“The Cursed Body is a snapshot into the mind of one of the most important emerging young manga artists and editors working today. Collecting a duology of longform works from Kawakatsu’s Kagyu (The Snail) gekiga doujinshi magazine, the stories found in this volume playfully draw upon both the classic ghost story form and essential kashihon-era rental-manga artists, illustrating the author’s deep reading of both Japanese and English literary traditions.

In “Cat Skull Isle,” a group of friends boat out to a small crag off the coast of Shonan. The sole presence on the island is a lone cat shrine, but as the friends explore, they begin to exhibit increasingly erratic behavior… In “Willow Weep for Me,” a moneylender spurns a beggar while on a stroll with her son. After the beggar’s body is dredged up from the river that evening, the strange, even gruesome events begin to mount…

This book is a must-read for lovers of alternative manga and weird fiction / vintage horror manga.”

250-ish pages ! paperback with a nice jacket.