagawa Takeo, UFO MUSHROOM INVASION is the second volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.

A 2024 NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY SELECTION FOR BEST NEW COMICS OF 2024PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 10 MUST-READ MANGA OF 2024 Dare to read the psycho-horror classic that horror manga master Ito Junji called a “frightening but moving story about an unfortunate individual who, lost in search of his true self, finds his own annihilation instead.”Little Tetsuo is a wimpy mess. His parents don’t love him. He meets the beautiful Kimiko, an ailing teenage girl obsessed with movies and mayhem in equal amounts. She doesn’t love Tetsuo either, or anyone other than herself. But she needs him. So Tetsuo becomes the man she wants—the monster she wants. He becomes HER FRANKENSTEIN!Originally published in 1986, Kawashima Norikazu’s HER FRANKENSTEIN marks the bizarre and sadomasochistic finale to a cult era in Japanese horror comics. A few years after it was published, the author burned all of his artwork and abandoned Tokyo, never to be heard from again! HER FRANKENSTEIN is the inaugural volume of SMUDGE, a line of pulp, horror, and dark mystery manga, curated and translated into English by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.