I Feel Sick #1

I Feel Sick #1
Vasquez, Jhonen(Author, Creator, Illustrator) and Simons, Rosearik Rikki(Colourist)
Paperback, 32 pages, ASIN:B000KE3N6O
Published 2000 by Slave Labor Graphics 

I FEEL SICK  #1 is the first full-color comic book written and drawn by the comic artist Jhonen Vasquez who was responsible for the super popular Invader Zim and JTHM.

This really is just a book about a girl. A girl called Devi d. (who appears in the JTHM comic as a side character) who is an artist and a goth.  This two part story follows her battle to retain her sanity while afraid of social interaction due to a past full of awful experiences. Convinced a supernatural force is trying to interfere with her social life and her art devi withdraws from society and fights an internal stuggle to retain her grasp on what is real and what is in her head.

Vasquez has a great grasp on how real people talk and Devi could be any girl in her teens or early twenties, struggling to find herself and her place in the world.

The art is both simple and full of detail, with backgrounds and rooms filled to the brim with entertaining little details, while stark focus and dedicated panels are given to important reactions and items when needed.

Devi ‘s constant anxiety about her lack of inspiration and motivation, the realisations that she should be doing more in her life is so relatable it is scary. It’s a compelling story to see a normal real female character pull out some strength from hardship.

Uzumaki - Vol 1: The Spiral

Uzumaki - Vol 1: Spiral into horror
Ito, Junji (Author, Illustration)and Oniki, Yuji (Translation)
Paperback, 208 pages       ISBN13: 9781569317143          
Published 2007 by Viz Signature 

Based in Kurôzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan follows the story of Kirie Goshima as she discovers that her town is infested by spirals which start to appear everywhere from clouds, pottery baking in a kiln, to whirlpools in creeks. This quickly becomes disturbing as the spirals start to appear on peoples bodies and inspire them to distort themselves. is slow paced with the emphasis on the growing threat of the madness spreading through the normally sleepy town.

While struggling to understand what is happening and figuring out how to survive the cosmic events unfolding Kirie is also dealing with a number of typical teenage problems ranging from jealous and bullying at school to communication problems with her withdrawn boyfriend Shuichi Saito. Strong, resourceful and determined, she is a nice change from some more stereotypical Japanese school girl characters found in manga.

The black and white illustrations are simple and anatomical for a manga but this works to its advantage displaying exceptional precision and beauty suspending disbelief, making what would normally be an outrageous premise seem terrifyingly realistic. 

This book is dark and strange but even if you don’t normally like horror, you will appreciate the vast amount of imaginative detail and grotesque beauty in Uzumaki.