Name: Manga’s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989
Start: 2025-11-21T16:00:00-08:00
Location: 370 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-2541, United States

$Manga\u2019s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989$

Andrea Horbinski’s new book Manga’s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989, explores the rise of manga as a distinct medium in Japanese society in the 20th century. Beginning with the new use of “manga” to refer to high-collar political cartoons in the 1890s, she traces manga’s development across formats through newspapers, magazines, and books as creators sought to expand the medium in the face of challenges ranging from state repression under the imperial government to perpetual editorial stubbornness. By taking a comprehensive look at the wide range of formats and subject matter that “manga” has encompassed, she shows how its development into a globally popular medium was the product of interactions between creators, editors, and above all manga fans, who have played a key role in manga’s evolution for decades, and have driven manga’s development and popularity through the rise of the dōjinshi (amateur comics) sphere.
Speaker: Andrea Horbinski, Manga expert + media historian
Facilitators: John Lie, Professor, UC Berkeley
Karen Nakamura, Professor, UC Berkeley