From Publishers' Weekly : PW writer Kai-Ming Cha chatted with Last Gasp Associate Publisher Colin Turner and Same Hat! Same Hat! blogger and manga translator / connoisseur Ryan Sands recently about their upcoming co-production, The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by manga's master of the macabre, Suehiro Maruo.
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island isn't due out until 2010, but Turner and Sands were keen to get people talking about this upcoming release because it's a title that's aimed at a different breed of manga reader. Here's how the article describes the plot of this one-shot:
Maruo’s The Strange Tale of Panorama Island is an adaptation of the novella by Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo. The story echos the sinister writing of Patricia Highsmiths’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and the sumptuous riches depicted in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In Panorama Island, an impoverished writer steals the identity of a wealthy former classmate who has passed away, then uses the family money to support his new life of excess and perversion on a remote island. “It’s a decadent fantasy world tinged with the tragic nostalgia of the 1920’s” Turner explains. “It’s a lush fantasy where everything goes to excess.”
While Maruo-sensei's elegant yet grotesque manga has gained him fans all over the world, not much of his work is available in English, and what little there is is largely out of print. Sands is determined to change this trend with Panorama Island. As he mentions in the comments section of this article:
"Suehiro Maruo's works are extremely unique, harsh, intricate, and yes, repulsive at times too.... It's been a real travesty and shame that Suehiro Maruo's works have been available to European readers for years, winning awards in Spain and Italy etc, while English readers have missed out. I am stoked that Last Gasp is taken a bold step to rectify this, and am excited for more folks to be awed and wowed by Suehiro Maruo's manga."
Readers will soon get a chance to preview Panorama Island before its 2010 release when Last Gasp puts out a preview sampler of this title in time for Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in October 2009, and WonderCon in February 2010.
Image credit: © Suehiro Maruo
Comments
Mauro is one of my favorite manga makers, so I’m thrilled about this. Can’t wait until 2010- and hopefully more from him in english in the near future.