Uncivilized Books has announced that they are joining the manga boom with a new imprint. Called Mangalith, it will launch in October with the pioneering shojo manga Fire!, by Hideko Mizuno.
Founded by Tom Kaczynski in 2009, Uncivilized Books is a Minneapolis-based alternative comics publisher, starting out as a home for minicomics and alt comics pamphlets before broadening further into graphic novels, and other formats. Uncivilized has published work by Noah Van Sciver, MariNaomi, Gabrielle Bell and Craig Thompson. Thompson’s most recent book, Ginseng Roots (2025), was first serialised at Uncivilized before Pantheon picked up the finished work. It also has a kids imprint, called ODOD Books.
Mangalith was formed last year as a partnership between founder Tom Kaczynski and Living the Line’s Sean Michael Robinson (who forms half of the alt manga Smudge team with Ryan Holmberg). Described both as a publishing imprint and design studio, it combines Robinson’s manga expertise with Kaczynski’s own independent publishing experience.
According to Kaczynski,
“I’ve been surrounded by a lot of manga lately. Besides carrying Sean’s (Living the Line) manga here at Uncivilized, the two of us have been doing production on D&Q’s amazing Kamui series! When the opportunity presented itself to start a manga imprint, I jumped at the chance, and… Mangalith was born!”
The kick off is Fire!, a legendary classic heretofore unavailable in the English language. Its author, Hideko Mizuno, started out professionally as a mangaka in 1955, and became one of the first women to find success with shojo manga – emotive stories traditionally targeted at a young female demographic – in the 1960s and 1970s. It seems none of her work has seen print in English and Fire! is a very interesting place to start – serialised between 1969 and 1971, it was the first shojo manga to feature a male protagonist and won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award in 1970.
Fire! will be a 896-page softcover, retailing for $49.99, with a release date set for October 14. Uncivilized is offering a 15% discount for the first hundred preorders.
Kaczynski explains this choice,
“Classic shojo manga has been almost entirely absent from the English localization wave of the last two decades — a blind spot that has left anglophone readers without access to key works that shaped the medium. Mizuno is the acknowledged forerunner of the Year 24 Group [women mangaka who shaped the modern form of shojo]. The artists — Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, Riyoko Ikeda — are already familiar to all American Manga fans. Fire! is the missing ancestor: the work you need to understand later developments.”
He adds,
“For fifty years, Fire! languished unknown in America. We’re delighted to finally bring this essential work to English readers.”
The Uncivilized synopsis for the book:
“Fire! follows the meteoric rise and fall of Aaron Browning, a troubled and poor Ohio teenager. In juvenile detention, Aaron meets the magnetic delinquent Fire Wolf—a motorcycle-riding rebel with an extraordinary musical talent. Their intense bond awakens a fiery passion for music in Aaron.
“Aaron moves to Detroit’s gritty factories and underground scene, where he forms the band Fire! to channel his emotions, rebellion, and raw energy. As fame explodes, he plunges into the era’s excesses—sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, Vietnam-era shadows—embodying the intoxicating yet destructive pursuit of freedom.
“Fire! immerses the reader in the turbulent late 1960s. A fascinating peek at the vibrant American rock music scene of the time. Aaron, inspired by Scott Walker, blazes across the pages, colliding with iconic personalities and legendary bands of the era.”
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