American Comic Strips: The First Manga

• Author: Julian Jefko

• Editor: Cy Catwell

The comic strip was once a stronghold of American culture. Starting in the late 1800s, newspapers published dozens of oversized, colored comic strips in order to gain readership and many newspapers, including The New York Times, The New York Herald, and The Boston Post published dozens of pages of comics in their daily papers. This was due, in part, to competition between newspapers—in particular, between New York World and New York Journal—which added comics in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. Of course, one must also remember that the newspaper was everywhere at the time; they generally only cost five cents (even adjusting for inflation, this is still only a dollar in 2025), and at their height, they were collectively selling over two million papers a day. Many readers eventually started reading more for the comics instead of the actual articles which further pushed the newspapers to give them space.

Comics themselves showed a wide range of diversity, detail, and creativity. Only a few examples need to be given to show the state of the comic strip in the early 20th century. For example, something like Thomas Aolysius’ Johnny Wise Gets the Double Cross would never be published in today’s papers (shown below). That said, there were fantasy strips, strips pulling from cubism and surrealist art, strips that experimented with panel length, perspective, and more. People like R.F. Outcault and Windsor McCay were household names (as can be seen through the massive amounts of adaptations, advertisements, etc. bearing the characters they created), and were genuine celebrities in their own right.

Johnny Wise Gets the Double Cross, published in 1902. When one compares a comic like this to today, they understand what Art Spiegelman meant by “the sorry state of today’s newspaper strips”

A panel from Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. As a matter of fact, Windsor McCay never did a rough sketch for any of these comics but instead started doing linework immediately.

With comics having such a significant status in the United States, and with the United States itself often being a birthplace of equally consequential cultural movements, it is no surprise that these comics were well received in other countries. From France to Argentina, various countries translated American comics into their own languages and ran them in their newspapers. Some countries even bought the rights to translation while others simply put pirated versions or made spinoffs. Furthermore, even looking at these countries’ domestic traditions, they were heavily inspired by American comics. One can, for example, see the influence of George McManus’ Bringing Up Father in a French comic like Zig et Puce.

George McManus Bringing Up Father. The strip initially started as a 4-panel strip but was eventually given more space in the Sunday papers

French comic strip Zig et Puce (Zig and Chip). One can see the American influence in how the character designs,speech bubbles, and linework.

Japan’s own tradition of manga was also heavily influenced by American comics, something which has not been acknowledged until recently when Eike Exner wrote a book in 2021 arguing for the connection between Japanese and American comics, which seems to be the first book with such a perspective George McManus’ Bringing Up Father was, as a matter of fact, the most popular comic in Japan up until the end of World War II. Even when it fell out of popularity, the artists who came to replace it, such as Yoshida Kanzaburo and Osama Tezuka, all have explicitly stated that they were inspired by this comic and by American comics in general. This is an untold history that should be further explored, given manga’s popularity in America today.

Of course, there was a visual arts tradition in Japan going back quite some time. Things like the paintings of yokai and the ukiyo-e woodblock prints are well known to Western audiences. There was also a tradition of political cartoons going back to the 17th century with toba-e drawings. These were caricatures that had a lighthearted element to them and sometimes even served as a commentary on local and governmental affairs.Though toba-e formed its own distinct tradition, in the late 1800s, events like the rise of smallpox gave material for political satire, and some toba-e artists (such as Georges Bigot, for example) published in popular magazines like Japan Punch and Tokyo Puck. These magazines were influenced by Western art (an Englishman was the founder of Japan Punch and based it on a London magazine), and created a new form of visual art known as Ponchi-e (ポンチー絵). This term was actually the most common term for political cartoons at the time, and “manga” did not become a widespread term until decades later.

Picture from Japan Punch. The magazine was published in English but it gained traction among Japanese readers.

The first instance of a comic being referred to as “manga” in Japan was actually an American comic imported by Ippyo Imaizumi in 1891. It was an adaptation of John L. Hercules and His Pet, published in 1890 for the American magazine Judge. The comic is about a man lifting what appears to be a heavy ball; however, the last panel shows his dog lifting it with ease, exposing him as a fraud.

American John L. Hercules and His Pet

Adapted “manga” published by Ippyo Imaizumi in Jiji Shinpo. It was referred to as “manga” in the header of the newspaper.

