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.

Dirk Deppey's find: A 1992 issue of Garo

There's an exhibit up at the Center for Book Arts in New York right now about the early years of pioneering Japanese comics magazine Garo. The other day I linked to an interesting essay by the curator of the show, Ryan Holmberg, that was rather surprising — I don't think most people think of it as antiwar propaganda for children, but that was the original intent.

Anyway, the exhibit seems to be getting people's attention, and for the curious who would like to see more, Dirk Deppey has put up a monster post with many, many scans of a single issue, which he picked up in 1992 (long after the scope of the NYC exhibit). It's all in Japanese, but Dirk has some explanations (garnered in part from comments to the original blog posts). Set aside some time for this one.

Still curious? Julia Rothman went to the exhibit and took some pictures for her site, Book By Its Cover. And here's an interview with a Garo editor.

Via ROBOT6 

Garo, 1992: