No. 025, in eight platesSurreal Japan

Surreal Japan takes the claw-tipped waves and scalloped clouds of Edo-period woodblock prints and redraws them in the thick, confident ink of an underground comic. The colours are few and loud: tangerine orange, a dusty purple, khaki paper and a cream that fills every curl of foam. Each plate adds one impossible machine to the sea, and that collision of old print and pulp science fiction is what binds the eight together.

A fish-tailed airship hovers on cables over a giant orange bottle bobbing in purple surf. A submarine bursts out of a cream breaker against a flat orange sky, and an airliner crosses a setting sun while another bottle rides the swell below. Two figures in a rowing boat are thrown clear between two walls of water. A rocket blasts off from behind a wave, a bullet train glides over a pagoda and a deep blue swell, and in the last two plates a river of lava meets the sea while flying saucers lift off overhead.

Most compositions put the action in the upper half and the waves at the bottom, which is lively but means the clock may cross a cloud or a fuselage. The calmest tops are the plain orange skies of the submarine and saucer plates. The waves pile up where the dock sits, so a Home Screen looks best with a lighter grid; black outlines everywhere keep white labels readable over the orange.

Good company for anyone who loves Japanese prints but wants them with a sense of mischief, and for fans of retro sci-fi and indie comics. Message in a Bottle and Surfacing are free in full resolution, and the rest are premium.