Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History

by Eike Exner

Overview

2022 Eisner Award Winner for Best Academic/Scholarly Work

Japanese comics, commonly known as manga, are a global sensation. Critics, scholars, and everyday readers have often viewed this artform through an Orientalist framework, treating manga as the exotic antithesis to American and European comics. In reality, the history of manga is deeply intertwined with Japan’s avid importation of Western technology and popular culture in the early twentieth century.
 
Comics and the Origins of Manga reveals how popular U.S. comics characters like Jiggs and Maggie, the Katzenjammer Kids, Felix the Cat, and Popeye achieved immense fame in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Modern comics had earlier developed in the United States in response to new technologies like motion pictures and sound recording, which revolutionized visual storytelling by prompting the invention of devices like speed lines and speech balloons. As audiovisual entertainment like movies and record players spread through Japan, comics followed suit. Their immediate popularity quickly encouraged Japanese editors and cartoonists to enthusiastically embrace the foreign medium and make it their own, paving the way for manga as we know it today.
 
By challenging the conventional wisdom that manga evolved from centuries of prior Japanese art and explaining why manga and other comics around the world share the same origin story, Comics and the Origins of Manga offers a new understanding of this increasingly influential artform.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978827226
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	11/12/2021
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

EIKE EXNER is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Josai International University in Tokyo. His research has appeared in the International Journal of Comic Art, ImageTexT, and The Comics World, and he has received the John A. Lent Award in Comics Studies.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Preface xi

A Note on Images xv

Introduction 1

Prologue: The Historical Origins and Changing Meaning of "Manga" up to 1923 13

1 "Popular in Society at Large": The First Talking Manga 25

2 "Listen Vunce!": The Audiovisual Revolution in Graphic Narrative 54

3 When Krazy Kat Spoke Japanese: Japan's Massive Importation of Foreign Audiovisual Comics 96

4 From Aso Yutaka to Tezuka Osamu: How Manga Made in Japan Adopted the Form of Audiovisual Comics 139

Epilogue: The Myth of Manga as a "Traditional Mode of Expression" 180

Appendix: List of Foreign Comics in Japan, 1908-1945 193

Brief Chronology 201

Acknowledgments 203

Notes 205

Bibliography 235

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

"This is an excellent book that I enjoyed reading immensely. The topic is timely and important and the scholarship is meticulous and comprehensive."

author of Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 - Gennifer Weisenfeld

"Really enjoyed this book. Fascinating examination of how early American comic strips influenced the develop of manga than is generally acknowledged. Highly recommended."

The Comics Journal writer - Chris Mautner

Eike Exner has meticulously researched voluminous archival materials transnationally, analyzed them critically and carefully, and, in the process, challenged, contradicted, and corrected the history of manga’s origins. Without any reservation, a history-altering masterpiece!

founder/publisher/editor-in-chief, International Journal of Comic Art - John A. Lent

...a compelling investigation of an historical 'audio-visual' dialogue between the 'sound images' of comics and manga...this text becomes a meaningful revelation of the unique and multifarious histories of world print and comic cultures.

editor of Mechademia - Frenchy Lunning

"'Comics and The Origins of Manga charts the vital influence of US comic strips in Japan (as early as 1908) and to manga creators' incorporating balloons, sound effects and other audiovisual elements inside their panels."

author of Kent State - Derf Backderf

"Its innovative perspective lies above all in the precision of the documentation and the scrupulous study of the phenomena of translation and borrowing as well as in the history of the narrative and auditory device of the comic strip. For all these reasons, it is a book that stands out for its effects of transmission of both knowledge and sound effects!"

Neuvieme Art

I have been waiting many years to see something like Eike Exner’s Comics and the Origins of Manga. Modern Japanese comics, or 'manga,' have enjoyed huge success around the world in the last three decades. So much so that today some fans occasionally seem to think manga—perhaps even all comics—are really a purely Japanese invention. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. In his book, using primary sources from inside and outside Japan, Eike Exner does a wonderful job of cutting through both mist and myths and showing us another reality."

author of Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga - Frederik L. Schodt

"Terrific book by Eike Exner - Comics and the Origins of Manga. A brisk-reading but deeply-researched study of the impact American comic strips had on the development of manga in the early decades of the 20th century. New from Rutgers University Press. 'I recommend it.' -me"

The Comics Journal editor - Joe McCulloch

New Books Network: New Books in Japanese Studies interview with Eike Exner

New Books Network: New Books in Japanese Studies

"Through subtle formal analysis and groundbreaking archival research, Comics and the Origins of Manga makes a compelling argument for the strong influence of translated American comics on the development of modern Japanese manga.

author of Comics and Stuff - Henry Jenkins

"Comics and the Origins of Manga is a fascinating, materialist account of the history shared between the Japanese and Euro-American comics traditions. With the rise of manga as a globally dominant idiom, the prewar development of the form has been of increasing interest to artists and researchers alike. Eike Exner’s thorough, elucidating scholarship tracks this history in an engaging manner in what will undoubtedly be an important English-language reference work on the subject for years to come. Highly recommended."

cartoonist - Adam Buttrick

"Exner’s work is stunningly rigorous and detailed, surfacing a wealth of examples and specific moments of exchange."

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics - Shawn Gilmore