When one has seen thousands of kanji, one develops a sort of feeling for what is a real kanji and what is not.
And if I had seen this one in print and outside of context somewhere, I would have bet all my money that it's a typographic glitch:
虱
Yet it exists, both in Japanese and Chinese. The non-simplified version makes a bit more sense:
蝨
There is an artist in China who has created huge canvasses with writing, all in invented characters that look real. I forget his name yet if I find it, I will post a link here.
And if I had seen this one in print and outside of context somewhere, I would have bet all my money that it's a typographic glitch:
虱
Yet it exists, both in Japanese and Chinese. The non-simplified version makes a bit more sense:
蝨
There is an artist in China who has created huge canvasses with writing, all in invented characters that look real. I forget his name yet if I find it, I will post a link here.

