That immigrants cause extra costs is such an insidious right-wing lie. Most immigrants are raised and educated abroad, then pay taxes and contribute economically in their new country, and are often excluded from care/pensions (or sent back) after they are no longer an economic net benefit.

Does every dumb selfish race-to-the-bottom BS from the US have to spread to other countries? I don't think those pushing stuff like this understand the intangible effects. Being charged like 20 euros for a visa by Japan and 300 euros by the US had a lasting impact on how I've viewed these countries.

Great question. They can be read in either order. The first is primarily about the 1920s, and the formation of "audiovisual" comics in the 1890s. Since the second covers history up to the 2020s, it spends much less time on the 1920s, and the formation of comics as a medium is summarized briefly.

Sometimes you just feel really supportive and need an outlet

I don't think most Americans realize how bad they have it. The outside in the US just sucks. Nearly everything is asphalt and cars (and cops, of course). If we manage to defeat the current attempt to establish a Fourth Reich, we should reduce our car dependency as much as possible.

Honestly that is a superior title

Congratulations to Pixar for forever associating their name with insufferable right-wing bullshit in my mind and surely many others, in order to appease evangelical bigots. Hope it'll be worth it for you guys! How's Target doing these days?

Wearing my baseball hat to the funeral dignifiedly

Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.

How you can tell you're in a civilized city:

With all that communist red tape and burdensome government regulation out of the way, the Free Market can finally provide us with the necessary glass in our food.

Wow this sounds like my kind of jam.

The fact that one major power has been bogged down in a pointless war of conquest while tensions are high has an parallel in Japan's invasion of China in 1937, which would become one theater of WW2

"Educator and historian Eike Exner chronicles McManus’s Asian connection as one of the main American influences in the development of Manga." I assume this is how people will summarize Comics and the Origins of Manga for the rest of my life, but that's not what I actually claim.

Manga/anime soft power in China

Most people today see it as a natural fact of life that 90% of outside space in cities is dedicated to automobiles (including the enormous noise, pollution, injuries, and deaths they cause). But it's anything but natural.

Are there any people who have claimed that Japanese puroresu has its origins in sumo or that it is a "hybrid" based on sumo that was "influenced" by American pro wrestling?

If you don't want gen AI in your manga, anime, game, and light novel translations, now is the time to make your voice heard. Write to your favorite publishers and developers and ask if they are incorporating LLMs into their process. And most importantly, tell them you will vote with your dollars.

Almost posted about a bad academic article on manga but then realized that's not much different than quote dunking on reactionary centrists. You only end up wasting everyone's time with nonsense that otherwise would have no impact. I'm learning and growing 🤗

Sure cracking down on cars saves lives but people in Helsinki will never know all the positive sides of living in a fossil fuel death cult with big boy trucks that go vroom vroom, such as feeling very manly once you've climbed the little step ladder into your big boy truck

Critical Thinking returns to examine early Black representation in comics, considering industry, innovation, and How Comics Are Made.

Akira Toriyama died two years ago today. When he passed, I explained how Black American fans of Dragon Ball reinterpreted the series into a contemporary pillar of our culture. I loved writing this essay, and I hope you enjoy it, too. Piccolo is wearing a wave cap. slate.com/culture/2024...

Thread about the most common (+most annoying) objections to the way I discuss the history of comics as a medium/form (prompted by reading too many YouTube comments, but people with PhDs say this shit too): 1) "Oh so you're saying that if something doesn't have speech balloons it can't be a comic??"

30% off Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics if you order from YUP with the discount code EXNER30 yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

明日開催です！ マンガの歴史を遺した男　ーマンガ・諷刺画史研究家　清水勲の仕事ー展の関連トークイベント 「清水勲の遺したものたち」 2026年3月1日（日）14:00～16:00 京都国際マンガミュージアム 2階 ギャラリー6 定員30名、事前申込不要 kyotomm.jp/ee/shimizu-i...

I hereby disavow the various conservative groups and pundits following me!! (Will block too if someone can tell me who they are)

I see the Japan Foundation has logged on

My husband sent me a photo of our beautiful rescue dog sprawled out on the floor and it took me a second to figure out who she reminded me of

PDF copies of most of my publications can be found from this link: ilgordon.wordpress.com/publications/

This is a great comparison because cars have also done enormous lasting damage to society, contribute immensely to environmental and climate destruction, kill far more people than what they replaced, and have been most prominently promoted by bigots.

Just checked and of course under its current editors The Comics Journal still regularly posts on Xdotcom 👍

Call for papers for second issue of Manga Studies, deadline March 31: "We are looking for research papers (free topics) on manga or similar visual forms of expression, or papers that align with the theme of the special feature. The special theme for volume 2 is "Manga and Platform.""

Someone should look into this and become prime minister in the process.

I can make myself as small and unthreatening as possible on the train, wearing a mask and professional attire and resting my little biz bag on my lap like your average commuter, and yet most Japanese people will go out of their way to sit elsewhere. That's right, I *am* the Gaikokujin Mondai👹

Can't help but notice that when 7 grannies hold up signs protesting remilitarization or nuclear reactors, they're always surrounded by a ton of cops with batons drawn, but when a couple of dozen fascists are screaming near parliament to overturn the last election, there's only 2 cops and 0 batons.

In addition to attributing images copied from my books to those books, it would also be nice if people wouldn't spread false claims when sharing them... Bringing Up Father was introduced to Japan by a Japanese newspaper editor, not foreigners, and it was not plagiarized but licensed.

It's frustrating to see images taken from my work be posted on social media without attribution. I've spent time and money to make this stuff available to people, so I don't think attribution is too much to ask for.

Found this by searching for "Bringing Up Father." That's a photo of Kabashima Katsuichi, the artist behind Shochan no boken, lettering BUF in translation (the article is almost certainly mistaken about Kabashima doing the translation himself, though)

論文とか読んでる途中いきなり「我が国」というフレーズに出会うと「へー！そっちもドイツ人か、めっちゃ偶然じゃん！」って著者との絆が深まる。

平和と書いてアトムと読ませるのか、キラキラネームは半世紀以上も前からあるんだな。 ちなみにもう一人として挙げられてる下條アトムくんは俳優の方と同一人物みたい。

Something interesting I discovered while reading your book: At the same time "Bringing Up Father" was making inroads in Japan, the comic strip was just as popular at the other extreme of the Pacific. Edited in Chile as "Don Fausto", it even inspired an animated movie and a magazine.

New origin of manga just dropped: "as manga and eventually anime began to develop, artists looked to this tradition of bold, iconic imagery. When you look at the clean lines of a modern anime character, you are seeing a style that was perfected on the backs of gambling cards centuries ago."

I guess my three main questions for a 2028 Dem presidential candidate would be -Will you abolish ICE and prosecute everyone involved -Will you prosecute Musk and the DOGE boys -Will you expand SCOTUS with the aim of neutralizing all Roberts-era jurisprudence

Two people are currently in a bidding war over a copy of the first issue of Weekly Boys' Magazine, which just surpassed 100k yen: auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d...

With @annekmck.bsky.social 's recent book at Kinokuniya Books Shinjuku

Randomly walked past this place today and was like huh that name sounds familiar

Woke up from a sound sleep wondering if there were any women manga artists who drew the kind of low-key naturalistic stories you find in Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s collections? And is their work is available in English?

Infuriating that Republicans still try to whine about Democrats not pandering to them enough when "owning the libs" and "Democrats are traitors destroying America" are central planks of the Republican party platform.