Imaizumi was deeply fascinated with American cartoons. He had moved to San Francisco in 1885 in order to study Western cartoons, which, in an autobiographical source, he referred to as “Ponchi-e”. Unfortunately, no newspaper would hire him on account of his “unfamiliarity with American culture”, and he would end up working in a storefront. However, when he returned to Japan, he was hired for the newspaper Jiji Shinpo, which was published by his uncle Fukuzawa Yukichi. Imaizumi would translate numerous American cartoons, and these were, in fact, the first multipanel comics to be referred to as “manga” in Japan.

Though Imaizumi introduced this format to the Japanese public, it did not become popular until a decade later when Rakuten Kitazawa succeeded Ippyo Imaizumi at the Jiji Shinpo. Kitazawa was also familiar with the single panel cartoons and drew many himself. However, he eventually became interested in the American tradition and even formally studied it. Between 1902 and 1923, he would publish a weekly comic supplement to the Jiji Shinpo newspaper known as Jiji Manga which would include many American-influenced “manga” and would solidify the connection between “manga” and multipanel comics in Japan.

Single panel work from Rakuten Kitazawa. The text says “This Enma (the tax office) sometimes even pulls out the tongues of honest people, which is a problem." “Enma” is the ruler of the underworld in Buddhist mythology, the joke being that the tax office is as ruthless as the devil.

Multipanel “manga” by Rakuten Kitazawa. An investor invites an engineer into his home, saying he has an idea for a new engine. He looks at the reader (in panel 3, bottom right corner), and says “the readers can’t see this”; he then takes the engineer into the hole in the wall, so they can build the engine in secret.

Still, the comics published by Ippyo Imaizumi, Rakuten Kitazawa, and other contemporary artists do not fully capture the meaning of “manga” as it is used today. There are missing elements, such as the use of dialogue, motion lines, the depiction of emotion, and so on. In truth, American comics themselves did not depict these until years later; the earliest American comics did not include dialogue or motion but were still images accompanied by explanatory text. As a matter of fact, if one looks at the history of American comics, one can see that the portrayal of motion was a problem for American cartoonists.

Jimmy, 1915. The third panel in particular shows how cartoonists struggled to depict motion in the earliest years.

Little Naps of Polly Sleepyhead, published in 1905. There is absolutely no dialogue in the entire run of this comic.

Of course, some scholars have argued that things like motion lines and speech bubbles, or at least their “prototypes”,  do exist in early Heian period scrolls. Takashi Nagata argued that the Choju Jinbutsu Giga, one of the most notable of the early Japanese scrolls, has these elements, since the scroll was meant to be unrolled while it was read, and there are some panels with things like smoke coming out of the characters’ mouth. Putting aside the quality of these arguments, the fact these techniques are so rare in Japanese art in the first place would suggest that their origins in manga lie elsewhere.

Portion of Choju Ginbutsu Giga. Takashi Nagata argues that the line coming out of the monk’s mouth is a proto-speech bubble.

There was, in fact, one domestically produced manga which did have the use of speech bubbles. It was Rakuten Kitazawa’s Sho-Chan no Bōken, made in January 1923. The manga was widely read, to the point where Sho-chan’s distinctive hat became a fashion trend among Japanese children. If one looks at the comic, it has explanatory text and speech bubbles, sometimes using both within the same strip. Though these elements do exist within the comic, they still came from outside, as the Sho-chan itself was based on the British comic Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred, and furthermore, no mangaka working for the newspapers looked to this comic for influence.

Sho-Chan no Boken

These elements would not come to the forefront of Japanese comics until April 1923, with the introduction of Bringing Up Father. It was a comic about a married couple, Jiggs and Maggie, who had won the lottery and became part of the upper class. Jiggs retained his working class mannerisms while Maggie aspired to assimilate to the higher class, buying boats, fancy dresses, and so on. The comic is styled like a sitcom, with the humor coming from this conflict of ideals.

The editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun at the time, Suzuki Bunshiro, had been following the comic for years and eventually decided it would make a good edition to the paper. This was in the Taisho period when, in general, Japan started adapting Western cultural values, fashion trends, and aesthetics. American comics appeared to readers as “modern”, and therefore, the newspaper would publish it in order to gain interest from readers. Before the 1930s, there were few domestically produced Japanese cartoons, and actually, a cartoonist would make much more as a translator and photocopier than they would as an artist.

