The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 7

Collecting can take over a fan's life . . . but what if it takes over their death as well? Zombie robot otaku and plastic-surgery disasters are only the latest faces of horror as Kurosagi continues its eternal struggle to turn corpses into cash! Yet with Kuro trapped in a coma and seeing visions of the dark forces battling over him, it's up to the rest of the gang to survive the grotesque schemes of the White Heron pair . . . as dead flesh reaches for the living!

There are six deliveries (i.e., chapters) but only three stories in the seventh KCDS collection. The single-delivery first caper arises from one of the KCDS’ frequent nonprofessional engagements (gotta pay the bills, y’know) that has the three male members resorting to robotics to help with a gravestone-schlepping job. The two-delivery second scenario, in which cosmetic surgery meets embryonic stem-cell manipulation, is just as clever and a lot creepier. The third, longest case, involving murders on a movie set, is the weakest conceptually, but the series’ deft blending of gore and gags keeps it highly amusing. Nobody does horror-comedy comics better than Otsuka and Yamazaki. --Ray Olson