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MANGA
Sixty Years Of Japanese Comics

MANGA: Sixty Years Of Japanese Comics
Written by Paul Gravett
Designed by Peter Stanbury
US $24.95, UK £19.95
ISBN 1 85669 391 0

Buy from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

Japan’s output of manga is massive, accounting for a staggering forty percent of everything published each year in the country. Outside Japan, there has been a global boom in sales, with the manga aesthetic spreading from comics into all areas of Western youth culture through film, computer games, advertising, and design. Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics presents an accessible, entertaining, and highly-illustrated introduction to the development and diversity of Japanese comics from 1945 to the present. Featuring striking graphics and extracts from a wide range of manga, the book covers such themes as the specific attributes of manga in contrast to American and European comics; the life and career of Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and originator of story manga; boys’ comics from the 1960s to the present; the genres and genders of girls’ and women’s comics; the darker, more realistic themes of gekiga - violent samurai, disturbing horror and apocalyptic science fiction; issues of censorship and protest; and manga’s role as a major Japanese export and global influence. Read an online preview of the book here.

AN INTRODUCTION TO… MANGA
Manga are getting everywhere. Japanese comics are invading your local bookshops, comics and music stores, even libraries, as never before. This is not some passing craze or flavour of the month. Manga look set to follow their phenomenal success across Europe as well as in the States, where over the past four years they have become by far the fastest growing category of book sold in America. Hardly a month goes by without another publisher joining market leaders Viz and TokyoPop in the field. Leading anime outfit ADV were a natural to diversify into manga, but more surprising are two of the latest entrants: DC Comics, home to Superman and Batman, and the major global player Penguin Books. Still, despite the flood of new titles, as many as 30 in one week, so far what we are seeing in English is only the tiniest toenail clipping of the big, scary Godzilla that is manga. Comics are so massive in Japan that they make up nearly 40 per cent of the sales of all publications. More…

EDITIONS

UK: Laurence King- 1st edition, 2004
USA: Collins Design - 1st edition, 2004
Brazil:  Conrad Editora - 1st edition 2006
Finland: Otava - 1st edition, 2005, 2nd edition 2006
France: Editions du Rocher - 1st edition 2005, 2nd edition 2006
Germany: Egmont - 1st edition 2006
Italy:  Logos - 1st edition 2006
Spain: OnlyBook - 1st edition 2006
Taiwan: Monkey Cultural - 1st edition 2006

ERRATA

With thanks to Béatrice Marechal, Mitsuhiro Asakawa, Yvan West Laurence, Tinet Elmgren and others who sent in their valuable feedback.

Page 22:
Bottom caption: Far right: In this scene, Tako no hacchan (‘Little-Eight the Octopus’) in naval uniform gets his chums to dress in sailor suits so they won’t walk around naked.

Page 42:
Last sentence at end of first paragraph: Its title, Garo, has been confused with a similar word for ‘art gallery’, but was actually named after a martyred warrior created by Shirato.

Page 47:
Last sentence: Here he helps Oshika carry out a daring horseback rescue of her husband, but there is no escaping their lethal pursuers. (Oshika/Sugaru is the mother.)

Page 56:
Caption for Go Nagai’s Grendizer: Above: The guy in the white sweater is Koji Kabuto, who as a teen piloted Go Nagai’s Mazinger Z in 1972. Later, in 1975, he joined Grendizer pilot Duke Fleed.

Page 63:
The two characters shown on the top left are Ultraman’s allies Andro Wolf in red and Andro Meros in green from the planet Andro. In the manga pages shown below, they join the Ultra Brothers to defend the planet Ultra from evil.

Page 66:
(Lower caption) Far right: Tatsuhiko Yamagami’s demented boy policeman Gaki Deka, naked save for his cap and tie, flashes his phallic daikon root vegetable. (Udon is a type of noodle, but the daikon root is a common phallic symbol.)

Page 98:
(Second paragraph, last sentence:) Hollywood itself has now started licensing manga and financing live-action adaptations of Akira, Lupin III and Lone Wolf and Cub. (Monkey Punch is the artist.)

Page 99:
The manga series Tokyo Story is called Tokyo Love Story.

Page 113:
(Last sentence) The artist’s name is Hitosi Iwaaki, not Awaaki.

Page 132:
Caption: The artist’s name is Shiriagari, not Siriagari.

Page 154:
(Left column, 3rd line from bottom, and right column, 1st line) Korean comics are called manhwa, not manwha.

Page 172:
The German edition of the book by Jaqueline Berndt is called “Phänomen Manga”.

Page 173:
The book by Wendy Siuyi Wong is called “Hong Kong Comics: A History of Manhua” (“Manhua” is the most commonly used term for Hong Kong comics).

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My Books

1001 Comics  You Must Read Before You Die edited by Paul Gravett

Comics Art by Paul Gravett from Tate Publishing








Comics Unmasked by Paul Gravett and John Harris Dunning from The British Library


Featured Books


Manga:
60 Years Of
Japanese Comics

by Paul Gravett
& Peter Stanbury

Which Manga will you read next? Here are a dozen top recommendations:


Buddha
by Tezuka
(Vertical)
Life-changing enlightenment


Barefoot Gen
by Nakazawa
(Last Gasp)
Surviving Hiroshima


Lone Wolf and Cub
by Goseki & Kojima
(Dark Horse)
Samurai epic


Domu
by Otomo
(Dark Horse)
High-rise superpowers


Nausicaä
by Miyazak
(Viz)
Ecological fantasy


The Walking Man
by Taniguchi
(Ponent Mon)
Awakening to nature


Happy Mania
by Moyocco Anno
(TokyoPop)
Sex-crazy ‘chick-lit’


Gon
by Tanaka
(DC/Paradox)
The toughest baby dinosaur


Uzumaki
by Ito
(Viz)
Spiralling horrors


Club 9
by Kobayashi
(Dark Horse)
Antics of a bar hostess


GTO
by Fujisama
(TokyoPop)
Punk schoolteacher rules


Eagle
by Kawaguchi
(Viz)
‘West Wing’-style political thriller