A Japanese translation of Bringing Up Father, published in Asahi Shimbun. Only the daily strips were published in black-and-white. Color comics, though they did become a part of the American Sunday strip, never gained traction in the same way in Japan.

Bringing Up Father became a cultural product in Japan—to some extent, even more so than it did in America. It ran for seventeen years in the Asahi Shimbun compared to the second most popular comic, Little Jimmy, which only ran for three years. There were animated adaptations, plays, and advertisements showcasing the main characters, and there were even contests held for “fanfiction” of these comics that were occasionally published in the paper. Oddly enough, George McManus himself was aware of the strip’s popularity in Japan and wrote a letter to thank his Japanese readers.

Wine Advertisement using Bringing Up Father characters

One thing to note about the translation of American comics is that the left-to-right reading order was kept; this was actually a dilemma for the Japanese newspapers. Though right-to-left reading is standard for manga today, the earliest comics in Japan had no standardized order. One can see experimentation with both. When Bringing Up Father popularized American comics in 1923, it became standard to use the left-to-right reading order because it helped to highlight the American comics as something “foreign”, “modern”, and “different”. One magazine even asked readers to send in their opinions on the subject. This influenced Japanese mangaka to the point that even some manga produced in Japan retained the left-to-right reading order.

Another panel from Bringing Up Father. Note the numbers in the bottom-right corner that indicate the reading order. The order here is from left-to-right

This comic both influenced the newspapers to include more American “audiovisual comics”  and influenced Japanese mangaka at the time. Bringing Up Father was published in other newspapers, such as the Asahi Graph and the Tokyo Shimbun, and other artists would make similar works inspired by George McManus. As a matter of fact, the first successful audiovisual comic in Japan, Nonkina Tosan, was directly inspired by George McManus, and the creator, Aso Yutaka, has explicitly stated this in an interview.

Nankina Tosan. The use of the “four-panel” strip was also an adaptation from American comics.

Other American comics published around the same time include Little Jimmy, Mutt and Jeff, and Polly and Her Pals. Some of these comics only appeared a few weeks after Asahi Shimbun started publishing Bringing Up Father, showing that they were a direct response and an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Nankina Tosan, in fact, was made in direct response to Bringing Up Father. One could say it worked, as the first newspaper to receive over one million readers was one which had the comic strip Little Jimmy.

One could argue that the “explosion” of American comics in the newspapers was a form of cultural fetishization similar to the fetishization of Eastern cultures which sometimes occurs in the West. However, it is interesting to read how Japanese artists understood American culture. For example, there were, sometimes, explanatory notes on American phrases, idioms, and cultural practices in these translated comics. In one translation of a Happy Hooligan comic in which has the main character getting hit by a rolling pin at the hands of his wife, the explanatory note calls the rolling pin the “primary weapon of the American woman”. There was also a perception that comics were a testament to “the American’s patience” because they lasted for decades (Bringing Up Father, in America, lasted almost a century). As an American myself, the idea that Americans are “patient” is funny, to say the least.

By the 1930s, the newspapers had attempted to bring every popular American “manga” they could; many notable characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Popeye, and Felix the Cat were well-known to Japanese audiences. Some newspapers made comics based on the animated films, as the animated films often came first; even when the animated films made it to Japan, the word “anime” was not in use at the time, and they were referred to as “manga eiga” or manga movies.

Mickey Mouse in the Asahi Shimbun. The text on the canvas wishes a Happy New Year in English and Japanese.

Two publications of note were the magazines Manga Man and Shinseinen due to their connection to the “New Manga Group”, the manga group which, in earnest, acted as the real kickstarter to the modern Japanese manga tradition. Some of the artists include the creator of the aforementioned Nonki no Tosan and the then-famous Miyao Shigeo. The magazines held a certain respect for American comics that the newspapers didn’t; one of the editors of Shinseinen, Inui Shinichiro, was even a Seattle-born Japanese man who returned to Japan at the age of seven. Artists would translate and make copies of newspaper strips, and the magazines (Shinseinen especially because of Shinichiro’s involvement) published many comics that were not in Japan previously, such as Krazy Kat which often used stylized language and would be incredibly difficult to translate. Furthermore, they published full-page colored comics, while the newspapers only published black-and-white strips.

