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Title: Gyo (2-in-1 Deluxe Edition) Genre: Horror Publisher: Shogakukan (JP), Viz Media (US) Artist/Writer: Junji Ito Serialized in: Big Comic Spirits Original Release Date: April 21, 2015 While most reviewers this week are eagerly digging into Junji Ito’s newly licensed anthology work Fragments of Horror, I’m going back to a shiny hardcover re-release of one ... Read more

A seaside town is haunted by a terrible, terrible stench—and soon much more in Junji Ito’s classic horror manga GYO. Originally published in Japan in 2001 (and in English in 2003), Viz is bringing it back in a deluxe 400-page edition in April, with a new cover design and full-color endpapers.

Ito is one of the masters of unsettling horror in comics—see UZUMAKI or TOMIE— and in GYO the bad smell is just the beginning of an invasion of legged sea creatures and unimaginable horrors.

“GYO is a truly unsettling work of horror, and this new Deluxe Edition presents the definitive version of the story in a handsome format,” says Masumi Washington, Senior Editorial Director in a statement. “Ito’s art will transform your mind, and like the sea life and human characters in GYO, you will never be the same again.”

GYO was also adapted into animated film (see a spoiler segment below) and Viz is bringing out his Ito’s new collection FRAGMENTS OF HORROR this summer.

Junji Ito! Junji Ito! Junji Ito!

Japanese horror master Ito has been avoiding the genre of his greatest triumphs—Uzimaki, Tomie, Gyo— for eight years, but he has a new book out, and Viz will bring it to the US next year: Fragments of Horror, a new collection of short horror tales to be published under the Signature imprint.

FRAGMENTS OF HORROR is the brand-new collection of delightfully macabre tales from the celebrated master of Japanese horror. An old wooden mansion that turns on its inhabitants. A dissection class with a most unusual subject. A funeral where the dead are definitely not laid to rest. Ranging from the terrifying to the comedic, from the erotic to the loathsome, these stories showcase Junji Ito’s long-awaited return to the world of horror.

“A long anticipated new offering of bizarre and disturbing short stories from the unique mind of Junji Ito awaits readers next summer,” says Leyla Aker, Senior Vice President, Publishing. “Ito adeptly creates scenarios that are at once surreal, unsettling, and often terrifying, and FRAGMENTS OF HORROR is sure to become a must-read for true horror aficionados and manga fans familiar with his prior works like GYO and UZUMAKI. We look forward to new as well as existing manga fans and readers discovering this potent forthcoming release!”

Not everyone converted to manga during the invasion during the last decade, and I can understand how high school romances and vampire dramas can be an acquired taste, but the greatest Japanese horror comics are pretty universal in their appeal, and Ito is among the genre’s greats: unsettling tales rendered with the solid draftsmanship of classic EC comics and the twisted imagination of…Junji Ito.

Both Uzumaki—the story of a town beset by an obsession with spirals that leads to death—and GYO—the story of a town overcome by fish bearing a “death stench”—are available from Viz. If you like truly unsettling stories, you need to get into Ito. (I should note that I treasure the two voumes of Museum of Horror that Dark Horse put out a decade ago as well.)

I know we’ve been slacking a bit with 31 Days due to the horrors of New York Comic-Con, but it’s full sped ahead to the pumpkins now. And here is the best thing you will hear today, tomorrow or possibly in a lifetime: Japanese Horror master Junji Ito Is doing a Pokemon collaboration.

Yeah that’s right. The creator of Uzumaki, Museum of Terror, the Long Hair in the Attic and much more, is doing POKEMON.

The news was announced in Japan as a “Collaboration,” you know, like Tokidoki doing Marvel, except terrifying and unspeakable. It’s called “Kowapoke,” which means “Scarypoke” and a single phone wallpaper image has been released thus far. That’s Banette, cute little Banette, admittedly not the nicest Pokemon, now all Kowapoke’d up. T-shirts are being given away in Japan now because life is unknowable and terrifying.

Ito is one of the greatest, most unsettling cartoonists alive. We’ve spotlighted him several times before. This is only the creepy icing on the scary cake!

If you’d like to read some Ito, or just get into his weird world, we strongly recommend Uzumaki, published in one volume late last year, the story of a town obsessed with spirals and the terror they bring. Connie C has a good round-up of his work here.

Source, via Tiny Cartridge