Orochi Chapter 4 (Manga Release)

4th chapter of Orochi - "Hometown." A man goes back to his hometown and finds that things have changed quite a bit. A creepy kid, a dark secret, and a lot of sound effects!

I'm starting to think that there's no difference between the PNGs and JPEGs, but I'm still going to release two versions, just in case I'm wrong. My eyes do suck, after all.

Low-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zntzuznonln

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0H9EL8Q8

High-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zwy3emmtzzj

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GN9L55V8

I'll probably spend a bit more time on the next chapter. The odd weather in my area is affecting my sinuses and making me feel under the weather. (*cough* And I just got a Wii. *cough*) The wait shouldn't be too long, but don't sit on your thumbs waiting for a new chapter next weekend. (What the fuck did I just say?)

Orochi Chapter 3 (Manga Release)

Here's the third chapter of Orochi, titled "Prodigy." This is a story about family, how people can change, and especially, a mother and son's perception of each other and how it warps them.

Once again, two versions because, why not?

Low-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?54mmmdqnzhz

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GURMAIJF

High-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?oh5m43dmfa4

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NRHSKFYC

Links of interest:

Group page at MangaHelpers

You can subscribe to Orochi and see when I upload a new chapter there. Also, there's a read-online feature.

My Twitter page

I'll say stupid shit and how I'm doing on the latest chapter (that's the important part).

I'd also like to let everyone know that you can upload this wherever they please, as long as you leave the credits page in, to give myself and molokidan the credit we deserve. Thanks for reading! Chapter 4 will hopefully be finished in about a week.

NOTE: It's been brought to my attention that a page is missing from chapter 2. It doesn't add anything to the story, so if you've read the chapter without it, there's no need to worry, but I have added the page to the release post so everyone can get it. Sorry for the trouble. Thanks for catching that, js.

Orochi Chapter 2 (Manga Release)

Shaggy Horror's first release! The first of many to come, hopefully.

This is the second chapter from the first kanzenban volume of Orochi, by Kazuo Umezu. (A kanzenban is like an ultimate volume - really big.) This completes the volume. The first 90 pages or so were done by a group called [Kurokishakai]. Much thanks goes to the group, who also did the first chapter of Orochi. You can find that on their blog.

The chapters of Orochi are separate tales, connected only by the existence of a strange girl named Orochi. You absolutely do not need to read the first story to understand the second. This chapter is titled "Bones" and is about a woman with a bad childhood, her husband, and a spell gone wrong.

After I finished the chapter, I saw that it was over 180MB, so I saved the files as JPEGs to reduce their size. The result was two versions of the chapter, with one of slightly less quality. Both are easy to read though. And it is 215-pages long, so 180MB isn't too crazy a number. Anyways, here are the download links.

Low-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?g1xnrammznj

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G6JHKPF6

High-quality:

http://www.mediafire.com/?kmavefdokmt

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0ZCKNT61

Big thanks goes to molokidan for translating this and again, [Kurokishakai] for starting this. I'm going to start working on the first chapter of volume 2 now, and it will hopefully be out before Valentine's Day. Tell all your friends about me!

NOTE: A page is missing from this chapter. It doesn't further the story, so don't fret if you've already read the chapter - you didn't miss anything big. It just sound effects (UUUUUUUUUU). Still, here's the missing page so everyone can get it:

News that Actually Matters

Yeah, this post is actually important. Amazing.

Two things - 1) I got my first follower. Hi, horrorfangirl! It's great to know someone may really be reading these entries. 2) I've started a makeshift scanlation team, if you can call it that. On MangaHelpers, I found that someone had translated a bunch of stuff by Kazuo Umezu, a very famous (in Japan, at least) horror manga author, and no one had scanlated it. In other words, no one took the translations and put them on the pages so English-speaking people could read it. I decided that, since I have nothing but free time and love horror manga, I would do it.

I decided to start with Orochi, a series that had been started by a group last year but never finished. In fact, they only released one chapter and did half of another. About four days ago, I started scanlating the second chapter, where the other group left off. It's a lot of work, because the chapter is over 200 pages long. Thankfully, the other group did about 90 pages, so that saves me quite a bit of work. I've halfway through the rest of the chapter right now. It shouldn't take me more than a week to finish it.