The magazines did not last due to the costs of publishing color comics, which is no surprise given that even the American newspapers couldn’t keep up with the cost of the full-page Sunday strip. Manga Man intended to publish fully in-color and even made colored versions of black-and-white strips, but eventually increased its price by twenty percent and lasted less than a year.

ShinSeinen translation of Dr. Seuss's newspaper comic

By the late 1930s, the amount of mangaka making their own work had increased, and the most popular piece was Norakuro, a comic which the author has stated was inspired by Felix the Cat. The manga was initially about the daily life of Norakuro, but the later comics became a form of WWII propaganda.

Norakuro Strip

Many similar strips existed; the creator of Norakuro also made a comic strip by the name of “Gasoline Okishi”, which one can’t help but notice sounds similar to the American “Gasoline Alley”. Other strips would include Fukuchan and Speed Taro, both of which have clear resemblances to the American newspaper strips. Fukuchan, in particular, became successful, and even surpassed the popularity of George McManus’ Bringing Up Father.

Gasoline Okoshi

By the 1940s, the amount of American manga coming to Japan had decreased. The “Golden Age” of newspaper comics was in decline as comics shifted from newspaper strips to comic books. There was also the moral panic around comics at the hands of conservative authorities which stifled their publication. Comics, in America, would eventually shift to new forms, such as underground comix, for example.

However, the mangaka who gained popularity after the 40s still grew up in an era when they were easily accessible in Japanese sources and were still influenced by them. Even the “god of manga”, Osama Tezuka, cites Bringing Up Father as a source of inspiration. His first manga, Diary of Ma-Chan was, in fact, a newspaper strip.

Diary of Ma-Chan

In his earlier years, Osama Tezuka would directly pull from American newspaper strips, especially his comic strip Lost World that bears a clear resemblance to old-school rubber hose cartoons. He would even put Jiggs and Maggie in some of his work. One could argue, as Eike Exner has, that much of what is considered the “Japanese manga style” came from American comics; for example, it is common to see large eyes as a particularly “Japanese” stylistic choice, but this came from early American cartoons (think of old Mickey Mouse cartoons, for example).

Famous panel from Osama Tezuka’s Lost World. It contains both American comic characters, such as Popeye and Betty Boop, and Japanese comic characters like Sho-chan and Norakuro

As a matter of fact, even after Osama Tezuka, one can still find traces of the early American influence if one looks long enough. One example is the 1980 manga Dr. Slump (Dr. スランプ）which has a style reminiscent of Looney Tunes animations.

Panel from Dr. Slump. The girl is trying to wake up the father (if he can be called that) and when he doesn’t wake up, she sticks a grenade in his mouth.

Ultimately, the preceding arts traditions in Japan did not evolve into modern day manga but instead were in conflict with it. This can be seen in the careers of the early generation of mangaka like Kitazawa and Imaizumi who wavered between drawing the older form of Japanese cartoons and the newer “American” comic strip. The stylistic elements of sequential storytelling, dialogue, motion lines, and the visual depiction of emotion through things like stars, music notes, etc. were not part of the internal Japanese tradition (at the least, they were not integral to it).

The influence of American comics came first through the 1880-1920 translations; after this was established, the 1923 introduction of Bringing Up Father served as a turning point of Japanese manga. It is what led to widespread of use of all of the elements that are associated today with “manga”; given the general trends of Japan at the time, it was a smarter business move to prioritize foreign manga (and many American manga were titled as beikokujin manga) because the public perceived them as “modern” and “new”. As time went on, the amount of Japanese mangaka making their own manga increased, while the American influenced waned due to both the changing forms of American comics and the cultural shifts in Japan. Still, even well after Japan established its own tradition, the influence of American comics still remains. In the end, Japanese comics and American manga are more connected that what is generally believed.

Sources:

Art Spiegelman - The Most Underrated Comic Strip

Eike Exner - Comics and the Origins of Manga

Eike Exner & Irene Chun - Laying the Groundwork for Japanese Comics: Imaizumi Ippyō’s Establishment of Euro-American Narrative Cartoons in the Jiji Shinpō between 1890 and 1899 

Ryan Holmberg - Tezuka Osamu and American Comics

Ryan Holmberg - Sugiura Shigeru’s Sense of Humor

Smithsonian Institution - The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (all American comics were pulled from this book)

Smithsonian Institution - The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics

Takashi Nagata - The History of Manga: Focusing on Narrative Expressions