We are so fortunate, at times. The flood of wonderful terrible images from Kazuo Umezz's four decades of manga briefly flowed through the internet, to me, to us, when news broke of the eighty-eight year old's death in early November, a little bandage for that hideous surprise of the passing of someone so vivacious. Umezz, the god of horror manga, gave us such a massive pile of work, the kind of comics you can sink into completely and yet find yourself waving others over to take a look, and then another, and you can have it when I'm done.
We have links here to several articles from the archives we re-ran the following week, and now, below you'll find memories of his work from some of our local Umezz-heads (including Helen Chazan, who titled this article).
-Sally Madden
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Joe McCulloch
(critic, author, editor)
楳図 was spelled Umezu in 2002 at the chain bookstore in the mall I'd visited on 9/11 the prior year. The graphic novel section had Akira and Sandman and superhero comics I didn't understand and Orochi: Blood, which was VIZ's the first attempt at selling Kazuo Umezu to Americans and on flip-through I had to admit I did not understand one word of that thing which read like ancient melodrama for the three seconds I could focus enough to verify that there was no good violence. Come 2006, I knew a little more about Umezu from back-issues of Pulp magazine, The Comics Journal, dark tidings on a new blog called Same Hat! I knew he was important and we can always use importance to paper over the gaps of ready appeal, but Dark Horse's Scary Book line of vintage Umezu short stories, begun in February, was not much more convincing in the realm of immediacy, and I wondered if this was not another case of the enthusiasms of writers soaking into a shriveled text to plump it temporarily with life. Then, toward the end of the year, VIZ began The Drifting Classroom and oh my
fucking god I could not believe my eyes at the screaming fury, a school explodes and is sent to the future, teachers trampled bloody under the stampeding feet of children, teachers stabbing students to maintain order, screaming, tears, the cafeteria man is lighting teachers on fire, a bruised lunar grassless hell where children are crucified, giant lobsters scuttle, kids want to die and are jumping off the roof, screaming, kids are starting new religions, bleeding, crying, fists, screaming, this man is a fucking genius I am thinking nonstop for the next year, I have never read a comic ever in my life that floors it like this, a boy becomes a chair, his mother's television set is begging for medicine, the children are in the future because children must live in the future, the adults must die, the velocity is screaming from the start and what it does then is spin variations from the key of screaming, it never stops, it is never old, we don't have any of the comedy he wrote and if we did we would not have the experience of being 11 years old and seeing this baffling person play guitar on Japanese TV in the 1970s and sing about diarrhea and you'd wonder about how the the adult world could be different but it doesn't matter to the red white glow of these pages, context drowned under screaming, the cafeteria man is menacing the kids at the end but then he is choked out by a man reaching through the fabric of time and space. That's him, that's Umezz.
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The Ghost of Tokyo Scum Brigade
(journalist, Tokyo Scum Brigade)
Reading Umezz was the only time I've been hit by a jump scare in print. I was so focused on the inky darkness of the panel that when I turned the page—WHAM!—the surprise reveal knocked me out of my seat. In a later interview with me, he explained, "White indicates a lack of matter, while black shows an abundance. It makes you think that something is lurking just beyond, hidden in the blackness." He was right!
As I absorbed more of his work I realized that those surreal, swirling pools of darkness also conceal a certain logic. What appears absurd on the surface reveals a dream-like rationale as you dive deeper. Why is a mother's love the one force that can overcome time and space? Why must a sentient robotic arm discard pieces of itself to mature? Why is the interstellar spaceship carrying humanity's future shaped like a T-Rex? It all makes sense if you look closer, closer! But be careful of what you find on the next page.
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Brian Baynes
(critic, author of the periodical Bubbles Fanzine)
Umezz's work has meant so much to me on so many different occasions. In moments of creative crisis his comics have been a guiding light. A doorway to absolute freedom. A lense into infinite childhood. Nothing compares to his visions of excruciatingly monotonous joy and terror. What a gift to be able to experience these works of profound horror and glee in our lifetimes. In 2016 on a trip to Japan I sought out his striped house, I stood outside just feeling the aura. In 2018 I returned and dropped off a comic I made on the doorstep, I felt indebted to him, his comics had spoken to me when I was at a loss. I'll admit, I thought he'd live forever. I selfishly wanted to see him make another comic, obviously he had done more than enough, his impact will continue to reverberate for generations to come! Umezz will live forever on the shelves of my heart.
