- Lizard in a Zoot Suit by Marco Finnegan
- Samurai Cat in the Real World by Mark E. Rogers
- Jack Vance’s The Face (Demon Princes, Book 4)
- Jack Vance’s The Book of Dreams (Demon Princes, Book 5)
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1, by Various Artists
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2, by Various Artists
- Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses and The Anti-Racist Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 3, by Various Artists
- Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon
- Elements of Fiction, by Walter Mosley
- Hidden Folk, by Eleanor Arnason
- The Wages of Whiteness (Revised Edition) by David R. Roediger
- The Katurran Odyssey by David Michael Wieger, illustrated by Terryl Whitlatch
- Dragons (Time Life Enchanted World)
- May We Borrow Your Husband? and Other Comedies of the Sexual Life by Graham Greene
- Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada by Anna Brownell Jameson
- The Cursed Chateau by James Maliszewski, illustrated by Jez Gordon
- Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
- Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time by James Gurney
- Mouse Guard: Baldwin the Brave And Other Tales by David Petersen… and a song!
- Mouse Guard: The Owlhen Caregiver and Other Tales by David Petersen
- Thieves’ World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
- My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
- Fish F*ckers by Kelvin Green
- Saga Volume 1 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Scourge of the Scornlords: Meatlandia Book III by Ahimsa Kerp and Wind Lothamer
- Love is the Law by Nick Mamatas
- Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall
- The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell
- Sirenswail by Dave Mitchell
- Roman Britain by David Shotter
- Saga, Volume 2 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Menace Under Marswood by Sterling Lanier
- The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
- Muse Sick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes by Ian Brennan
- Backwoods Witchcraft: Conjure& Folk Magic From Appalachia by Jake Richards
- Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel by Milorad Pavić, translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić
- Modern Jazz Voicings: Arranging for Small and Medium Ensembles by Ted Pease and Ken Pullig
- Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason
- The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattison
- The Planetbreaker’s Son by Nick Mamatas
- The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje
- Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
- The Sword of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers
- Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
- Vermilion by Molly Tanzer
- The Punch Line by Zzarchov Kowolski
- Embassytown by China Miéville
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
- Gyo (Deluxe Edition) by Junji Ito
- Saga, Vols. 2–3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
- Smashed and Tomie by Junji Ito
- Uzumaki by Junji Ito
- The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
- Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito
As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts get published with some lag. I’m trying to be more punctual, though, and this one’s very recent.
I’ve continued making my way through a stack of Junji Ito books from a local library. I’ve even less of a manga reader than a comics reader, but I’m enjoying these.
In Uzumaki, the influence of Lovecraft was more apparent to me than in Gyo, both in in terms of the way it relates to occulted (as in secret, unknown) history, and how it deals with a fixation upon an enigmatic and bizarre image. The story—or stories—in this series concern a town haunted by a spiral shape. At first, the series reads like a sort of short-story anthology of tales linked by a theme—the spiral—but as time goes on, elements begin to, er, spiral together, resurfacing and combining in new and horrifying ways. It’s a remorseless piece of cosmic horror, and it actually managed to surprise me a few times, which I didn’t expect.
The book is unsurprisingly heavy on the body horror, and I think on some level it explores the anxiety of being embodied in a world subject to forces and rules that are beyond human control, with the effects of the spiral literally spiraling out into people’s illnesses, mental states, physical appearance, how their bodies break down, and so on. Even a “bad hair day” can be deadly within the inexplicable tidal forces of the spiral at the heart of this story.
Anyway, good, creepy fun. I think I’ll be reading Tomie next.