Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy

    Today, comic art is the favorite reading fare for millions of Asians, and is a government-sanctioned, value-added product, as in the case of Korean and Japanese animation. Yet not much is known about Asian cartooning. 
    Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning uses overviews and case studies by scholars to discuss Asian animation, humor magazines, gag cartoons, comic strips, and comic books. The first half of the book looks at contents and audiences of Malay humor magazines, cultural labor in Korean animation, the reception of Aladdin in Islamic Southeast Asia, and a Singaporean comic book as a reflection of that society’s personality. Four other chapters treat gender and Asian comics, concentrating on Japanese anime and manga and Indian comic books.

John A. Lent has written extensively on mass communication and popular culture, specializing in Asia and the Caribbean. Among the 52 books and monographs he has authored or edited is a four-volume bibliography of comic art worldwide, one volume of which was awarded the Ray and Pat Browne research prize. Lent chairs the Asian Popular Culture area group of the Popular Culture Association, the Comic Art Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communi-cation Research, and the Asian Cinema Studies Society, and edits Asian Cinema and Berita. He also serves as a board member-at-large of the PCA, associate editor of Asian Thought and Society, managing editor of WittyWorld International Cartoon Magazine, and an international editor of Comics Journal and FECO News.