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Eike Exner

@eikeexner.com

1.5K followers 280 following 2.5K posts

アイケ・エクスナ Striphistoricus writing on Japanese comics and the history of the comics medium. eikeexner.com/books - Comics and the Origins of Manga (Rutgers UP, 2021) - Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics (Yale UP, 2025)

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · Oct 30

Someone already noticed and posted about this elsewhere, so I guess it's time to announce that I've been spending the past three years working on a comprehensive history of manga that traces the development of comics in Japan from the introduction of pantomime cartoons to smartphone apps. Pls buy?

Manga

A groundbreaking story of Japanese comics from their nineteenth-century origins to the present day The immensely popular art form of manga, or Japanese co...

yalebooks.yale.edu

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 11h

I am very happy about the mention, just perplexed by its nature

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 11h

Conversely, the word "comic strips" translates to "kokkei na obitachi," while "graphic novel" means "kakareta atarashisa."

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 13h

*Bogeyman, oops

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 18h

Yeah, "The Preventing People from Escaping Our Ostensibly Superior but Clearly Less Popular Country Wall" would've been a bit too honest.

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 18h

This was always my concern with the "antifa isn't an organization; it just means anti-fascism!!" talking point... Yeah, sort of, but also: not exactly...

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 18h

Interestingly, there are separate Wikipedia articles for Antifa (US) and Antifa (Germany), and the US version doesn't do a great job of explaining the origins of contemporary Antifa groups (it mostly discusses post-2016), but the Germany version does: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_...

Antifa (Germany) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes things have a history that preexisted the first time Americans heard of them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_...

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

I'm confused by the 14k people who liked that post. Do they really believe that some Americans simply started shortening the word "anti-fascism" and that that's how the US right started using Antifa as a boogieman?

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

Feel free to stop saying "antifa," but unless you can time travel decades back and explain to Antifa group members in Germany that their name will become a right-wing boogieman in a future fascist United States and get them to dissolve or use a different name, the US right-wing will keep saying it.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

In Germany, I don't recall Antifa groups being seen as controversial. Normies thought of them as a bunch of leftist weirdos who fight neonazis (which back then was seen as an unassailably good thing, even by conservatives). So "Antifa" is a thing, not just an American abbreviation for "antifascist"

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

When I was growing up in Germany, basically every larger town had an "Antifa." I never heard the word in the US until Tucker Carlson started popularizing it during the Obama years as another boogieman (remember ACORN?). Before that, I doubt that more than 1% or so of Americans had heard the word.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 19h

"antifa" is derived from the German "die [the] Antifa," short for "die antifaschistische Aktion" [the antifascist action]. Yes, there's no big organizational structure, but the talking point that it's just a synonym for "anti-fascism" is not true: there are concrete Antifa groups using the same logo

Ify Nwadiwe @ifycomedy.com · 1d

I think we really should stop using antifa and just fully say anti-fascist and get them saying they are against anti fascism. Using antifa is giving them some distance and I genuinely think some of their base don’t even know that’s what it stands for.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 20h

That's an interesting point. Does "BUMP!" count (bottom middle panel)?

Mutt and Jeff full-page comic episode, in one panel a character crashes to the ground with the word "BUMP!" next to him.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 20h

They do indeed, though less so because of Punch:

www.animeherald.com/2025/08/02/a...

American Comic Strips: The First Manga

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.

www.animeherald.com

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 1d

A photo from a Japanese "Bringing Up Father" play performed in Tokyo in 1924, with an added speech balloon emerging from protagonist Jiggs's mouth.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 1d

In case you can't access the article:

Text that reads:

"The term “manga” — its translation is “pictures run riot” — first appeared in Japan in the late-18th century, but what people have defined as manga has changed across the centuries. The simplest definition would be that they are Japanese comics, a combination of text and image, that employ a specific visual vocabulary — a “transdiegetic” vocabulary, as Eike Exner calls it in his recent book “Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics.”"

Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 1d

Btw, that the word manga 'translates' (??) to "Pictures Run Riot" (???) is an entirely made-up claim by this particular Japanfluencer/curator; should've really asked a second source about this! Could've asked that "transdiegetic" guy, even. I hear he loves ranting about this stuff.

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Eike Exner @eikeexner.com · 1d

It was not on my bingo card that the NYT would quote the word "transdiegetic" from my work as something that distinguishes manga from comics (??) before it would mention my argument that manga *is* comics.

Manga Is a Pop Culture Phenomenon. It’s Also a Singular Art Form.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Eike Exner

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 1d

“YOU hit HER.”

CHICAGO - Trump’s ICE goons ram into a passing car after snatching someone, then brutally drag the female driver of the car they hit out of her car with guns drawn and arrest her too. (Her brother says she’s a citizen)