Tokyo Puck

In April 1905, Kitazawa Rakuten considered one of the founding fathers of Manga was given the opportunity – to create, edit and control Japan’s first multi-coloured magazine consisting entirely of cartoons and comics: Tokyo Puck (東京パック | Tōkyō pakku). His model was the outspoken US weekly Puck, home of Australian cartoonist Frank Nankivell’s 1869–1959) work, and his declared aim was to ‘cast the stone of reform at Japan’s manga circles’. Fearless in its criticism of government and business, Tokyo Puck was written in Japanese, English and Chinese, printed in tens of thousands of copies a month (later bi-monthly, then quarterly), and had both national and international distribution. Kitazawa recruited and nurtured diverse new Japanese cartoonists (from 1909, he dubbed them mangaka), running competitions and channelling the magazine’s profits into a cartooning school.

This work features in Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics, a Barbican International Enterprises exhibition, curated by Paul Gravett. Mangasia presents a vivid journey through the art of Comics and visual storytelling across Asia. From its historical roots to the most recent digital innovations, the exhibition looks to popular Japanese ‘Manga’ and beyond, highlighting key creators, characters and publications.