The Art of Japanese Monsters
I've spent the last several days pouring through its pages and I can't recommend it enough to anyone interested in the genre. Though already familiar with much of the Japanese and American poster art, on almost every page I found something, sometimes many images, of things I'd never seen before. The book tries to be all things to all readers and largely succeeds. In my case, I was dazzled by chihoban posters, different art created especially for outlying exhibition markets in then-rural Japan, and especially by the foreign posters, particularly the Thai ones, which often feature imaginative artwork and wildly inaccurate credits. A Spanish poster for ATRAGON, for instance, suggests a spy film and credits two of the Crazy Cats, Hitoshi Ueki and Hajime Hana, in the cast with the director listed as Toshio Sugie, who mostly did musicals and comedies. An Italian poster for the same film credits director James Honda and someone named Robert Wess gets second-billing. Undoubtedly the strangest one, though, is an Italian poster for THE MYSTERIANS, which lists early-talkie comedian Joe E. Brown in the cast. (What a picture THAT woulda made!) I found myself nostalgic for half-sheets and Mexican lobbies sold or lost when I moved to Japan, but mostly its hypnotic images, most much larger in their reproduction compared to similar Japanese books, held me captive. Great work, guys - It's something to be very proud of. And for those of you who don't yet own a copy: Buy One! You won't be disappointed. --Stuart Galbraith IVSean Linkenback's terrific new banquet for the eyeballs, THE ART OF JAPANESE MONSTERS (self-published, 2014), which knocked my socks off, my retina out, and had me drop everything to just steep myself in this feast of fantasy movie art. Sean's chronological showcase of every key Japanese daikaiju-eiga movie's int'l promo art starting with / GOJIRA / GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (1954/1956) up to the present excluding the two American productions is a sumptuous, magnificent, intoxicating book that I most highly recommend. Very limited print run, so don't dawdle: get this while it can be got! 225+ full-color pages, jam-packed with sterling reproductions and Sean's concise, informative text bullets on each title. Some real surprises, and one piece in here answered a question I'd puzzled over since 1971... --Stephen Bissette