The Dorohedoro Manga Gallery
This is the paper shelf: every Japanese tankobon cover of Dorohedoro, the complete Ikki Comix run from 2002 to 2018. Q Hayashida painted each cover herself. She works without assistants, and the covers are part of that same single-handed labour, not a separate commission.
The title means something close to mud and sludge, and the books look like it: textured grounds, snakeskin, gingham, bare colour fields, and a brush-stroke logo that changes colour on every volume. The cast rotates across the covers like a repertory company. The run opens and closes on the same two people.
THE FIRST AND THE LAST
Dorohedoro, 2002 and 2018Volume 1 and volume 23
Hayashida opens the run with her hero masked and alone, and closes it with the mask off the story: the two friends side by side, saying goodbye. Every cover between them is a portrait of one or two cast members, painted by the same hand that drew the pages.
VOLUMES 1 TO 8
The Ikki years begin, 2002 to 2006
VOLUMES 9 TO 16
The long middle, 2007 to 2011
VOLUMES 17 TO 23
To the end, 2012 to 2018
