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Latest Instagram posts of old manga (including translations) and other comics-related content:

Hineko, Their Only Daughter episode from 1924, by Nagasaki Batten.

Kaachan episode from January 27, 1930.

Isn't this so cool?? I want a coffee table book that's nothing but bilingual bi-colored Happy Hooligan episodes next to each other.

Its subversion of modern nationalism wasn't the only way in which Shirato's work was "fresh."

The first time I read Shirato Sanpei's Ninja Bugeicho a few years ago, I didn't understand why it resonated so much with college students and blue collar workers in the 1960s. After looking into Shirato and his work more, I finally get it.

Kaachan's first day of work!

Article on the American comics publishing landscape in the National Rental Book Newspaper from May 12, 1961. This is only a few years after the Comics Code wrecked American comics, right when Japanese comics were becoming (probably) the world's most successful and diverse.

All right, here we go: I'm going to translate the entire Kaa-chan café waitress arc.

Kaa-chan New Year's episode (January 6, 1930) for New Year's!

1) *THUD*

1) Hero cop: "We've gotten reports of lumpenproletariat sleeping in these pipes. We'll have to crack down on them."

First episode of "Her Rebellion" (Kanojo no Hanko) by Shishido Sako, the strip he did immediately prior to Speed Taro in late 1930.

1) "I should be seeing some kind of effect by now."

1940 comic by Hasegawa Machiko, titled "The Mysterious Trunk." "Huh?" I hear you say, "isn't that also the title of that 1897 sound-filled pantomime cartoon from the New York Journal reprinted in your book? And kind of the same joke at that??" Why yes it is! Chances are extremely low that Hasegawa would have seen the Journal cartoon, so it seems more likely that sound recording technology gave both cartoonists the idea separately.

This is post 1945, I'm branching out. Wanted to share this little anecdote from a book by former Tezuka assistant Furuya Mitsutoshi about his work for Tezuka:

"The World at Night," 9-panel comic by Kawamori Hisao in the Jiji Shinpo's Jiji Manga supplement.

Comic by Sazae-san creator and Tagawa disciple (n.b. the rectangular speech balloon appendices) Hasegawa Machiko, published in 1940.

Discovered this on YouTube the other day. I'd known that there was a "nonki" comedy song in the 1920s (I used a clip from that in my YouTube video), but apparently there was an actual Nonki na Tosan version with the same melody as well. The record itself says Nonki na Tosan (のんきな父さん, right to left and faded). Listen to the song here:

Too many panels to break up and translate, but nonetheless wanted to share this early (1929) Tagawa comic from before he started using balloons for dialog. In the comic, a woman gets really into a baseball broadcast (J.O.A.K. was the first Japanese radio station) but her mother keeps telling her to take care of the kitchen instead.

1) Ken-bo: "Chibi-chan, good morning. It's already 8am, but Ponsuke the Gorilla is still sleeping."

The Japan Times was doing fake news when it claimed that Japanese people didn't know what corned beef was before the Great Kanto Earthquake (Sep 1923) and that the word had to be replaced in Bringing Up Father episodes. This episode is from Aug 1923 and the sign says corned beef.

I was just re-reading parts of Otsuka Eiji's "The Mickey Formula" and came across this Okamoto Ippei cartoon from 1931 (a reprint; the original is from around 1918). It looks strikingly similar to the 1891 F. M. Howarth cartoon copied by Imaizumi Ippyo that year, which then in turn got copied in the magazine Shokokumin in 1893 (see second image).

Last panel: "I would've preferred a car."

I read Nicolas Verstappen's The Art of Thai Comics. While the entire book is interesting, I was of course most curious about how (audiovisual) comics spread to Thailand. Turns out it happened via American newspaper strips as well, just like in Japan, China, and France. E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre (Popeye's strip) was particularly influential apparently. Also check out the appearance of sound reproduction technology in the last image. The actual book has a lot more of these.

1) Boss: "You should do something about your mustache. You're a rank-and-file employee, you can't just grow a mustache that makes you look like the CEO."

Mr. Shumai: At the Phonograph Store

1) "Oh no! I forgot my hat in the car!"

Lol my blazerrrrr

1) Radio: "Today's perfect weather for baseball."

1) Tsuburoku: "Can you hit anything, no matter how small?"

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