"Reminiscent of sci-fi horror from the 1950s with all the campy charm it entails" - Lynzee Loveridge, Anime News Network

"UFO Mushroom Invasion flew in from somewhere completely off my radar and I'm glad it did. I feel lucky to exist in a galaxy where there are still sublimely strange classic horror comics like this one waiting to be discovered." - Minovsky

"Shirakawa plumbs the existential dread of the unknown to audacious effect..." ― Library Journal

From the publisher:

"UFOs are one of the world's greatest mysteries...and I hope they stay that way. For the day that aliens reveal themselves may very well become the beginning of the end of life on Earth as we know it!"

A flying saucer crashes deep in the mountains of Japan. Wary of the hyper-intelligent beings they find inside, the government hides from the public all news of the alien craft. But it's not the strange visitors themselves that they should be afraid of―the real danger is the parasitic spores smuggled aboard! Will Earth survive the UFO MUSHROOM INVASION?!

Originally published in 1976, Shirakawa Marina's UFO MUSHROOM INVASION is a masterpiece of sci-fi horror. Drawing on his deep knowledge of Japanese folklore and the supernatural, Shirakawa created one of manga history's cult classics and an unforgettably creepy entry in the canon of spore-horror.

With an essay by weirdologist Udagawa Takeo, UFO MUSHROOM INVASION is the second volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.

The book includes an illustrated color essay by weirdologist Udagawa Takeo, a classic survey of weird manga. It also includes a "The Best of Marina Shirakawa" section that offers a career survey with synopses and a color cover gallery.

Marina Shirakawa (1940-2000) was an artist of many talents. As a cartoonist, he drew bizarre and harrowing manga about such things as UFO invasions, time-traveling vampires, and zombie cats. As an illustrator, he worked on projects related to Japanese folklore and H.P. Lovecraft. He was also a folklorist himself, authoring manga and illustrated anthologies about Japanese ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. All of these interests come together in UFO Mushroom Invasion (1976), his most famous manga.