Kappa Notebook: Deep Water — Manuela Schiano

Kappa Notebook: Deep Water is a textless comic by Manuela Schiano, published by Hollow Press in October 2025. It traces an encounter between a girl and a kappa — a yokai from Japanese folklore — across 56 pages of B/W offset printing on Munken paper, bound in a stitched hardcover.

About the Work

The narrative unfolds without words. A girl meets a kappa, and what follows is governed by desire, shifting control, and ambiguity. The register is adult. Moral boundaries are not fixed — they form, dissolve, and re-form as the sequence progresses.

Meaning is carried entirely through gesture, ink density, and the rhythm of page turns. Schiano's line work is deliberate and detail-oriented, drawing on her print-focused practice. The absence of text is not a constraint but a formal decision: the images are composed to be read, not illustrated.

As a work in the Surreal & Experimental Comics tradition, Kappa Notebook: Deep Water operates through visual sequence alone — pacing, weight, and composition carry the full narrative load.

Production

• Publisher: Hollow Press, October 2025, first printing
• Format: Hardcover, stitched binding, 17 × 24 cm
• Pages / print: 56 pages, B/W offset, Munken paper
• Cover finish: Glossy black with black opaque UV spot
• Edges: Black lapping
• Edition: 1500 copies, first printing

Series Context

Kappa Notebook: Deep Water is the second title in Hollow Press's women-led erotic tale series. The full catalogue of Hollow Press titles is available at Lokator100.