The Drifting Classroom - Kazuo Umezz
Kazuo Umezz started his professional career as a comic artist in the 1950s. Now aged 85, he continues working in the medium up to the present day, and is something of a personality in his native Japan. Little of his work has been published in English (although there is more to come and more if you look for French and Italian editions), but his classic 1974 serial The Drifting Classroom that made him famous is at least available in English translation and published by Viz Media in three bulky Perfect Edition hardback volumes. It's an incredible piece of work that stands as one of the all-time classics of Japanese manga. The Drifting Classroom 's themes are similar in content and style to the early works of the modern horror master Junji Ito, while from a western perspective being reminiscent of the dark horror artwork of Charles Burns. Umezz's naive cartoony artwork however is closest to style of the master Osamu Tezuka. Umezz started his career in that era and continued to...