Exhausted Salarymen are pushed beyond the brink. Blood, sweat and screams of 'FUCK YOU!' pour out of the characters within The Pits of Hell, and yet a sense of humour always shines through. Bold, absurd and all too real, Ebisu Yoshikazu's work feels distinctly underground, almost punk. The Pits of Hell collects eight classic stories by Ebisu Yoshikazu, originally published between 1969 and 1981. The collection features a foreword by Minami Shinbo and an essay by Ryan Holmberg placing Ebisu Yoshikazu and his work into context.

    Quiet, comtemplative and subtle, Danza collects some of Ono's best short work.

    One day after school, he discovers and impulsively steals the gym clothes of Nanako Saeki, the classmate he has a crush on. However, a lonely girl named Sawa Nakamura happens to catch him in the act. Nakamura blackmails Kasuga into a "contract," under the threat of revealing his secret.

    Here now, in English for the very first time, as the debut release in Fantagraphics Books' ambitious manga line of graphic novels, are ten of the very best of these tales.The work in A Drunken Dream and Other Stories spans Hagio's entire career, from 1970's "Bianca" to 2007's "The Willow Tree," and includes the mind-bending, full-color title story; the famously heartbreaking "Iguana Girl"; and the haunting "The Child Who Comes Home"–as well as "Autumn Journey," "Girl on Porch With Puppy," the eerie conjoined-twins shocker "Hanshin: Half-God," "Angel Mimic," and one of the saddest of all romance stories, "Marié, Ten Years Later." A Drunken Dream and Other Stories is supplemented with a feature-length interview with Hagio, where discusses her art, her career, and her life with the same combination of wit, candor, and warmth that radiates from every panel of her comics.

    Each of the eight stories in the collection is lifted from the Edo-era Japanese storytelling form. As Tatsumi notes in the afterword, the world of rakugo, filled with mystery, emotion, revenge, hope, and, of course, love, overlaps perfectly with the world of Gekiga that he has spent the better part of his life developing. These slice-of-life stories resonate with modern readers thanks to their comedic elements and familiarity with human idiosyncrasies. In one, a father finds his son too bookish and arranges for two workers to take the young man to a brothel on the pretext of visiting a new shrine. In another particularly beloved rakugo tale, a married man falls in love with a prostitute. When his wife finds out, she is enraged and sets a curse on the other woman. The prostitute responds by cursing the wife, and the two escalate in a spiral of voodoo doll cursing. Soon both are dead, but even death can’t extinguish their jealousy. Tatsumi’s love of wordplay shines through in the telling of these whimsical stories, and yet he still offers timeless insight into human nature.

    Visually spectacular, shockingly violent, and singularly horrifying, Gantz is a relentless fever dream of consummate skill and fiendish imagination. This value-priced omnibus collection features 680 pages of havoc and horror!Kei Kurono's work as a Gantz alien fighter is a hellish nightmare, but his life as a high-school student is looking up, with a new ladylove opening his heart. But when his beloved is threatened by a Gantz-obsessed schoolmate on a shooting rampage, Kei must face the murderous student without his Gantz suit for protection!Collects Gantz individual volumes 10, 11, and 12.

    

    He is best known for his lyrical and experimental manga for "Garo," the famous alternative comics magazine. This volume collects a selection of Hayashi's most important manga from this period, including "Red Dragonfly" (1968), "Yamauba's Lullaby" (1968) and "Gold Pollen" (1971). Published here in their original full color, these stories mix traditional Japanese aesthetics with Pop art sensibilities, and range in topic from the legacies of Japanese rightwing nationalism and World War II, to the pervasive influence of America over 1960s Japanese youth culture. This first color reprinting of Hayashi's work captures the vivid experimentation of Japanese art at this time. In addition, Hayashi's youth and beginnings as an artist are illuminated by an autobiographical essay from 1972, translated here for the first time into English. Art historian Ryan Holmberg discusses Hayashi's place in postwar Japanese art and manga, as well as his wider contributions to the Tokyo avant-garde as a designer and experimental animator. This lavishly illustrated book is likely to have widespread crossover appeal for design and fashion aficionados, as well as for students of the manga genre.Seiichi Hayashi (born 1945) is best known for his lyrical and experimental manga for "Garo," the famous alternative comics magazine. His animated films have been screened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among other institutions. Since the 1970s Hayashi has been a nationally revered illustrator, famous for his classically informed depictions of contemporary women and an important influence on acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki, among others. Hayashi lives and works just outside of Tokyo.

    But time continues to unfurl, whether we like it or not. Now, ten years later…

    When a life insurance policy worth one million pounds takes Master Keaton to the Dodecanese islands of Greece, what will he discover amidst his scuffles with bloodthirsty thieves and assassins?

    Welcome to the future of vast bio-constructed cities with crime so severe that the cops drive tanks! For top tank-cop Leona Ozaki (and her trusty tank, Bonaparte), the day-to-day is a tall order already, but when the villainous and sexy (and super-powered androids!) Puma sisters become duly deputized officers of the law and are assigned to "help" Leona catch Urushi-Maru, "The Skyscraper Pirate," things are bound to get out of hand, especially in the midst of a full-on, tank-on-tank streetfight between Leona and a corrupt arms manufacturer bent on getting the city's police tank contract!

    In "Hotel Harbour View," a Japanese expatriate in Hong Kong spends his time drinking whisky, photographing a high class prostitute and waiting for death at the hands of the assassin he knows is coming for him. In "Brief Encounter," a notorious Parisian assassin is himself marked for assassination and his hunter is no stranger to him.

    A serious social problem emerged in this new society: hyperorexia, or severe overeating, a side effect of the Pure Trance life-sustaining pill. This dreamy science fiction fantasy -- a sexy story of catfights, alien safari adventures, evil experimentation, and a girl who dreams of becoming a pop idol singer -- is the long-awaited debut graphic novel of famous Japanese manga artist Junko Mizuno. Pure Trance breaks every stereotype of shojo manga (girls' comics).

    Nao, a first year in Middle School, decided to enter Seisei School in order to follow the person she fell in love with at first sight! Upon arrival, she discovered that her beloved, Wada Yoshikuni, is part of K.I.S.S....but what is K.I.S.S?元気いっぱいの中学1年生・奈緒（なお）が星鈴（せいれい）学園に入学したのは、あこがれの「お兄チャン」こと和田先輩に会うため!!　ところが、彼は生徒会長で、しかも全員がスゴイ特技をもった『KISS』のメンバーだったの！　奈緒はその中の一人、モデルの拓夢（たくむ）に出会い…!?

    Although spring usually connotes the blossoming of new life and a time of nurturing and anticipation, the spring for these characters is "blue." They can't wait for school to end and the summer to come. Their lives are balanced on the edge of a knife as they flirt with crime and their own deaths in the form of a deadly rooftop game. Each character has a different story to tell and the rebellion, questioning and frustration of these youths are palpable.