Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke [Paperback]

A classic character of Japanese literature is reimagined as a mischievous, shapeshifting adventurer in this zany, Pop Art–flavored gag manga by a titan of the genre.

Ninja! Samurai! Cowboys! Aliens! Amoebas! Join Japan’s favorite ninja, Sarutobi Sasuke, on this psychedelic romp across a land beyond time by the legendary manga author and Pop Art pioneer Sugiura Shigeru.

In this 1969 take on the beloved ninja, the carefree young Sasuke pranks his way through a radically reimagined old Japan, opening wormholes to America’s Wild West and outer space as he goes. This wild adventure overflows with eye-popping sights: UFOs, absurd monsters, Hollywood stars, gun-toting outlaws, submarines, towering mushroom clouds, and much more.

Available for the first time in English and with an essay by Ryan Holmberg, Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is a must-read for its trippy visuals and outrageous storytelling.“Eye-popping images rendered in styles both hyperrealistic and playfully childish abound across virtually every panel of this long overdue collection of classic comics. . . . Suguira Shigeru . . . reimagines Sarutobi Sasuke, a heroic ninja from Japanese folklore, as an anarchic, shape-shifting prankster set loose in feudal Japan to bedevil whoever crosses his path. . . . Suguira Shigeru’s sense of design and bold use of collage and montage effects result in an enjoyably silly and absurd masterpiece of early psychedelic art.” —Library Journal

“As a madcap tour of a truly artistic mind, Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke is hard to beat” —Ross Locksley, UK Anime Network

This new edition is remarkable not just because of its prior rarity, but because of the simple purity of its construction…. A quolCç