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James Bradshaw
(critic and manga obsessive)
As a pretentious teenager, I read a number of the commonly accepted classics of existentialist fiction. The Stranger, Nausea, Notes From Underground, etc… They were rarely “fun” reads. This is in total contrast to the manga that I would like to posit, mostly unironically, as one of the great unsung compositions of 20th century existential fiction: Umezz Kazuo’s final major work, Fourteen (1990-95).
Fourteen has not been officially translated into English, but it would be amazing if it were. Personally, I'm hoping for it to be released as the next beautiful Perfect Edition from Viz Publishing (hint, hint!). Serialized over five years, Umezz needed to wrap up the series after roughly 3000 pages due to a progressing inflammation in the tendons of his hand.
Without spoiling too much for the new reader, I will say that I realize it may not immediately be obvious why I claim Fourteen as an “existential classic”. You may not immediately see said philosophy manifest in the bizarre machinations of “Chicken George” - our anti-hero. You may see some elements of nihilistic cosmic horror in the cruelty of the invading aliens and their facial assaults upon humanity. You might even see the human search for purpose represented on the deck of the dinosaur-shaped-spaceship. (Let’s see Sartre try a setting like that.) In fact, it isn’t until the final thirty pages that you’ll encounter the qualifying sequence. I consider the finale to be one of the most strange and fascinating depictions of choosing selfhood in the face of an utterly absurd existence ever committed to paper. However, that final one percent of the story only resonates as it does after the uncanny experience of the first ninety-nine.
When I think of his art and legacy, or even just see a photo of him with his huge smile and trademark fashion sense, I struggle to imagine a better ambassador for the philosophy of finding one’s own unique path than Umezz Kazuo. He is an inspirational figure. I feel this even more so now that I'm no longer a pretentious teenager. And as a (hopefully) slightly less pretentious adult, I am immensely thankful that his comics exist in the world.
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Helen Chazan
(critic, editor, artist)
A child descends from the school’s rooftop. He is still alive. He believes he will live. He is frozen in this moment.
Two children, a boy and a girl, leap from the highest point of a radio tower. Their lives will not end. They may lose each other. They want a future.
A monster arises out of rivers of trash, up from desert wastes, polluted waters, secret burials, warzones. Monsters are made by man, monsters deserve our sympathy, but they do not ask for it, they will not show us mercy.
She screams in terror as the chicken man consumes her. All you can do is watch.
Rivers of vomit. Scissors peering out where eyes should be. Even inside ourselves we can be destroyed. Even an impish dribble of snot hints at the abject barely held back by our skin, ever eager to escape. You are not beautiful anymore. Flames lick the boy’s crucified body and he screams and screams and screams.
A little girl walks away from your violence, fading into the distance of a desolate residential road. She hopes you’ll live, but she will never see you again. A little boy with feline eyes warns he may travel to your home next.
You think about a monster and then the monster is there. You think of a chair and you are made of wood, held together by nails.
Kazuo Umezz, manga artist, created horror stories about childhood’s end. His art will forever be special for me, as it is for many, as an introduction to the intense emotional underworld of the comics medium’s meanings, cartoon expressions formed from the point when words fail. Before I knew much about comics, before I knew much about myself, I knew Kazuo Umezz. That manic heartfelt voice in his art is the one inside all of us that knows childhood is not something we grew out of but something we survive even now. Kazuo Umezz survives his childhood, even in death his childhood lives.
The child is still falling. Open the book. Go to the page. He’s there. He is not dead, he’ll never die inside this panel, he’s right there and you can see him.
The post On Kazuo Umezz, A Child Who Is Not Dead appeared first on The Comics Journal.
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