BOOK MONTH: The Maruographs

• Maruograph EX1 & Maruograph EX2
• aka 丸尾画報EX1 & 丸尾画報EX2
• By Suehiro Maruo, 丸尾末広
• Published by Éditions Treville (2005)
• 123 & 174 pages
• ¥3600
• ISBN: 4309906400 & 4309906419
• Amazon.co.jp: Volume 1 & Volume 2

It is the final day of BOOK MONTH and I've saved the best for last. I'm not gonna tell you who Maruo is or what his art looks like because you already know it, the illustrations in these books are all exactly what you expect from him. Maruograph EX 1 & 2 are expanded editions of Suehiro Maruo's Maruograph art books originally published 1996. The books collect both monochrome and color illustrations by the man himself from his (then) entire career, 1982-2005. The first one also comes with an 8-page comic.

The presentation of the books is gorgeous, they both come in sturdy cardboard slipcases with dustcovers. When you slide a book out you are treated with a completely black paperback with only a few words on the spine hinting at what you'll find inside. The paper edges are colored red and it feels like you are holding something important, possibly holy. You slowly open the book at random and before you know it, BAM, your eyes are getting raped by Maruo and it feels good. The books are treated with much love, they look beautiful, they feel beautiful and they make you feel beautiful.

But they are too small, and size matters when it comes to artbooks. Maybe 10 X 7.2 inches (25 X 18 cm) doesn't sound too small but most of the time a third of the page is just blank space. What the fuck where the publishers thinking here? Yes, generous margins are great but not at the expense of the artwork. Especially not when the artist is all about the details. I've uploaded a sample image to show you ridiculous the margins are sometimes, check it out here.

The books look fantastic

The books also contain a few early sketches of some illustrations

A familiar picture even for the casual fan

Maruo seems to be obsessed with movie freaks

Maruo images of Yukio Mishima in Patriotism and Afraid to Die is almost too much for this blog to handle

Despite the margin mishap I am thrilled over these books. And guess what, both of them are still very much in print and available from Amazon.co.jp (vol 1 & 2) or anywhere else online. BOOK MONTH, over and out.

BOOK MONTH: 100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo

• 100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo
• Edited by Koichi Tanikawa
• Published by Images Graphiques, Inc. (1978)
• English language
• 112 pages
• $8.95
• ISBN: 0895450224
• Amazon.com

Tadanori Yokoo is one of the most internationally acclaimed graphic designers Japan has produced, he has designed posters, book and album covers for big names all over the world and had a solo exhibition with his graphic work at MoMA 1972. He is also one of many artists who have been "rediscovered" internationally with the help of Internet and has been labeled awesome by dudes and dudettes all over. This book, published in The States 1978, contains 100 (who would've thought) posters Yokoo produced between 1965 and '77.

The selection of posters is great showcasing both his most famous posters (Having Reached a Climax at the Age of 29, I Was Dead is the first poster you see) and a bunch of lesser known posters I had never seen before. The best part is that all the posters are introduced and explained by the book's editor Koichi Tanikawa. There is also an introduction by Milton Glaser (google him if you don't know...) The book is a gloriously oversized paperback that measures 11x16 inches, 28x40.5 cm. The margins are generous enough, the paper is thick, the colors are rich and the book feels like a solid work of quality, my copy is just barely faded. I just have one gripe about the book: about 20 pages are in black and white, despite the fact that the posters where originally in color. That doesn't make this book any less essential to a Yokoo fan though.

The desicion to reproduce some posters in black and white is really disappointing, this Diary of a Shinjuku Thief poster is absolute crap compared to the color original

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I fucked up the camera settings so the pictures are a bit too dark and grainy. You know what I am going to say here: the book has been out of print for ages and the only way to get it is to find it used, eBay and Google the shit out of this baby. I don't really know what a fair price is for this book today, it has been on a steady rise along with Yokoo's popularity. Good luck!

BOOK MONTH: Taiyō Matsumoto's 100

• 100
• By Taiyō Matsumoto, 松本大洋
• Published by Shogakukan (1995)
• 92 pages
• ¥2500
• ISBN: 409199721X
• Amazon.co.jp

Everybody's favorite Taiyō Matsumoto published a book in 1995 collecting a bunch of miscellaneous illustrations and short comics he did for various clients outside of his main bibliography. This book contains a mix between silent comics, color and monochrome illustrations from 1992 - '95, so everything in here is from the same period as Blue Spring and Tekkon. His style is still rough and wonderful (the things I've seen from Takemitsu Zamurai is a bit boring compared to the wild lines in Blue Spring).

There are eight short wordless color comics in here that have never been collected in another book. All but one are heartwarming stories revolving around a kid and loops, in one story the kid throws a bone for his pet hippo to fetch and we get to follow the hippo's chase all around the world until the bone hits the kid in the back of his head. The stories are between four and seven pages long. And then we have all of the crispy crunchy artwork to go. There are about twice as many color illustrations as there are monochrome illustrations, something I find a bit disappointing. I think his color work is a bit hit-or-miss but his strong and consistent ink work usually make up for any mistakes done while coloring. The illustrations aren't necessarily bad, just not as always awesome as you'd expect from the man who did Tekkon. Most of the time they are though.

