April 15, 2008
Rock Out With Your Woodblock Out
From April 19 to June 28, the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) hosts From Hanga to Manga: The Graphic Art of Japanese Storytelling—hanga being the Japanese art of woodblock printing, and manga being your otaku nephew's reason for living, that is. The exhibition features a collection of rare illustrated books, woodblock prints, and comics from the libraries of the TPL Special Collections, the ROM, and Japan Foundation Toronto.
In conjunction with the exhibition, at 7:00 p.m. on May 22 in Beeton Auditorium, award-winning novelist Katherine Govier will deliver a lecture on the life of Katsushika Hokusai, the Ukiyo-e artist behind The Great Wave, pictured above. Did Hokusai really coin the term manga, as many claim he did? Your otaku nephew cares, and so why don't you?
Painting by Hokusai, edits by Karen Whaley
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The manga, or "graphic novel", still amazes me here in Tokyo. Men of all ages and a huge number of women read manga daily. There are stories of salesmen, housewives, company presidents, university students. Drama, magic powers, current events.
My stodgy, respectful bank puts out am 8 page manga-style explanation of their online banking. Japan is a graphic society, and the use of the Chinese kanji characters for writing might have a big influence.
I have never met a Japanese I've asked who couldn't draw a caricature of me in 20 seconds. No stick-man drawings here ....
Cheers,
Tuds