Suehiro Maruo
In the manga subgenre known as Ero-guro (Erotic-grotesque), Suehiro Maruo is renowned for his beautifully-composed, exquisitely-crafted scenes influenced by Japanese Ukiyo-e prints on one hand, and the canon of Western fine art on the other.
Maruo started his career by providing short strips for porn magazines, because, as he says, they would publish anything as long as there is nudity and sex. Indeed, many of his early strips are incomprehensible. The America-published anthology Ultra-Gash Inferno contains the more "readable" stories of early Maruo, while the rest are sometimes available as Scanlation.
Maruo's growing fame then allowed him to publish longer stories, of which Mr Arashi's Amazing Freak Show has garnered him an international cult following.
Maruo's important works include:
- Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show (1984)
- New Atrocities In Blood (1988): a modern reworking of Muzan-e (atrocity prints) genre of Ukiyo-e.
- Inugami Expert (1994)
- The Laughing Vampire (2000)
- The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (2008): adaption of a novel by Edogawa Rampo.
- Imomushi (The Caterpillar) (2009): another Rampo adaptation.
His official site is here.
- Art Imitates Art: his manga contain so many homages to Western paintings and German cinema, you can play a Drinking Game with them.
- Bishonen that reek of evil.
- Downer Ending.
- Enfant Terrible: most of the atrocities in his stories are committed by children or teenagers.
- Eye Scream: eyeballs are good for licking, and stabbing, and forking out.
- Faux Symbolism
- Freud Was Right: not only that: everything can become Fetish Fuel.
- Gorn
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: but the art is so exquisite: you can't just look away.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence.
- Karma Houdini.
- The Murder After.
- Those Wacky Nazis and Japanese Imperial Army: for nostalgic values and fetish fuel.