Previously on Comics Forum, Monden Masafumi shed light on the fact that Japanese shōjo manga discourse tends to prioritize a gender-related perspective, disregarding the majority of graphic narratives which do not fit a subversive reading of the genre, or even dismissing them for their allegedly conservative representation of femininity. But this is not the only one-sided approach to shōjo manga, there is also a historical bias at play. Shōjo manga of the 1970s, notably works by the so-called Magnificent 49ers (see below), have been the main focus of discussion, overshadowing other eras, both before and after. In the following overview, I will outline how the 70s and especially the 49ers ended up as the center of attention, how this favoritism has obscured other periods, and finally how views on shōjo manga history are beginning to change.
Tag Archives: History
Manga Studies #8: Shōjo Manga History: The Obscured Decades by Dalma Kálovics
Posted by HannahMiodrag on 2015/06/11 in Gender, Guest Writers, Manga Studies, Women
Tags: A history of postwar shōjo manga, adult readership, Aim for the Ace!, authorship, cross-dressing, Dachs, Eureka, French revolution, Fried burdock for maidens in full bloom, Fujimoto Yukari, Gender, gender roles, Hagio Moto, haha-mono, Hashimoto Osamu, History, Igarashi Yumiko, Ikeda Riyoko, Ishiko Junzō, Iwashita Hōsei, Japan, Japanese manga, kashihon, Magnificent 49ers, Maki Miyako, manga, manga criticism, manga studies, Mizuno Hideko, Murakami Tomohiko, Nakajima Azusa, Osamu Tezuka, Princess Knight, Puff, Satonaka Machiko, sexuality, Shōji Yōko, shōjo, shōnen, Shūkan Margaret, Takemiya Keiko, tankōbon, Tezuka Osamu, The Rose of Versailles, The world of shōjo manga, Watanabe Masako, watashi-gatari, Westernization, Yamagishi Ryōko, Yonezawa Yoshihiro, Ōgi Fusami, Ōshima Yumiko, Ōtsuka Eiji
The International Bande Dessinée Society: February 2015 by Lisa Tannahill and Chris O’Neill
Welcome to the second edition of the International Bande Dessinée Society column, a look back at developments in the world of bande dessinée (francophone comics) scholarship and research.
No retrospective examination of the year in bande dessinée can overlook the tragic events of January 2015: the shooting at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The events and their ramifications have been discussed endlessly in the press, and discussion of the political or wider global effects of the attack is far beyond the remit of this column. However, the deaths of Stéphane Charbonnier (Charb), Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut (Cabu), Bernard Verlhac (Tignous) and Philippe Honoré represent a huge loss for not only Charlie Hebdo but the wider world of bande dessinée. Several of them were key figures in the development of post-war bande dessinée and wider visual culture in France. For example, Cabu and Wolinski’s work appeared in Charlie Hebdo from its beginnings in 1969 as well as its predecessor Hara-Kiri. Cabu and Charb, along with economist Bernard Maris, who was also killed, were instrumental in the resurrection of Charlie Hebdo in 1992 (publication had ceased in 1981). It is this incarnation which continues to the present day. Charlie Hebdo represents a particularly French tradition of satirical cartooning which lost many of its most important figures in the attacks. If you would like to know more about Charlie Hebdo and its place in French culture, Berghahn has published an informative blog post by Mark McKinney (University of Miami, Ohio) at their site, as well as making available two articles from European Comic Art: a history of the journal and its politics, as well as an interview with Cabu.
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
Posted by HannahMiodrag on 2015/03/18 in International Bande Dessinée Society
Tags: Angouleme, Ann Miller, bande dessinée, Bart Beaty, Bastien Vivès, Benoît Peeters, Bernard Maris, Cabu, Charb, Charlie Hebdo, Chris Ware, Christian Maucler, David B., Dominique Cerbelaud, Enem, European Comic Art, Fabrice Leroy, France, Francis Lacassin, Georges Wolinski, German occupation of France, Hara-Kiri, Hergé, History, Jan Baetens, Jewish identity, Joann Sfar, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mark McKinney, memory, newspaper strips, Olivier Roche, Pascal Lefèvre, Philippe Honoré, Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle, Ralph Soupault, Riad Sattouf, Rodolphe Töpffer, Salon des Ouvrages sur la Bande Dessinée, satirical cartooning, The Adventures of Tintin, Thierry Crépin, Thierry Groensteen, Tignous, Tintin, Vichy, Vincent Pompetti, WWII
Manga Studies #6: Takeuchi Osamu and Manga Expression pt. 2: The Historiographic Basis of Manga Formalism by Nicholas Theisen
In part one, I showed how the manga artist Tezuka Osamu and his body of work function as more than a mere object of analysis within manga studies but as a totalizing discourse upon which a number of larger critical concerns are projected. This has the rather odd effect of rendering “Tezuka” a milieu which can absorb even those critiques which seek to overcome a Tezuka-centric purview as to what manga might be in both historical and formal terms. I used the critical writings of Takeuchi Osamu not to evaluate them as such but to demonstrate the discursive mechanics of this totalizing absorption. In part two below, I will once again use Takeuchi’s critical oeuvre to examine, in addition to how the critic’s own personal predilections can become subsumed into seemingly objective claims, the assumptions underlying manga formalism: how manga fit with other media, how manga is understood as children’s literature, and how manga is treated as, if not entirely presumed to be, a predominantly postwar phenomenon.
