Check out this great interview with Umezu Kazuo, one of the masters of horror manga, over at Tokyo Scum Brigade: Part One, Part Two. Part 3 should be up soon.
Umezu is one of my favorite cartoonists. He’s created completely bonkers comics, some of which I bought or received while I was in Japan. In one, called 14, the protagonist is Chicken George, a grotesque chicken made from a vat of chicken parts. In volume 1, he frees all the human-hybrid animals in the zoo. Later, in volume 13, everyone’s a cockroach on this giant mecha-godzilla spaceship… I wish I knew more Japanese so I could understand how the story could change so drastically!
I really enjoyed this quote from part 2 of the interview, about realism in art and comics. He provides one explanation why horror manga from artists like Junji Ito, Katsuhiro Otomo, and himself are so powerful:
I want my illustrations to be extremely realistic. But the story can be fantastical.
Look at Salvador Dali. His art is meticulous and real, but then you have impossible imagery, like someone plucking the edge of an ocean wave to turn it over like the page of a book. Stuff like that resonates with me. I love it. There’s a dissonance in seeing everyday objects behave in otherworldly ways. With a bare-bones illustration, you can’t tell if an object is intentionally warped or if the draughtmenship is just plain bad. A skilled illustration eliminates the question as to whether or not the object is warped and frees the reader to focus on the why. Like this plate in front me. You expect it to be solid, but if you were to go pick it up and find it rubbery, you’d freak out! That’s where the fear comes from. I strive to create that kind of reaction with my work.
Originally published at José-Luis Olivares. You can comment here or there. | 
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