Kazuo Umezu, master of horror comics and a manga pioneer whose careers spanned nearly seventy years, is dead at 88. Asahi Shimbun reports that the author of The Drifting Classroom and Makoto-chan first made his debut in 1955 illustrating rental books.
After completing "Fourteen" in 1995, he suspended his work because of acute tendonitis he developed over the years.
However, Umezu resumed writing and published "Zoku-Shingo" in 2022 for the first time in 27 years and received the Special Award of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2023 for the work.
Kazuo's wild mixed-media (albeit short) comic of The Exorcist was posted by David just recently. Mark once posted about him annoying his neighbors by painting his house in red and white stripes.
Here's an obituary in the The Comics Journal.
As it should be, Umezz is a beloved favorite around here. We're staying up rereading Baptism, The Drifting Classroom, Orochi, My Name is Shingo, among others, gasping into the night. His ghastly penchant for pushing the boundaries of gore balances with a certain tenderness- adults are villains not to be trusted, but children are able to level the illogical and collaborate. The slightest possibility for vengeance as well as anyone operating a motor vehicle near a crosswalk ends in bloody heartbreak, but the family cat gets away unscathed.
