Author: Okamoto Ippei.
Title: [Jido Mangashu].
Description: Tokyo, Kobunsha 1927 [Showa 2]. 22x15cm cloth backed publisher's colour illustrated card wrapper; cover, illustrated title in red and black and one colour plate by Ippei, seven full page illustrations in colour, profusely illustrated in b/w by any number of artists. An uncommonly good copy. Shogakusei Zenshu no.23. ¶ The Shogakusei Zenshu, or Complete Works for Elementary Schools, runs to some 88 volumes of educational texts and literature - much of this in translation - few of them seem elementary, and how many publishers of such series would include manga? Ippei, radical and scallywag, was the king of newspaper cartooning as Rakuten ruled the magazines in Taisho and early Showa Japan. It was Ippei that brought the American comic strip to Japan and he heads, with Rakuten, the lists of idols and inspiration of many modern manga artists.

Keywords: graphic art illustration humour Japan Asia c20th modernism manga children eduation c20th Japan modernism juvenile comics cartoons meiji