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Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History
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.
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.
270 pages, Paperback
Published November 12, 2021
About the author
Eike Exner
4 books7 followersEIKE 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.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 12, 2022
2022 Eisner Award winner - Best Academic/Scholarly Work
I was expecting a book that looked at manga from Osamu Tezuka, the so-called "god of manga", to the present. But Tezuka is only mentioned briefly and at the very end of the book. Exner starts with the late 19th Century and into the early 20th Century, specifically the 1920s, to show that manga are firmly rooted in the imitation of U.S. comic strips of that period, particularly Bringing Up Father by George McManus, not the ancient Japanese picture scrolls that other manga historians have tried to claim.
But although the focus of the book is on manga, it really spends a majority of time on the evolution of comics in general--particularly how the nascent art of cinema influenced how comics were presented. Exner introduces the terms intradiegetic, extradiegetic, and transdiegetic to define elements of cinema and comics that are perceptible to characters inside the story, perceptible only to the audience, and devices representing sound and movement perceptible to story characters but do so in ways that are perceptible only to the audience, respectively. For example, in cinema, music from a band or radio that the characters can hear is intradiegetic but theme or background music that the characters do not hear is extradiegetic. In comics, examples of transdiegetic elements are word balloons and speed lines, since they are integral to telling the story but are invisible to the characters. Exner's thesis is that the audiovisual components of cinema influenced how U.S. comics were presented, also making them an "audiovisual" medium. Then, as translated U.S. comics were reprinted in Japanese newspapers and magazines, these audiovisual components were copied by Japanese creators.
The concepts of intradiegetic, extradiegetic, and transdiegetic are something I have subconsciously known since learning how to read comics at a very young age, but are not necessarily obvious to someone who does not read comics regularly. Perhaps this is part of why some people have difficulty understanding comics. This is an eye-opening idea that will help me better appreciate comics from now on.
I think Exner correctly points out that manga and U.S. comics are not really that much different. Sure, there are some artistic style differences, but these are minimal compared to the overwhelming similarities in the language of sequential storytelling that developed in the early 20th Century.
This book is meticulously researched, with lots of footnotes and plenty of illustrations. I can only imagine the hundreds (thousands?) of hours Exner spent reading old Japanese periodicals (and other primary sources) to uncover the information he presents. Yet the book is quite readable, not a dry academic textbook at all, with the main text only about 190 pages.
I was expecting a book that looked at manga from Osamu Tezuka, the so-called "god of manga", to the present. But Tezuka is only mentioned briefly and at the very end of the book. Exner starts with the late 19th Century and into the early 20th Century, specifically the 1920s, to show that manga are firmly rooted in the imitation of U.S. comic strips of that period, particularly Bringing Up Father by George McManus, not the ancient Japanese picture scrolls that other manga historians have tried to claim.
But although the focus of the book is on manga, it really spends a majority of time on the evolution of comics in general--particularly how the nascent art of cinema influenced how comics were presented. Exner introduces the terms intradiegetic, extradiegetic, and transdiegetic to define elements of cinema and comics that are perceptible to characters inside the story, perceptible only to the audience, and devices representing sound and movement perceptible to story characters but do so in ways that are perceptible only to the audience, respectively. For example, in cinema, music from a band or radio that the characters can hear is intradiegetic but theme or background music that the characters do not hear is extradiegetic. In comics, examples of transdiegetic elements are word balloons and speed lines, since they are integral to telling the story but are invisible to the characters. Exner's thesis is that the audiovisual components of cinema influenced how U.S. comics were presented, also making them an "audiovisual" medium. Then, as translated U.S. comics were reprinted in Japanese newspapers and magazines, these audiovisual components were copied by Japanese creators.
The concepts of intradiegetic, extradiegetic, and transdiegetic are something I have subconsciously known since learning how to read comics at a very young age, but are not necessarily obvious to someone who does not read comics regularly. Perhaps this is part of why some people have difficulty understanding comics. This is an eye-opening idea that will help me better appreciate comics from now on.
I think Exner correctly points out that manga and U.S. comics are not really that much different. Sure, there are some artistic style differences, but these are minimal compared to the overwhelming similarities in the language of sequential storytelling that developed in the early 20th Century.
This book is meticulously researched, with lots of footnotes and plenty of illustrations. I can only imagine the hundreds (thousands?) of hours Exner spent reading old Japanese periodicals (and other primary sources) to uncover the information he presents. Yet the book is quite readable, not a dry academic textbook at all, with the main text only about 190 pages.
May 3, 2022
Absolutely fascinating and essential reading for any manga and/or comics fan. Covers a period in the history of comics that is often glossed over and it's influence on sequential art in Japan. Exner has painstakingly researched decades of history on manga, western comics, and caricature, compiling it into a neat couple hundred pages that reads easy despite it's academic nature. This deserves a spot on your shelf right alongside Frederik Schodt's Manga Manga.
Sidenote: I'm absolutely getting a Bringing Up Father tattoo.
Sidenote: I'm absolutely getting a Bringing Up Father tattoo.
August 3, 2023
An outstanding and frankly humbling work of scholarship. The diligence and academic discipline required to complete this essential archaeology is inspiring, to say the least.
October 2, 2023
This was an amazing deep dive into the origins of a medium I have grown up loving. It made me appreciate how the mechanisms of storytelling are constantly evolving through time. I respect this book’s attention to detail and dedication to historical accuracy, giving credit to where credit is due. It is truly the hard work and experimentation of so many people across the world that have provided us with the gift of the characters and stories we cherish today.
The evolution of audiovisual storytelling through comics truly is remarkable, and makes me wonder what kinds of innovations in storytelling are still waiting to be discovered.
The evolution of audiovisual storytelling through comics truly is remarkable, and makes me wonder what kinds of innovations in storytelling are still waiting to be discovered.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews