Thursday, June 09, 2011

JIRO ISHIKAWA ON MY MIND

Over at the (relatively) recently-revamped The Comics Journal site, my buddy Michael DeForge is posting a series of rad "A Cartoonist's Diary" dispatches; in these posts, DeForge talks about his comics work and process, muses about gig poster design, and talks about comics he's enjoying.

In the "Day 2" post, Michael mentioned picking up GIRO by Jiro Ishikawa, which is a lovely little book published in-house by TACO che:


For those that missed my earlier posts, TACO che is a wonderful shop in the Nakano Broadway mall on the west edge of Tokyo, specializing in indie/horror/alternative manga. Basically, it's if the beating heart and cultural brain was manifested into a tiny bookstore of wonders. In addition to selling books by Seirinkogeisha, EnterBrain, Ohta, and others, TACO che has a series of self-published art books/collections. In addition to GIRO, they have also published booklets featuring the Namio Harukawa's thick ladies, paintings by Imiri Sakabashira, and the gay eroticism of Gekko Hayashi.



GIRO itself features an sampling of the intense and rad work of underground artist, Jiro Ishikawa, from comics and minis he cread between 1996 and 2001. Some images here (taken from TCJ.com):




You can actually buy a copy via TACO che, or for US folks at this site (and I believe The Beguiling in Toronto has copies as well).

I didn't want to just write about Jiro Ishikawa, without adding some visual ammunition to the interweb, so I dug up two additional mini-comics I snagged while in Tokyo last year. These are both self-published book and look more like the comics our friends sling at Alternative Press Expo than the typical manga tankobon you encounter. Here are my favorite images/pages from these two minis:

(CLICK EACH IMAGE FOR A LARGER VERSION)

(Cover for スナックまぼろし - "SUNAKKU maboroshi/Snack Bar Phantom")

(Jiro Ishikawa is really into dogs, it seems)

(Cover of チンコマン - "Chinkoman / Dick Man")

(Dick Man fighting. I love the thickness(!) of Ishikawa's lines.)

(Bird demon schoolgirls. Check out that "evil train" panel on the left page!)

(Why does this dog get in on the action?!)

(Beach babe and Dick Man drinking a coke...somehow.)

More scans from Ishikawa's work are on this Japanese blog.

10 comments:

jimpac said...

Glad to see you're posting on Same Hat again. I love all the other stuff you've been doing but Same Hat posts always blow my mind.

I think the western world is just about ready for Jiro Ishikawa. Could definitely see him being published by Picturebox; or even Last Gasp?
That said, Even without understanding the words, I still love leafing through his books, I just wish they were easier to get a hold of!

Ryan S said...

@Jim: Thanks dude! It feels good to be back, I had been missing it.

I would love to see Jiro Ishikawa start making more headway into the consciousness of American readers. It seems like a good first start would to have a short or two translated by Vice or included in a ganzfield/MOME type magazine :)

polymomial said...

Hey thanks! For two things, one checking out my tumblr but more importantly thanks for making another awesome post on Samehat! I'm actually starting to think maybe YOU are MY doppelgänger. After reading Paradogs and Penis Man for the first time I was just about to make a Jiro post with some scans from Giro!

Glad to see Jiro is getting some love though. He was completely unknown to me until I picked up Giro last year at Taco Che.

Plague said...

The link for the US SITE to buy this isn't a link at all...
Can you fix?

Ryan S said...

@Plague: sorry about that, now fixed!

zytroop said...

The gay eroticism of Gekko Hayashi not xxx. Important stuff!!! Man, each TACO che publication deserve their own post. I'm a big fan of the fat-girls-sitting-on-slim-men one :D Too bad that they are so small.

WELCOME HOOOOOOOOOME!

Ryan S said...

@zytroop: Nice catch! You can see how I write posts now, chicken scratches and placeholders that I fill in later :)

I totally agree, re: TACOche. The Sakabashira one is my least favorite and it's still a gem of a pamphlet. Can't wait to see what they are doing next.

You are back too! SAMEHAT/KURUTTA REUNION!

Santa Satanasa said...

hello

anybody know where can i buy "JIRO ISHIKAWA ON MY MIND"?

i sent a email to ZFA works
but they don´t send a answer

and i am from Spain and i can´t complete a purchase there

thanks

Ryan S said...

@. I'm not sure where you can buy from Spain, but the name of the book you want to buy is "GIRO" by Jiro Ishikawa.

Good luck! (is this spam? i can't tell)

Santa Satanasa said...

thanks for the answer and let me know the right tittle of this comic

ZFA works don´t send orders to Spain
:(

and Taco Che has the omic out of stock

i will try with Ebay,
or perhap Timeless-shop

best regards,
wonderful blog