Title: HUNGRY GHOSTS (Graphic Novel)
Author: Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
Genre: Samurai, Folklore, Supernatural, Spooky, Fantasy
Book Blurb:
More than four centuries ago, Japan lies ravaged by famine and civil war. Takeshi is a young warrior who is under a curse. After an ambush by enemy soldiers, he is left temporarily blinded, but is rescued by a monk. Takeshi thinks that surely no one can help him with the curse—until he finds out that his new monk friend used to be the legendary samurai Taketsura, wielder of the sword Lightning-on-the-Water. Together with the orphan girl Kiyoko (a formidable young swordswoman in her own right), can these three keep each other alive during the supernatural threats of Japan’s era of civil war?
HUNGRY GHOSTS revisits the work of Lafcadio Hearn, a Victorian-era European writer who, in his book KWAIDAN: STORIES AND STUDIES OF STRANGE THINGS (the most famous of his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories), told a story of Isogai Heidazaemon Taketsura, a samurai who renounced his old life and became a wandering priest when Japan lay ravaged by famine and civil war.
This novel brings to life a different imagining of Taketsura’s wanderings, giving him two teenagers to accompany him, a young orphan girl whose grandfather taught her the blade, and a young soldier under an oni’s curse that threatens to turn him into a monster. In the midst of post-war famine and dangers, the three must face death, (other) monsters, and of course ghosts – some of which are their own.
Excerpt:
Look at these gorgeous stills from the graphic novel…
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
What makes your featured book a must-read?
Barb answers: “For those who like samurai epics like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Asian supernatural dramas like Alchemy Of Souls, anime like Kurozuka, and manga like Vagabond, Hungry Ghosts is an exciting and thought-provoking graphic novel with vibrant art and fast-paced storytelling.”
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Open Internationally.
Runs November 12 – November 21, 2024.
Winner will be drawn on November 22, 2024.
Author Biography:
Barb, originally from Minnesota, grew up to become a guitarist/singer-songwriter and got an album put out on the Imp label. However, she also had health issues: chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and extreme environmental sensitivities and allergies. (She also has complex post-traumatic stress disorder due to issues that happened in her youth.)
Park, from central Texas, grew up reading a great deal of comic books, and science fiction and fantasy literature. He stopped reading comics, started again when they got cool, and then someone in the letter columns of the comic Sandman announced that they were doing a fanzine for readers of that comic. Barb and Park both wrote in.
Barb and Park became aware of one another… Park liked the writing Barb submitted to the fanzine, and he wrote to Barb, and they began writing to each other. Then they started talking on the phone… they fell in love… they started visiting one another…
Reader, they got married (to each other).
They wrote about popular culture in columns on the internet... then they started adapting and editing manga for major American publishers importing manga (and sometimes their South Korean and Chinese counterparts) from the far side of the Pacific... Near the end of this, Barb and Park wrote the manga pitch The Hidden for TokyoPop, perfectly timed to appear the week that that company fell apart.
Then Barb and Park wrote the sci-fi vampire graphic novel Half Dead, co-published by Marvel Comics.
Somewhere around this time, Park successfully completed his Ph.D. in literature, and then Barb and Park started writing other projects, prose and comics, both together and independently. More recently, Barb and Park had a successful Kickstarter (with all stretch goals reached) for Hungry Ghosts, their project involving the work of Lafcadio Hearn and his writings about Japanese folklore.
These days, Barb and Park live happily together in Austin, Texas.
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