Where it all began

Your parents probably think that comic books started back in the 1930s and 1940s with Superman and Batman.

They’re wrong.

While true comic books have been around for less than one hundred years, Japanese artists have been producing illustrated books for centuries.  Today, Japanese comic books and graphic novels are referred to as “manga.”

The famous Japanese artist Hokusai (he lived from 1760 until 1849) coined the term manga in 1815 when he referred to some of his comic sketches as “man” (which means whimsical or careless) “ga” (which means drawings).  He was just sketching – and “manga” was born.

(By the way – let’s go back to Superman for a second.  I’m willing to bet you don’t read Superman comics… but did you know that collectors pay over $150,000 for Action Comics #1, where Superman first appeared?  You may not read Superman, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind owning that one.)

In the United States, a lot of people – mostly adults – think comic books, graphic novels, and animation are only for kids.  That’s not true in Japan – comics and animation are as popular and widely accepted as books or movies.  (That’s also why some Japanese comics are as violent and sexually-oriented as they are.  Some series are written and illustrated specifically for adults, not for kids or teenagers.)  Also unlike in the U.S., Japanese comics and animation often tell stories about “real” or “normal” people, not just about super heroes or super villains.

Some manga produced in Japan is published weekly as part of huge 300-page anthologies of comic stories.  Just like many people read newspapers on trains on the way to work, Japanese commuters read these anthologies.  They’re considered to be cheap entertainment, so they’re read and thrown away.  While American comic books (like the Action Comics issue I mentioned earlier) are saved and stored away by people hoping they’ll be worth a lot more someday, there’s no “collector” interest in manga in Japan.  Saving one of the 300 page anthologies would be like saving yesterday’s newspaper – no one does it.

The anthologies are incredibly popular, and manga artists have crazy schedules, many having to pump out sixteen or twenty pages per week to keep up.  Being an average manga artist is probably really fun, but it’s also very demanding.

If you’ve ever picked up a manga graphic novel, you’ve noticed something else: the book seems backwards. Why?  Most Asian books are read from left to right.  Our last page is their first page.  (The cover seems like it’s on backwards, too.)  Reading a real Japanese graphic novel, even if it’s been translated, can seem a little weird at first, since every time you turn the page it feels like you’re going backwards.

Many U.S. writers and illustrators now produce manga.  A lot of people call their work “American manga” or “Western manga,” since it’s not produced in Japan by Japanese writers and artists.  (Purists generally do not call non-Japanese comics “manga,” even if they’re drawn in an appropriate style.)