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
Posted by HannahMiodrag on 2015/01/09 in Guest Writers, Manga Studies
Tags: adult readership, aesthetics, akahon, Allied occupation of Japan, boku-gatari, Chame, children readers, children’s literature, Chōjū jinbutstu giga, ehon, emakimono, emonogatari, fandom, Gendai manga hakubutsukan, Giants of Children’s Manga, graphic narrative, Hasegawa Machiko, historiography, History, illustrated stories, Japan, jaqueline berndt, Kitazawa Rakuten, koma manga, manga criticism, manga hyōgen, Manga no sengo shisō, Mangashugi, Meiji Restoration, Miyamoto Hirohito, Natsume Fusanosuke, newspaper strips, Osamu Tezuka, Paul Gravett, periodicals, post-war period, rakugaki, Ryan Holmberg, Sazae-san, semiotics, Sengo manga no 50nen-shi, Sharon Kinsella, Shisō no kagaku, shōjo, shōnen, sociology, subjective criticism, Takeuchi Osamu, Tezuka, Tezuka Osamu, Thoughts on Manga in the Postwar, Tokyo Puck, Tsurumi Shunsuke, WWII, Yamada Tomoko, Yomota Inuhiko, Yonezawa Yoshihiro
Manga Studies #2: Manga history: Shimizu Isao and Miyamoto Hirohito on Japan’s first modern ‘manga’ artist Kitazawa Rakuten by Ronald Stewart
Kitazawa Rakuten’s (1876~1955) place in manga history is secure. Yet the two important manga historians of today, Shimizu Isao and Miyamoto Hirohito, diverge considerably in their understandings of what Kitazawa represents in this history. Shimizu sees him in terms of continuity, while Miyamoto sees him in terms of discontinuity. Both of these scholars are in agreement that Kitazawa was Japan’s first modern manga artist and that he was an important figure in early-twentieth century manga development. However, Shimizu considers Kitazawa as an important link in a manga history that connects manga’s present to ancient Japanese past, whereas Miyamoto views him as part of a radical separation from the past that established and popularized a new genre recognizable as manga today.
Here I want to explore these two scholars’ contrasting perspectives on manga history with a focus on Kitazawa whose own thoughts on manga I will take up at the end. As many readers are probably not familiar with this artist, I will firstly sketch out his life and career.
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
Posted by Comics Forum on 2014/06/14 in Guest Writers, Manga Studies
Tags: art, Box of Curios, Chame, Chojūgiga, Dekobō, Frank A. Nankivell, History, Hokusai, Hosokibara Seiki, humour, image-text, Imaizumi Ippyō, Ishiko Jun, Japan, Japanese manga, Jiji Manga, Jiji Shinpō, Katei Puck, Kidorō, Kitazawa Rakuten, Kitazawa Yasuji, manga, manga criticism, manga studies, Milano Manga Festival, Miyamoto Hirohito, Miyao Shigeo, Mokubei, newspaper strips, Okamoto Ippei, ponchi, Punch, Rakuten Puck, ronald stewart, satirical cartooning, Shimizu Isao, Suyama Keiichi, Tagosaku, Tokyo Puck, USA, woodblock prints, Yurakusha
Maus in the Indonesian Classroom by Philip Smith
As regular readers of Comics Forum are aware, the site recently featured a Themed Month which sought to examine comics as cultural production. The issue looked first at the work of comic book authors (Woo 2013) and ended with an autobiographical account of one scholar’s experiment as a comic book retailer (Miller 2013). In the following article I hope to continue to chart the life of a comic book by examining one particular comic after sales as it is read not by academics, but by a much larger demographic of comic book consumers: teenagers, specifically, Indonesian teenagers.
There has been a debate concerning the role of comics in language acquisition and literacy which can be traced back to the 1950s when Frederic Wertham, among others, argued that comics cause retardation of reading ability (Wertham, 1954). Many modern scholars argue that comics serve as a gateway to literacy (see, for example, the Canadian Council for Learning website, 2013).[1] This article will document my experience and observations as a teacher who uses Art Spiegelman’s Maus in the Indonesian classroom with advanced English-learners. I will describe how I prepared the students to read Maus, the concepts and history which I taught alongside the text, and what the students themselves brought to, and drew from the work.
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
Posted by Comics Forum on 2014/02/18 in educators, Guest Writers
Tags: animal characters, anti-Communist purges, anti-Semitism, Art Spiegelman, Chinese Indonesians, classroom, education, Frederic Wertham, History, Holocaust, Indonesia, Japan, Jewish culture, manga, Maus, n, Poland, racial violence, Schindler’s List, Shoah, Translations, WWII
Comics Forum 