This hardcover book is really something special if you are a Matsumoto junkie like me, most of what's in the book can not be found elsewhere. The book is big, the illustrations have a lot of white to breathe on and the paper quality is thick and pleasing for both the eye and touch. Buy the book if you get the opportunity to do so, especially if you are dying for a Matsumoto fix and can't hold on until GoGo Monster is upon us.

Illustrations for PFF Award posters, 1995

Detail

You know these guys already

The book contains several wordless short comics, though this one contains onomatopoeia

Illustration from ZERO I guess

I think this picture shows Matsumoto's influences more than any other

The B&W illustrations are the best in the book

More short comics

This is probably from Brothers of Japan

The book is, oddly enough, available from amazon.co.jp at the moment. It is odd because the book has been out of print for years. So it is either a re-print or they found a few boxes of it lying around in a warehouse. Also, eBay.

BOOK MONTH: A Whore Diary

• A Whore Diary
• aka 売男日記, Uotoko Nikki
• By Akira The Hustler
• Translated by David d'Heilly
• Published by ISSHI PRESS (2000)
• Bilingual, English and Japanese
• 130-ish pages
• ¥1200
• ISBN: 4900398357
• Amazon.co.jp

A Whore Diary by Akira The Hustler is, shockingly enough, a diary by Tokyo hustler Akira. He writes about his clients, his boyfriend and his thoughts on sexworker-rights. There is a new subject each page, sometimes it is a small anecdote or almost poem like thought and sometimes it is a long contemplation on the Japanese man or the negative view on the profession. But most of the time when you turn a page you are greeted with a wonderful little slice of life story the customers share or a comment by Akira's mellow boyfriend. Akira's view on his work is serious but laid back, it is a very sex-positive book with some hard topics handled with a refreshing personality, honesty and ease.

Afterwards, as we were having tea, he was telling me about how completely exhausted he gets at his desk job.
"When that happens to me I get on my bike and pedal aimlessly around town. What do you do?" I inquired.
"I come to you" he replied sheepishly, and laughed.

The book design is very clean, it is a small and slim book with rounded edges that gives a lighthearted feeling. It is bilingual with Japanese and English text side-by-side and the translation feels very natural. The book is 50/50 text and monochrome pictures, the pictures are all romantically just out of focus and look like they were originally intended for private use rather than for a book. There are no chapters or page markings, instead the book is divided into four colored sections: blue, pink, green and purple. The color replaces black so in the pink colored section the text is pink and the photos are pink and white. The personal feel and lighthearted design makes the whole book read like a blog on paper — it is funny how quickly I've acclimatized to the idea that a blog is the default way to keep track of your private life, a diary is now a blog on paper instead of a blog being a diary online.

You will probably know if you'll like the book or not before reading it and I really recommend tracking it down if you feel that you are even just a little bit interested. The book is out of print but occasionally pops up at English traders, usually with (unfairly) little interest from buyers so you can score a copy pretty easily as long as it shows up. eBay and Google are your friends. You can always check amazon.co.jp's marketplace if you can use it.

BOOK MONTH: 100 Underground Theatre Posters

• Japanese Avant Garde
• - 100 Poster Masterpieces From Underground Theatre
• aka ジャパン・アヴァンギャルド -アングラ演劇傑作ポスター100-
• By Kuwabara Shigeo, 桑原茂夫
• and Sasame Hiroyuki, 笹目浩之
• Translated by Steven Clark
• Published by PARCO CO., LTD. (2004)
• Bilingual, English and Japanese
• 120 pages
• ¥4800
• ISBN: 4891946865
• Amazon.co.jp

In Japanese underground theatre the poster has reigned supreme for many years. It has held a special status as a piece of the show itself, a foreword to a show you might say. The design was ofter elaborate and experimental, focus was on form rather than to sell the show — the book contains one anecdote about a poster that wasn't finished and printed until after the show's premiere. The freedom the artists enjoyed led to posters of high artistic value. This book collects 100 posters by different artists, focusing on posters from 1960 and '70 for Shūji Terayama's troupe Tenjō Sajiki and Kara Jūrō's Jōkyō Gekijō. The list of artists is long and contains the biggest names and a few surprises Tadanori Yokoo and Aquirax Uno are given but western readers might be surprised to find posters by Kazuichi Hanawa and Seiichi Hayashi in here. I was really surprised when I saw an illustration by Katsuhiro Otomo in one of few posters from the eighties.

The book contains both Japanese and English text, and for once the Japanese text is completely translated. Often in art books you only get a summary in English. The book contains one essay and four interviews about the underground theatre and the posters, all very intresting. There is also a poster index in the back. The book treats the posters with respect, the paper is thick and the colors are spot on. And it is huge. It measures 12x17 inches (30x43 cm for us Eurofags) which is a size pretty close to how the posters were ment to be experienced. All posters get a full page each and the margins are very generous, no bleeds or anything that runs into the gutter. PICTURES:

LEFT: Hirano Kōga (design) & Kaneko Kuniyoshi (illustration)
RIGHT: Akira Uno aka Aquirax Uno

All interviews are translated into English

The back contains an extensive index on all posters

Hirano Kōga

Katsuhiro Otomo

Takabatake Kashō

Kazuichi Hanawa

Kushida Mitsuhiro

Kushida Mitsuhiro

Tadanori Yokoo

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The book is a gorgeous must buy and can be found on Amazon.co.jp and in quite a few English online design stores, though often overpriced. It is sometimes labeled "100 Greatest Poster Masterpieces from Underground Theatre".