Manga Innovator's Nine Years in America, Illustrated

[America Sideways: Cartoon Ramblings] Amerika no yokoppara: Manga mandan

Shishido, Sako (Sagyo)

Publication: Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1929 (Showa 4). First Edition.

Notes: A pioneering illustrated memoir of a Japanese manga artist's stay in the United States in the early 20th century. Shishido spent nine years in the United States, beginning in 1912, where he absorbed American popular culture and transformed its stylistic elements into Supido Taro, the Japanese comic book widely credited for defining the modern manga style.

According to the text, Shishido attended movies daily during this period, studying storytelling methods that he later incorporated into his manga work. He illustrates the present book with 101 full-page drawings demonstrating cinematic techniques like high-angle perspectives, split screens, and cutaway views. The illustrations depict scenes of urban crime and violence, anticipating the American gangster films of the 1930s. Shishido also adapts the dense, crowded scenes of 18th- and 19th-century manga to 20th century American subjects.

For an accessible, English-language account of Shishido, Amerika no yokoppara, and the development of modern manga, see Comics and the Origin of Manga by Eike Exner (2022).

Collation: [color title page], [2 color frontispieces], [2], 8, 417, [5] pages. With illustrated endpapers, and more than 100 illustrations. In an illustrated paper-covered box.

Content Advisory: The African American characters are mostly depicted as racist caricatures.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A very good or better copy in the publisher's black paper-covered boards printed with a yellow modern-art-style face. In a very good, somewhat scuffed slipcase.

Item No: #362660

Price: $3,000