Frederik L. Schodt’s book Manga! Manga! first introduced Japanese manga comics to Western readers more than thirty years ago, and since then there have been several coffee-table books on the subject. But Eike Exner’s Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics, published this month, is the first complete narrative history of manga.
Based on archival research in Japan, Exner’s book is a revisionist study that deviates from the standard account of other manga historians, who have characterised manga as the culmination of a thousand-year history of inherently Japanese visual culture. Exner previously challenged this myth in Comics and the Origins of Manga, and his new work is a significant expansion of that earlier book’s scope.
Based on archival research in Japan, Exner’s book is a revisionist study that deviates from the standard account of other manga historians, who have characterised manga as the culmination of a thousand-year history of inherently Japanese visual culture. Exner previously challenged this myth in Comics and the Origins of Manga, and his new work is a significant expansion of that earlier book’s scope.
As he writes in the introduction to Manga, “this book seeks to provide a coherent account of how comics were established in Japan, how comics have changed over the decades, and how an entire industry arose around Japanese comics and turned the country into the world’s largest exporter of comics.” The book also includes a manga chronology, detailed endnotes, and an extensive bibliography.
Exner’s book is likely to become the standard history of manga, though there are other useful books on the topic. Manga Design (revised as 100 Manga Artists), by Amano Masanao and Julius Wiedemann, profiles mangaka (manga artists). Schodt translated Toshio Ban’s The Osamu Tezuka Story, a biography of the most influential mangaka. Helen McCarthy’s The Art of Osamu Tezuka is a monograph on Tesuka’s manga and anime.
Exner’s book is likely to become the standard history of manga, though there are other useful books on the topic. Manga Design (revised as 100 Manga Artists), by Amano Masanao and Julius Wiedemann, profiles mangaka (manga artists). Schodt translated Toshio Ban’s The Osamu Tezuka Story, a biography of the most influential mangaka. Helen McCarthy’s The Art of Osamu Tezuka is a monograph on Tesuka’s manga and anime.