I have some experience doing this sort of thing, but I'm no expert. I can't make the pages look great, but my goal is to get it out there, so other fans can read and enjoy it. There's a lack of Umezu in English, and that's a shame because he is a big name that's influenced a lot of people. I may not do a perfect job, but I'll at least get it out there. Here's a taste of the chapter (and my work):

I'm not really sure what to do once I finish it, but I'll deal with that once I'm done. I guess upload it to MangaHelpers and every site I think would appreciate it, paranormal imageboards and the like. If people seem to like what I've done (or at least not hate it), I'll keep doing more.

Fuan no Tane (Manga)

This is a very well-known series among people who visit paranormal imageboards, but I guess I can't expect everyone to have wasted a year's worth of their life on a chan site.

Fuan no Tane is a three-volume series that illustrates Japanese urban legends. Each chapter is very short, some of them only being two pages long. This greatly helps it. Each story jumps right into the freaky thing. There's no continuity to worry about and no characters to keep up with. Just weird shit that will creep you out.

Since the stories are based on Japanese stories, not all of them will make sense, and the ones that do make sense to an English-language reader probably won't hold the significance that they would to a Japanese reader. But I think that's a good thing. If someone tries to tell me about Bloody Mary, I scoff, because I've heard it before. I imagine that's how a Japanese person would react to some of these stories. "Kids on a sign come to life and cause a car wreck? Heard it - it's not true." But non-Japanese people won't know the stories and will be amazed at them. "A human-like lizard crawling across the top of a skyscraper? Damn, that's scary."

Also, because there are so many stories, you're sure to find something you like, something that unsettles you. Always been afraid of ghosts? Got it. Monster babies? Got it. Strange attackers that defy reason? Got it. And the art fits it all perfectly. It's simple but can be very detailed. It's like it lulls you into a sense of peace, right before it throws some horrifying thing at you.

This series has not been licensed or released in English (which makes sense as the stories are about Japanese urban legends), but it has been scanlated into English and posted across the internet. It's not hard to find, and I highly recommend it.

Note: There is a Fuan no Tane + (Plus) that has more stories, but only four chapters of it have been scanlated, due to bad raws.

Ghoulies (1985) & Miner's Massacre (2002)

Two movies in this post because neither one is worthy of a full post.

Ghoulies has a very misleading title. It makes you think you're going to see little creatures running around and causes havoc, but really, what you see is a story imitating a Lovecraft imitation. Some guy inherits a mansion, and while he's exploring it, he feels the need to practice black magic, because his dad was a great magician or something. Bad shit happens, and the ghoulies spend about ten minutes killing his friends. Then, the movie ends with an "OH SHIT!" moment that shows that the creators have a sequel planned. Hope the monsters actually do something in that sequel.

Miner's Massacre, also known as Curse of the Forty-Niner, is a ripoff of Leprechaun, except instead of a chatty, sometimes funny little person, we get a silent hulk. When his gold is taken, an angry miner returns from the dead to kill all those who have it. Seriously, it's fucking Leprechaun. Plus, the deaths are quick and unsatisfying, and the acting sucks. A completely pointless movie.

Doomed (Comic)

Doomed is a four-issue comic published by IDW, which is known for doing comics about zombies, horror, and TV shows. Thanks to this series, I looked into IDW and found a treasure trove, some of which I'll hopefully discuss in the future.

The series takes stories by noted horror authors and illustrates them. Each issue has four illustrated stories, based on works by four authors (each author has one story in each issue). There's Robert Bloch, who deserves more recognition than he gets, seeing as he wrote the famous book Psycho on which the movie is based; F. Paul Wilson, who's best known for his Repairman Jack character; David J. Schow, well-known in the splatterpunk genre; and Richard Matheson, author of the often-filmed I Am Legend. The average person will probably have only heard of one of those authors (I admit I didn't know any but Matheson before picking up the comic), but after reading these comics, every horror fan should want to seek out all they can find by any of them. (Or at the least, three out of the four.) The stories give you a taste of what horror fiction that isn't King or Rice is like, while providing good art that enhances the stories. As is common for IDW, the art isn't typical; it can look uneven and messy, but it parallels the stories, which feature humans, and the world itself, as an uneven and strange and hostile place.

There's also more to these comics than just the stories. Within each issue is something about the four authors, lengthy reads that provide insight to the minds of the writers and the horror genre itself. Furthermore, there are short stories (just text, no pictures) that give you even more to read. Each issue will take a few hours to get through, making it well worth the money spent.

If you see Doomed somewhere, grab it. If you don't know much beyond mainstream horror, it'll teach you a lot, and if do know more, you'll be pleased to see these authors getting the attention they deserve.