MUERTOZ

Two years ago, I walked into my favorite bookstore one weekend and found something in the Japanese-language section that I’d never seen before: an issue of the avant-garde magazine Garo. It was 282 pages in length, printed in the usual manga-anthology size — think Shonen Jump — and the print varied between black and violet ink on newsprint, save for an eight-page photo spread by Gengui Numata at the beginning of the magazine (one of the few items actually identified in English), which was printed on thicker paper stock. Even if you don’t know the language, it was chock full of fascinating stuff, so I bought it, took it home and spent a happy two or three hours puzzling over its contents.