From Patrick Macias: If you're near the San Francisco Bay Area, mark your calendars for Saturday afternoon, August 22 at 2:00 pm because that's when manga artist Junko Mizuno will be at New People: The Store to sign copies of Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu, her latest graphic novel from Last Gasp / ja PRESS (the folks who brought you Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms).
Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu is an cute but odd little fairytale for grown-ups about a talking green fluff ball who is "not a cat, not a dog," he's a... well, you'll have to read the book to find out. Pelu is the only one of his kind on the planet Princess Kotobuki, a world inhabited by beautiful nude women and a giant purple space hippo.
Pelu ventures to Earth to find a mate and discovers that finding true love is really, really hard in a place that is as strange and twisted as Earth.
Mizuno-sensei is well known for her uniquely cute / grotesque character designs and slightly twisted sense of tragedy and humor in her stories. As such, she's become the darling of both the fine art and the manga worlds. Besides her manga, you can find Mizuno's work in artbooks, limited edition figures, paintings, stationery and apparel, including a series of limited edition t-shirts she designed especially for New People, so get 'em while they're hot.
While you're at it, check out a preview of pages from Junko Mizuno's Spiderman story for Strange Tales #1, due out in September 2009.
New People: The Store is located on the mezzanine level of the New People building at 1746 Post Street in San Francisco's historic Japantown. Store hours are from Monday - Friday, 12:00 noon - 8:00 pm, and Saturday - Sunday from 11:00 am - 8:00 pm.
Check out a photo gallery from the opening of New People Center, and find out more about the art shows, film showings and fashion boutiques housed in this new center for J-Pop culture.
Image credit: © Junko Mizuno
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