"What are comics?" You will spend four years pursuing this most simple and fundamental question through various lecture courses. You might say that this course is the starting point of that pursuit. In the first half of this course, we will explore the basic components of comics as seen in such ancient societies as those of the Aztecs, Egyptians, and Romans. Then we will turn our focus to the U.S., Europe, and Japan in order to uncover the prewar roots of comics as a mass medium made possible through such reproduction tecniques as the printing press and wood-block printing. In the latter half of the course, we will narrow our focus to postwar Japanese comics, tracing that history while actually reading comics produced from the appearance of TEZUKA Osamu to the late 1960s.
In each class, students will divide into groups to discuss the comics assigned for homework. Then each group will summarize their discussion to the class as a whole. The professor's lecture will either follow the presentations or, more likely, will be scattered throughout the presentations, as students raise points the professor wants to expand on or emphasize. At the end of each class, students will be asked to write brief comments on that day's class and reading.
End of term exam (36%), attendance and contribution to discussion (40%), and three quizzes (24%).
The content of the course is fun and is presented in a fun way, but this is by no means a "light" course. I would like students to mercilessly dissect their own "commonsense" regarding comics. Most of all, I would encourage students to speak out in class and ask questions without hesitation.
| 1) Introduction | 7) The 1950s, Part III (QUIZ) |
| 2) The Roots of Comics | 8) The 1950s, Part IV |
| 3) Prewar Japanese Comics | 9) The 1960s, Part I |
| 4) The 1940s (QUIZ) | 10) The 1960s, Part II (QUIZ) |
| 5) The 1950s, Part I | 11) The 1960s, Part III |
| 6) The 1950s, Part II | 12) The 1960s, Part IV |
| 13) Conclusion |