Koyama Press Announces Its Spring 2016 Line-Up:  Johnson, Koch, Kyle, Rokudenashiko, Sears

Anne Koyama of Koyama Press announced early today her publishing line's ambitious and wide-ranging Spring 2016. The line-up consists of books from Patrick Kyle, Cathy G. Johnson, Aidan Koch and Ben Sears, as well as a graphic memoir by the artist Rokudenashiko translated and presented editors Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins, translator Ishii and designer Chip Kidd. That means with its select number of market entries, Koyama will hit on both a serious mediation on obscenity in art (Rokudenashiko) and a book they're describing in their PR as "puts the Saturday morning cartoon into adventure serial." (Sears)

Covers, publishing information and publisher's descriptions folow. It looks like a sold season. I look forward to all the books, and maybe in particular the wonderfully-titled Rokudenashiko work.

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* What Is Obscenity? The Story Of A Good For Nothing Artist And Her Pussy, Rokudenashiko (translation by Anne Ishii), Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins (Editors), Chip Kidd (cover), softcover, 168 pages, 9781927668313, May 2106, $20.

Publisher's Description/Bios:

Rokudenashiko's mission is to demystify female genitalia, a mission that has led to a vulva-shaped kayak and her arrest.

A graphic memoir of a good-for-nothing Japanese artist who has been jailed twice for so-called acts of obscenity and the distribution of pornographic materials yet continues to champion the art of pussy. In a society where one can be censored, pixelated and punished, Rokudenashiko asks what makes pussy so problematic?

Edited by Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins and translated by Ishii, a writer, translator and proprietor of the gay manga paraphernalia brand MASSIVE, and with a cover by Chip Kidd, arguably the most well-known and influential designer of the past two decades. This is an incredible package for an incredible story.

Rokudenashiko ("good-for-nothing girl" or "bad girl") is a Japanese sculptor and mangaka. She is known for her series of decorated vulva moulds, or Deco-Man, a portmanteau of "decorated" and "manko," which is Japanese slang for vagina. The moulds have taken the shape of dioramas, kawaii characters and a kayak based on a 3D scan of her genitalia, which she dubbed the "pussy boat." The scan led to her arrest in 2014 for alleged violation of Japanese obscenity laws.

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* Don't Come In Here, Patrick Kyle, softcover, 256 pages, 9781927668283, May 2016, $15.

Publisher's Description/Bio:

A nameless protagonist takes up residence in a Kafkaesque apartment where the rules of space and time do not apply.

Looking for an inexpensive live/work space, an anonymous character settles on a supernatural apartment that has a seemingly unlimited number of identical rooms and manifests distracting illusions and other psychological hurdles. The story unfolds in vignettes that voyeuristically document the character's domestic activities in an increasingly disorienting environment respectively.

Patrick Kyle lives and works in Toronto, ON. He is the co-founder and editor of Wowee Zonk, a contemporary comic book anthology featuring up-and-coming international artists. He has been previously nominated for Doug Wright and Ignatz awards for his comic book series Black Mass and Distance Mover.

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* Gorgeous, Cathy G. Johnson, softcover, 64 pages, 9781927668276, May 2016, $12.

Publisher's Description/Bio:

Ideologies and cars collide when a minor accident brings a pair of punks and a college student tumultuously together.

Sophie has tried to stay out of trouble, but tonight trouble has found her. On a lonely stretch of highway under a star-studded sky, she meets anarchist punks in a crack-up of metal and emotion that proves sometimes the freedom of youth causes damage along the way.

Cathy G. Johnson is an artist in Providence, RI. She grew up in Minnesota and graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. She was awarded the Small Press Expo 2014 Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent. Her inspiration is drawn from community and critical theory.

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* After Nothing Comes, Aidan Koch, softcover, 144 pages, 9781927668320, May 2016, $20.*****

Publisher's Description/Bio:

A collection of early zines that present comics at their most painterly and poetic.

Aidan Koch makes comics about moods and moments, marks and symbols. They are drawn in a diaphanous, haptic style that suggests dreams and memories. In washes of ink, pencil smudges, white paint, and traces of drawings removed, Koch creates resonate tone poems on paper.

Aidan Koch was born in Seattle, WA and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Illustration at the Pacific NW College of Art in Portland, OR, and works in a variety of mediums, often blurring their conventions. Her work has appeared in a variety of group exhibitions, as well as The Paris Review. Past books include the Xeric Award-winning The Whale (Gaze Books, 2014), Field Studies (Floating World Comics, 2012) and the anthology Astral Talk (Publication Studio, 2011), which she edited.

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* Night Air, Ben Sears, Koyama Press (Koyama Press Comics For Kids), softcover, 64 pages, 9781927668290, May 2016, $12.

Publisher Description/Bio:

The boundless adventures of an unruly boy, his rational robot and their great gadgets filled with fantastic science stuff!

Plus Man is a roguish knave without equal, an antihero in his own mind. His coolheaded robot, however, knows better. This odd couple has just been given a break: a tip on a score of valuable alloy. The catch? The alloy is in a haunted castle. One really haunted castle.

Ben Sears is a cartoonist, illustrator and musician born and raised in Louisville, KY where he continues to live and work. His Double+ characters have appeared in a number of zines and online anthologies, where the protagonist is usually in over his head.

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With these publication dates, it seems likely that most of these will be out in time to debut at Toronto Comic Arts Festival in mid-May.

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