(Episode Four: In which our explorations lead us to a much-lauded work of horror manga.)

Mention that you're curious about manga, and one of the first names manga-philes will likely offer is Junji Ito. The young writer/artist has staked a place for himself in the realm of horror comics, primarily on the basis of two limited series: Tomie and Uzumaki. I went looking for both at my local comic shop and chain bookstores - of the two, Uzumaki (Viz) was easier to find. I was able to buy all three volumes in the series over two weeks' time.

Unlike the other GN paperbacks I've been reading, Uzumaki isn't printed in the back-to-front format of "100% manga;" instead, it's been reconfigured for Western readers. For a moment, the mango dabbler in me rebeled against this concession - hey, I've invested time and energy in training my eyes to read backwards . . . what' the deal? - but that momentary hubris abated once I delved into Ito's beautifully textured artwork.

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Hard to imagine an idea less promising than the one put forth in Uzumaki, a trilogy about a Japanese town named Kurozc-cho that's haunted and ultimately destroyed by spirals. Spirals! Memories of cheesy B-pictures with villainous hypnotists immediately pop into play. (Cue the theremin.) Quick! Hide the Spiro-graph! It's ee-vil!

Once I started reading the series, it became obvious that Ito has anticipated my initial smart-assed reaction. Not only is he aware of the essential absurdist nature of his conceit, he also strives to stretch it as far as he can. Much has been written about the fine line between horror and comedy: Uzumaki swirls around that line like one of its own mad dust devils. There are scenes in all three books that make the reader go aw, c'mon! - only to veer into ghastly seriousness. If Ito isn't always fully successful in maintaining control of his tone, you have to admire his audacity.

The series is narrated by a teenaged girl, Kirie Goshima, who winds up at the literal center of most of the events that hit her town. Her best friend, a bespectacled boy named Shiuchi, is the one who serves as harbinger of doom, in part because his father is the first to come under sway of dark forces. As Kirie walks to the train station to meet her friend, she happens upon Shuichi's father, crouched in an alley staring at an empty snail shell. When she describes this scene to Shuichi, the young boy goes off, stating that the town is making him and his family crazy. "This town is contaminated by spirals!" he says, and we quickly learn his father has grown so obsessed by the shape that he's quit his job and has taken to collecting samples of it: sea-shells, springs, children's toys, dress patterns. He goes to Kirie's father, a potter, and asks him to create a ceramic spiral, and in so doing sparks the potter's own self-destructive fixation with this ubiquitous geometric form.