A Monster That I Wish I Had Invented...

Monster Brains has an amazingly well-done Horror-comic bit of weirdness from Junji Ito titled The Thing That Drifted Ashore.  Typically, I'm not a big fan of Manga, but this one clicked for me.  It's a horror story that delivers some very disturbing ideas, asks some unsettling questions and manages to make sea-monsters creepy and nasty without playing the whole Get Out of R'lyeh Free card. It is very different from the usual 'tentacles=horror' stuff that Raggi has been quietly and demurely ranting about recently.  It's gross and cool and I wish I had invented that monster.  Is it ever unsettling.  It'd make a wicked movie...even with sub-titles...and apparently Ito San is busy making movies out of his comics.  Not bad for a former dental assistant.  You can find some samples of Junji Ito's work here, here and here.  He's super popular and I'm like the last person on the planet to find out about him, but hey, I live in a frozen wasteland where it's easy to lose track of the rest of the world.  Besides I practically live inside Photoshop these days.  I like Ito San's take on possessor-spirals. Horror Manga isn't something that I've ever seen before--the local comic shops always stock the boring crap, not this off-the-wall, gonzo stuff.  Just have to watch out for the tentacles now...