Tuesday, February 08, 2011

GO NAGAI IN EPIC ILLUSTRATED #18: "ONI"

(This post is part of a series I've tagged as "early manga days", chronicling rare/weird gems from the beginning of manga's now 30+ year history of publication in English)

This one comes hot on the heels of yesterday's post, which detailed how a profile of Go Nagai came to be published in the American comics anthology Epic Illustrated #18 in 1983. I recommend you go check it out if you haven't already.



In addition to the editor's note and annotated gallery of Go Nagai art, issue 18 also included a short manga by Go Nagai called "Oni" (鬼). From some quick searches on English and Japanese Wikipedia, it seems that Go Nagai created this short comic specifically for Epic Illustrated. Coming out in 1983, this places "Oni" in the very early annals of Manga-in-English history. Enjoy!
(Click pages for larger versions)










7 comments:

jimpac said...

Great posts to kick off the new year, Ryan! These posts have spurred me to look for my own copy and managed to get one from Ebay. Can't wait to hold this artifact in my hands.

Azraelito said...

Excellent number of Epic Illustrated. Claremont and Bolton were doing amazing things in that anthology. Apart from that I think that all the one shots that have been published in Epic were great.

Nice post and as always keep up the good workd.

Nice to see back this kind of posts!

Saludos to you and Evan also!!

Ryan S said...

@jimpac: Oh nice, glad you found a copy! I remember getting mine last year after Azraelito recommended it (I think?) at a local used book shop that had a weird stockpile of 'em :)

@Azraelito: Thanks, my friend! I think you guys are both gonna be REALLY excited to see my Thursday post-- it will knock your socks off!

Kumar Sivasubramanian said...

Excellent, excellent post, Ryan! Thank you for putting this up!

JE said...

When you say this was fully intended for the English audience, this means this was never flipped, and no art alteration?

Ryan S said...

@JE: Good question! I don't know exactly how the work was created, but it seems Go Nagai wrote/drew it especially with EPIC ILLUSTRATED in mind... I'm not sure if that means this story was never lettered in Japanese, etc...

Chris Karpis said...

Great manga, great artist, great blog !
Congratulations Ryan !
and thanks for the "education".