“Fashion Model” and the original short “Fashion Model: Cursed Frame” prove less effective, straddling a line between horror and humor that Ito can’t seem to navigate (and “Cursed Frame” reads like an incomplete draft). Title story “Shiver,” one of the two best in the collection, is another tale of fatal curiosity, bolstered by imagery unsuitable for the trypophobic. “Used Record” makes for an understated opening in classic Ito fashion as a ghostly recording provokes the worst in human nature. Ito rarely overcomplicates his pages, relying on clean figure work and considered use of cross-hatching to render his worlds. Ito’s visual style is top-notch throughout the book, at its best when portraying slow descents into madness and psychological afflictions made physical. Thankfully, most of Shiver showcases Ito at his best, touching upon his recurring themes: disturbing body horror, imminent apocalypses and inescapable doom. Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories Interior Art by Junji Ito Ito fans are hungry for new (legal) content, even when it falls below the standards of the near-mythical stature granted to the creator in horror circles. The previously mentioned Tomie omnibus and 2015 collection Fragments of Horror are both strong if uneven, while recent creation Dissolving Classroom is a dud, and Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu is exactly as quirky as it sounds.

Uzumaki, about a town slowly going mad due to omnipresent spirals, and Gyo, Ito’s walking-zombie-fish epic, are all-but-untouchable landmarks of horror storytelling. Ito, whose name is synonymous with horror manga both within and outside of his native Japan, has a relatively small amount of work currently in print in English. Nine of these, including a slight short original to this collection, have never before received official American releases (Ito’s work is, unfortunately, widely pirated in the U.S.), while one can also be found in the absolutely massive Tomie omnibus published in 2016. Published late last year by VIZ Media, the American home for most of Ito’s work, Shiver translates a 2015 Japanese volume of 10 short stories curated by the horror-manga master himself. Paste’s comic crew has always worn its Junji Ito fandom on its spiral-covered sleeve, so we’d be remiss not to take a step back and discuss Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories before fully embracing what 2018 has in store for us.

One of the joys of media journalism in January is making sure spotlight-worthy December releases aren’t forgotten in the haze of year-end lists.

Shiver selected stories