Stitches, by Hirokatsu Kihara and Junji Ito (VIZ Media) | review by Stephen Theaker

This short, quick read collects nine short horror stories (the "stitches”), prose rather than comics, albeit with a bonus manga story. Originally published in Japan in 2010, the major appeal to English-speaking readers in 2024 is likely to be the ghastly illustrations by Junij Ito, famed for his critically-adored horror comics, such as Uzumaki, adapted into a highly memorable film at the peak of the J-Horror boom. (His cat comics, though possibly of less interest to our readers, are also much adored.) The bonus manga story is "Summer Graduation Trip", a fairly spooky and supposedly true story of two young women who go to a spa and find themselves in a spook-filled sauna.

Venus in the Blind Spot, by Junji Ito (Viz Media) | review by Stephen Theaker

An extraordinarily creepy collection of short stories by writer and artist Junjo Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen and Yuji Oniki. It presents the reader with one horrifying image after another, while reflecting on themes of loneliness, misogyny and obsession. “Billions Alone”, for example, gives us a world where anyone gathering in a group is mysteriously stitched together, naked, in increasingly bizarre patterns.