Mangasia: Diversity and Dynamism
Discover more about the exciting multiplicty of comics and graphic narrative arts represented in Asian manga.
Diversity and Dynamism
Asia is home to an exciting multiplicity of comics in different sizes, genres and styles, a diversity which reflects the divergent ways each comics culture has developed in each country.
Mountain and Sea (1926/1926) by Ippei OkamotoBarbican Centre
Decisive factors include local approaches to art and story, and external influences, such as manga from Japan or comics from America or Europe.
Cover and Inside Pages of Jiao Yulu (1964/1964) by VariousBarbican Centre
Among other successes, China’s unique palm-sized booklets, known as ‘lianhuanhua’ or ’images in a chain’, started to be produced in the early twentieth century.
Cover and Inside Pages of Jiao Yulu (1964/1964) by VariousBarbican Centre
These usually consist of one image per page by a traditionally trained master.
Cover and Inside Pages of Jiao Yulu (1964/1964) by VariousBarbican Centre
Cover and Inside Pages of The Female Commander Liu Hucheng (1976/1976) by Tao LingBarbican Centre
Many of these had print-runs in their millions, peaking at 8.1 billion copies published in 1985...
Cover and Inside Pages of The Female Commander Liu Hucheng (1976/1976) by Tao LingBarbican Centre
...but lianhuanhua’s rapidly lost their appeal in the Nineties to television and manga, all but disappearing today.
Venganza from Manila Klasiks (1953/1953) by Ruben N. YandocBarbican Centre
In the Philippines, during their Golden Age of anthology ’komiks’ in the fifties and sixties, their serials were widely read and adapted into hit movies.
Despite this, complete stories were never reprinted as books, and komiks grew stale and faded away.
Thai One-Baht, 'The Haunted Child' by Chart Bangna (1975/1975) by Chart MangnaBarbican Centre
The same holds true for Thailand’s cut-price ‘one-baht’ pamphlets, Indonesia’s heroic part-works and Sri Lanka’s serial magazines.
Thai One-Baht, 'Pikul' by Ran RatchapaireeBarbican Centre
Without a book market to keep these ephemeral works in print, once they stopped being published as comics they have been largely forgotten.
Thai One-Baht, 'Te Mi The Silent Prince' by UnknownBarbican Centre
Originally conceived as a way for printers to get rid of excess paper, these cheaply produced comics were priced at one baht, making them accessible to even the poorest consumer.
They were easy to read, featuring ghost stories and folk tales – often with a dollop of sex or violence for added attraction. They appeared from 1975 onwards, dying off in the late 1980s as manga became more popular.
Thai One-Baht, 'Before Midnight (Counterfeit cover by Tong Poster) (1980/1980) by Tong Poster and Tode KosumphisaiBarbican Centre
Horror was also a popular theme in Thailand’s boom of cut price, cut-throat ‘one-baht’ comics (a baht being about three US cents).
Thai One-Baht, 'Rampant Ghost' by AimohBarbican Centre
Behind lurid, enticing covers lurk short, sharp shockers, typically of sixteen small pages, concerning such traditional Thai spooks as the phi pop, which infests bodies and consumes them from the inside before finding another host, or the krasue, a woman’s head that separates from her body at night to feed on blood and flesh.
Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics is a Barbican International Enterprises exhibition, curated by Paul Gravett, touring globally. 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.
