The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits is Upon Us!

Friends, the hour is upon us! The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, that is!

At long last, after months of waiting for books to arrive, and a crazy week of packing and shipping the rewards to the Kickstarter backers, my 2nd yokai encyclopedia is available to the public!

Pre-order the book now!

Nearly 2 years in the making, this has been an extremely fun and also exhausting project for me. I am really proud of the final product, and really happy to finally be able to release it to the world. At 286 pages, the book is 25% bigger than its predecessor, contains more yokai, and also has a full chapter dedicated to onmyōdō the black magic of classical Japan.

If you loved The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, you will love this book too. It follows the same format, presenting a page of yokai lore and a full color illustration for each entry. In response to popular request, The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits also contains a few longer entries, going into greater detail about the myths and legends of certain famous yokai. Just as before, there are silly yokai, scary yokai, strange yokai, and sexy yokai. It runs the whole spectrum!

Anyway, on to the most important question: How do I get a copy of the book?? There are a few ways:

1. You can order it from Amazon.com in Kindle or paperback format. Here is the link.

2. You can order it directly from me! I have a surplus of books from the Kickstarter, and I am offering them on a first-come-first-serve basis. This includes paperbacks, collector’s edition hardcovers, and slipcases for the hardcovers. There are a few advantages to ordering directly from me: first, you help support the creation of my yokai and artwork as the proceeds all go straight to me. Second, I will sign the book using my special signing pen which I got at the Abe no Seimei shrine in Kyoto. Third, you will be getting a super high quality special first edition copy of the book which are extremely limited in number (produced only for the Kickstarter)! I have paperbacks and collector’s edition hardcovers of both books, so you can even get a double set! To order directly from me, send me an email and tell me what you want!

My supply is limited, so if you want one of the collector’s editions try to order as soon as possible to ensure you get one before I run out.

2 thoughts on “The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits is Upon Us!

  1. Hi Matt!

    Success! Glad to hear that you were able to quit your day job and enter the yokai world as their first PR employee! I’m sure they are delighted (as much as they can be) that you are making them into celebrities.

    I was reading some of The Hour tonight, and I recall my college classes of nearly 50 years ago, especially the Ballads and Folklore of my English Lit major.

    You wrote about the worlds of men and yokai being very close together at certain times and in certain places. I was amazed by the similarities in Japanese and European folklore themes.

    At least in English folklore and ballads, liminality is seen as dangerous proximity by the human and spirit worlds, expressed in places like crossroads, the sea shore, bridges, plains/mountains conjunctions, earth’s surface versus caves or other entrances to the underworld. Especially dangerous are any beings encountered in the the liminal places or in the twilight or deep night, just like Japanese foklore.

    We encounter these liminal places in songs and ballads. If you have ever heard the old
    ballad, Scarborough Fair, done by Simon and Garfunkel, you hear about some liminal places; the sea strand for one, but also another standard feature of the “quest” ballads, the hero who seeks the hand of a woman in marriage. in order to win her, he must complete one or more “impossible” tasks and bring back a token that speaks of his success.

    Although S&G were singing Scarborough Fair as an anti-war song, you can hear the tasks: buying an acre of land “between the salt water and the sea strand”, making a shirt without seams or needle work, and reaping with a sickle leather.

    I haven’t been aware of this sort of thing in Japanese folklore, but I will reading more carefully now.

    Also, I joined up as a patron on your new venture.

    I have been enjoying your artwork very much, it never fails to lift my spirits whenever I see them,

    Thanks for reading my thoughts!

    Melinda Shoop
    Yakima WA

  2. Hi Melinda! Thanks for supporting my Patreon, and thanks for your comments!

    There’s definitely a lot of really cool cross-cultural similarities among various folklores. I’ve always been fascinated by the similarities, whether they are coincidental or actually share the same roots. Folklore has always been one of my passions, so being able to write and illustrate books and my blog on the topic is truly a dream come true!

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