Gold Mask - Softcover

Edogawa Rampo (pseudonym of Hirai Tarō, 1894-1965) is the acknowledged grand master of Japan's golden age of crime and mystery fiction. In the early part of his career, he created the Japanese Gothic mystery, developing the work of Edgar Allan Poe and related nineteenth century writers in a distinctly Japanese form. This part of his career coincided with a great flowering in Japanese literature and culture, a relatively free and uninhibited popular press being a defining feature of the times. In this context, Rampo's dark vision and extravagant grotesquery found an avid readership, and had a profound influence on other writers. Public morals tightened in the years leading up to Japan's Asian and Pacific wars, and censorship was tight in the war years. Rampo's early work fell out of favor, and he turned to adventure stories with detective characters in leading roles. After the war, he concentrated on stories for young readers, and on developing the Japan Association of Mystery Writers. The Edogawa Rampo Prize, originally endowed by Rampo himself, is awarded annually to the finest work of the year in the mystery genre. It is the most important prize of its type in Japan. Edogawa Rampo-whose name is meant to be read as a punning reference to 'Edgar Allan Poe'-remains popular and influential in Japan. His work remains in print, in various different editions, and his stories provide the background for a steady stream of film, television, and theatrical adaptations.

William Varteresian is a translator currently living just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He is a lover of weird tales and detective fiction, especially of the early twentieth century, and hopes to make more of Japan's distinguished history of imaginative and bizarre tales accessible to Western readers.

Mike Dubisch can see into other dimensions, they say. His art and subject matter are pulled from pulp science-fiction, EC comics, Heavy Metal, fantasy art and horror fiction, and he cites his greatest influences fantasy and comics illustrators Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben, Bernie Wrightson, Moebius, Barry Windsor Smith, Wally Wood, Greg Irons, Alex Niño and Jack Kirby. In recent years Dubisch has become a figure in the world of Cthulhu Mythos fandom, publishing his Cthulhu Mythos space fantasy Weirdling, a graphic novel collecting his independent comic books, and releasing the limited edition collectible art-book The Black Velvet Necronomicon: Black Velvet Cthulhu. Dubisch paintings are usually created in mixed media, utilizing pencil, colored ink, gouache, and colored pencil. In his work, he strives to put human into the inhuman-to render the unreal as real-to make a static image appear full of movement, and to render shadow as full of light.