Comic Books and Graphic Novels: Manga & Anime

"Featuring extensive interviews with Japanese and American otaku, a comprehensive genealogy of the beautiful fighting girl, and an analysis of the American outsider artist Henry Darger, whose baroque imagination Saito sees as an important antecedent of otaku culture, Beautiful Fighting Girl was hugely influential when first published in Japan, and it remains a key text in the study of manga, anime, and otaku culture."--Amazon

"an important collection of essays by an international cast of scholars, experts, and fans, and provides a one-stop resource for all those who want to learn more about manga, as well as for anybody teaching a course on the subject."--Amazon

"Thomas Lamarre contends that the history, techniques, and complex visual language of animation, particularly Japanese animation, demands serious and sustained engagement, and in The Anime Machine he lays the foundation for a new critical theory for reading Japanese animation, showing how anime fundamentally differs from other visual media."--Amazon

"Spanning one and a half centuries from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the beginning of the twenty-first century, this volume covers topics such as technology, food, nationalism and rise of anime and manga in the visual arts."-- Amazon

"Drawing on ethnographic research, including interviews with artists at some of Tokyo's leading animation studios—such as Madhouse, Gonzo, Aniplex, and Studio Ghibli—Condry discusses how anime's fictional characters and worlds become platforms for collaborative creativity."--Amazon

"Cartoonist Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) is the single most important figure in Japanese post-World War II comics. During his four-decade career, Tezuka published more than 150,000 pages of comics, produced animation films, wrote essays and short fiction, and earned a Ph.D. in medicine. Along with creating the character Astro Boy (Mighty Atom in Japan), he is best known for establishing story comics as the mainstream genre in the Japanese comic book industry, creating narratives with cinematic flow and complex characters. This style influenced all subsequent Japanese output. God of Comics chronicles Tezuka's life and works, placing his creations both in the cultural climate and in the history of Japanese comics."--Amazon

... an epic fantasy tale written and illustrated by legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki, creator of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. A modern masterpiece.."--Amazon

2008 Eisner Comic Winner --"The violence in this unique European-influenced manga title is more mindful than it seems at first glance, and the subtle relationships between its unique cast of characters are marked by surprising poignancy."--Amazon

Osamu Tezuka’s vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddhartha’s life and times.