Face Meat Taro Bonten 9781961581074

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.

"Though it's light on substance, readers who don't mind a bit of trash with their treasure will have a blast." - Publishers Weekly

"From influential Japanese cartoonist and pioneering tattoo artist Bonten comes a collection of unsettling short stories bursting with visceral horror and mind-bending surrealism. In the late 1960s, while peers such as Shigeru Mizuki and Kazuo Umezz were revolutionizing horror comics in respectable mainstream manga magazines, Bonten's work was relegated to appearing in the pages of disreputable underground men's magazines. Free from the need to appeal to mainstream sensibilities, Bonten blended elements of body horror, supernatural terror, and psychological thrillers, imbuing his tales of serial killers, demonic entities, ghostly apparitions, and literal descents to hell with existential dread and a raw, feverish energy. Bonten's remarkable illustration makes use of bold, inky linework and exaggerated body language and facial expressions to evoke a nightmarish atmosphere and to depict characters who appear contorted by obsession, desire, rage, or to the whims of an oppressively violent world. Translator Holmberg and historian Hiroshi Kunisawa provide essays offering valuable context on Bonten's influence on Japanese culture, as well as the evolution of Japanese horror comics.VERDICT Not for the faint of heart, though readers interested in vintage horror or eager to visit the outer limits of macabre will surely find this an essential collection." - Library Journal