Shintaro Kago: Panelling Experimentation and Bizarre Manga

Comics have gone a long way from single-frame editorial cartoons and the three-panel funnies on Sunday newspapers or in Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrappers. We’ve seen our favorite superheroes evolve with the times, we’ve seen the packaging transform from limited edition serial issues to fashionable trade paperbacks, and we’ve seen comics cover a wide range of topics and ideas that creators and readers of the past would have never considered as suitable for the medium.

Comic artists and writers continuously strive to break new boundaries with the art, and one of the possible ways to do it is to experiment with the way it’s presented. One of the best (and strangest) example that I’ve seen of this is in the works of manga artist Shintaro Kago. He is best known for his short work “Punctures” which was featured in Secret Comics Japan.

Mr. Kago is what you’d call an ero-guro artist — that is, he specializes in bizarre and oftentimes disturbing manga with a hefty amount of blood, nudity, gore and violence. Don’t let this discourage you: I think what I find most interesting is the way he challenges paneling conventions. The idea of paneling in comics is to find the most ideal way to lead the eye of the reader in order to communicate a story. Mr. Kago pushes this to the limit. In his work “Abstractions”, Mr. Kago even goes a step further by integrating his experimentation with panels into the story in itself by making it a part of the plot.

If you are interested in reading “Abstraction”, check this entry at SAME HAT! SAME HAT!, a blog featuring weekly reviews and commentary on manga along with an archive of translated comics for public consumption.

This post was done for the regular Comics/Graphic Novel feature of Read or Die. If you have any suggestions on titles to feature, or if you just want me to post about a particular title or topic regarding comics, feel free to contact me at stitchedophelia@yahoo.com!