moyoco anno

If you want to look at naked people while stroking your beard (as well as other, lower parts), Moyoco Anno's period piece Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen follows Colette --- already, yes, a literary allusion --- through her sex work, her dormitory life, and her efforts at achieve literary clarity and philosophical honesty.

Vertical Inc. publishes manga about eating disorders, adorable cat antics, 18th century prostitutes, and murderous high school cults. It brings avant-garde creators like Kyoko Okazaki and Moyoco Anno to Western eyes right alongside classic Tezuka work and more mainstream shonen fare like Knights of Sidonia and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. I point to Vertical when friends ask me how to get into female manga creators, how to get into horror manga, how to get into josei (women’s) manga, or how to just take a break from the cycle of standard sci-fi and fantasy. Vertcal is utterly singular and entirely necessary to the comics industry, and it was to the Vertical booth that I sped once the doors to the San Diego Comic-Con Exhibit Hall were open this year. After examining their new releases (I recommend In Clothes Called Fat, another glance into female anxiety courtesy of Moyoco Anno), I sat down with Ed Chavez, Vertical’s marketing director, to talk about past successes, present realities, and future plans.

Vertical, Inc. has quickly become my go-to provider of manga that I really enjoy that I didn't even know that I wanted. Kou Yaginuma's Twin Spica, Felipe Smith's Peepo Choo, Jiro Matsumoto's Velveteen & Mandala, and especially Nobuaki Tadano's 7 Billion Needles are really good reads. Ve...