Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke

“Ninjutsu Is Awesome!” blares the opening of this rollicking ride through manga’s back alleys, created in 1969 by Sugiura—an artist who drew children’s gag manga before developing a postmodern pastiche of his own style aimed at older readers. Sasuke, a master ninja drawn to look like a mischievous little boy, uses his ninjutsu to steal food, wanders into rambling conversations peppered with fart jokes and pop music references, gets into slapstick fights with bizarre rival ninja and even more bizarre monsters, and occasionally, as if by afterthought, participates in vaguely historical samurai adventures. Sugiura mixes rubbery cartoon characters, realistic figures painstakingly copied from American comic books and movie stills (the ninja frequently fight cowboys and dinosaurs), imaginatively freakish monsters that sometimes wander behind the panels, and whatever else he feels like drawing, turning his pages into frenetic collages with surrealist and pop art notes. Manga expert Holmberg supplies an appropriately irreverent translation (“Eat my topknot!”) as well as a scholarly essay on the cultural context behind Sugiura’s freewheeling, relentlessly wacked-out visions. This eye-popping mash-up of kiddie cartoons and underground art is perfectly weird. (Sept.)