Description

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This is a groundbreaking manga (Japanese comics) anthology by and about gay men, put together by an award-winning team.

Big, burly, lascivious, and soft around the edges: welcome to the hypermasculine world of Japanese gay manga. Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It is the first English-language anthology of its kind: an in-depth introduction to nine of the most exciting comic artists making work for a gay male audience in Japan. Jiraiya, Seizoh Ebisubashi, and Kazuhide Ichikawa are three of the irresistibly seductive, internationally renowned artists featured in Massive, as well as Gengoroh Tagame, the subject of The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame: Master of Gay Erotic Manga. Get to know each of these artists intimately, through candid interviews, photography, context-providing essays, illustrations, and manga. Massive also includes the groundbreaking, titillating work of gay manga luminaries Takeshi Matsu, Fumi Miyabi, Inu Yoshi, Gai Mizuki, and comic essayist Kumada Poohsuke.

About the Author

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Anne Ishii is a writer and the Executive Director of Asian Arts Initiative in Center City Philadelphia.



Graham Kolbeins is a Canadian queer filmmaker, writer, and designer living in southern California. He co-founded Massive Goods with Anne Ishii in 2013.


Chip Kidd is best known for his iconic book jackets but is also a novelist, archivist, and influencer in the world of cartooning and pop culture. He lives in New York, NY.

Praise For…

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Here's a book I want to give the highest recommendation to, but for very different reasons from those I would usually highlight for an amazingly effective collection of male-on-male erotic art — which this happens to be. But it is also fascinating and incredibly informative. The book's sections are not only beautiful, intelligent, sometimes humorous and always sexy as hell. They are also important, for what the artists have to say in the accompanying texts and essays about themselves and about the art they make. This is a wonderful collection that every reader and writer should read. It's a knockout on so many different levels!
— Samuel R. Delany - (author of Bread & Wine, Hogg, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders)

Massive is amazing. Bigger and bolder than Tom of Finland, this manga porn transcends any genre, and stakes its claim on unbridled and unapologetic masculinity. Funny and beautiful, erotic and unworldly, it's a blessing to have this uniquely Japanese subculture now available in the West.

— Andrew Sullivan - founding editor, The Dish

Massive indeed accurately describes not only the multiple manifestations of homosexual desire, particularly in Japanese culture, but also a common aesthetic throughout all of these artists’ drawings…; hopefully this anthology will please ardent fans and raise the awareness that will stoke the new talent and audiences necessary to bara manga’s longevity.

— Alexander Cavaluzzo - Hyperallergic

…[T]he new anthology Massive helps to fill a gap in Americans’ understanding of the vital, complex culture of manga. … The level of drawing in these erotic fantasies is extremely high, sometimes rivaling the work of the iconic Western porno artist Tom of Finland.

— Charles Solomon - Indiewire

…Massive is just that: massively hot, massively entertaining and massively informative.

— Tom Cardamone - Lambda Literary

Get ready for Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, a new anthology of husky gay erotica. … The collected work in Massive showcases a selection of Japan’s best gay erotic artists, some of it rarely seen in the West outside of poorly translated scans…

— C. Edwards - Out

Replete with rippling muscles and hypermasculinity, this volume provides a fascinating overview of contemporary gay manga and its creators. In a medium dominated by visual exaggeration, the figures given vivid, lusty life by these artists express the apex of a powerful butch sensibility. While the work... is as explicit as it could possibly get, there is a clearly expressed joy to its aggressive sexuality... U.S. collectors of this material will be thirsty for this first-ever English language anthology, and adventurous comics readers will encounter a realm they might have otherwise overlooked.
— Publishers Weekly

…[H]andsomely designed, meticulously researched… Massive... is far more than just a collection of pornographic stories ... [W]hat makes this such an invaluable anthology is right there in the title: the focus on 'the men who make it.' … So how’s the sex? It’s hot, strange, scary, awkward, intense, violent, and even hilarious at times. … Just like any other great pieces of art, these stories are outlets for unbridled creative expression, and that personal connection delivers some incredibly passionate pornography.

— Oliver Sava - The A.V. Club

Smart and amazingly hot at the same time.
— Jacob Anderson-Minshall - The Advocate

…Massive is a groundbreaking work that immortalizes an often over-looked corner of the queer art world.

— James Nichols - The Huffington Post

The title is not kidding around: it's a big anthology about big men with big appendages doing big, big things. … This is the kind of manga that's never been seen in the English-reading world before. …[It's] one of the best, not to mention one of the smuttiest, collections of manga ever published in the U.S.
— Shaenon Garrity - Anime News Network

Massive is not an introduction to one kind of gay Japanese manga. It is a showcase of the genre’s potential and what the best cartoonists do with it. This Fantagraphics collection has been a long time coming and is perfect for any American interested in in this community.

— Ray Sonne - Comics Bulletin

...[T]his lovingly compiled and impeccably designed introductory volume is absorbing, entertaining reading and made me an instant fan of several of the featured artists..., as well as offering fascinating background information into Japanese society itself. Also: hubba hubba!
— Rob Kirby - editor, QU33R

…[A]wesome… oddly adorable… revealing… kinky… sexy… endearing… funny…
— Anthony Glassman - Gay People's Chronicle

…Massive shows that gayness isn't alien. … Massive serves as a reminder that guys are objects, too, and that the way we see and the stories we tell figure male bodies as sexual, even in a mainstream culture that is reluctant to admit as much. To read Massive isn't to discover a hidden truth, but to see a massive, obvious fact — bulging out for all the world to see.

— Noah Berlatsky - Ravishly

A gorgeous, bear-sized omnibus.
— Robert Kirby - The Comics Journal

Massive… is a groundbreaking work. … The profiles of the creators included in Massive are just as engaging as the manga that has been collected. The volume provides an incredibly valuable look into the creation of gay erotic manga and art. … Massive truly is a spectacular volume and highly recommended for anyone interested in gay manga, its history, and its creators; it’s a fantastic introduction to the genre.

— Ash Brown - Experiments in Manga