UFO MUSHROOM INVASION

Shirakawa's unique and wild work has been making waves in Japanese-language manga collector circles for decades.

The ambitious Smudge manga line aims to provide the most extensive survey of classic horror and dark fantasy manga in any language, complimenting the Ito Junji and Umezz Kazuo titles put out by Viz Media and the Hino Hideshi and newer horror manga titles put out by Star Fruit Books.

"Though he wasn't super productive by workaholic Japanese standards, Shirakawa is one of the most adored artists within the history of weird, cult manga," says Holmberg. "UFO Mushroom Invasion is by far his most famous work, with new editions appearing every ten years or so from fringe publishers in Japan. Shirakawa speaks to me not only as a lifelong fan of dark fantasy, but also as a Japanophile and cultural historian. You don't find many manga authors who are, at the same time, interesting artists, believers in fringe science and pseudo-history, and respected amateur researchers of Japanese yokai, folklore, and the supernatural."

“Shirakawa is a remarkable author whose classic art and meticulously researched, oddball perspective make his rediscovery inevitable,” says Smudge publisher Sean Michael Robinson. “We couldn't be more pleased to be bringing him to English language audiences. Although this is only our second book in the Smudge line, UFO Mushroom Invasion makes it clear that we are taking our mission statement seriously, to bring previously unknown genre classics to the English language market, key books and authors that have been virtually unknown outside of enthusiastic collectors.”

The first Smudge title, HER FRANKENSTEIN by Norikazu Kawashima, will be released in May, and has already garnered significant accolades, including a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which stated: "Kawashima’s suspenseful thriller is cinematic and beautiful, full of the indelible imagery—an eerily calm seascape, a discarded mask, a featureless face—that established him as one of the leading names in Japanese horror comics."

UFO Mushroom Invasion will hit comic shops on September 18th and the wider bookstore release will follow on October 1st.