New ‘Asian Comics’ Exhibit Offers A Deep Dive Into A Rich Visual Culture

Asian comics, especially Japanese manga and South Korean webtoons, are read by hundreds of millions worldwide and are the driving force in a fast-growing global market estimated at nearly $14 billion in 2023. They power movies, anime series, games, fashion, cosplay and licensed merchandise worth exponentially more. But relatively few westerners are aware of the long history and unique culture of comics across Asia that underlies this mass commercial phenomenon.

A travelling exhibition, Asian Comics: The Evolution of An Art Form, that just opened at the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle goes a long way toward closing that gap. Curated by British comics scholar Paul Gravett, and based on his 2018 book Mangasia, the Asian Comics exhibit offers a panoramic tour of visual storytelling from Japan to India and all points in between, emphasizing the stylistic and thematic diversity that has emerged over more than a century of development.

The exhibit is organized by topic – mythology, history, slice of life, imaginative fiction and erotica – with art and artifacts from Japan, China, North and South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere presented side by side to demonstrate similarities and differences in approach from culture to culture.

Fans looking for crowd-pleasing contemporary work will be disappointed. There is no Sailor Moon, Pokémon or Demon Hunter to be found, and the only example of the mega-popular Dragonball franchise is an original issue of the first run from the 1980s nestled in a cluster of material dealing with the monkey-trickster theme. Sharp-eyed fans of One Piece will spot a facsimile of a page of artwork from the first chapter. Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, who began his career creating manga and is perhaps the most popular storyteller in this tradition in the world, is not part of this particular story. Whatever this show may be, it is not a “greatest hits” collection.

Instead, the exhibit rewards close attention, presenting gorgeous hand-drawn and hand-painted original art for the comics, which has rarely been exhibited anywhere, alongside vintage publications, tear-sheets of Sunday comics, thick manga anthologies and pocket-sized tankōbon. There are stills and storyboards from media adaptations, fashions, a replica art studio (both digital and traditional) and an interactive feature that allows visitors to control the actions of an onscreen mech robot using poses and gestures.

The text tracks the development of comics as both a means of expression and a commercial industry from the late 19th century to the current day. It explores the impact of colonialism, insurgency and revolutionary conflict on the art, showing how comics dealt with Japanese imperialism, the atomic bombs, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the Cambodian genocide, some of the most traumatic events of recent history. All the exhibits are extensively annotated, although it can be difficult to follow the sequence due to MoPOP’s labyrinthine gallery layout. It is possible to miss the upper floor, containing the more accessible fashion, erotica and media exhibits, altogether without a guide or map.

The vast ambition of the show means that a lot of material is packed into a small space. A visit could easily take hours if you read all the text and closely observe all the displayed items. But if you don’t invest a certain amount of effort, you’re likely to leave a bit confused by the large number of comics traditions and styles that are represented, or come away without much of a deeper understanding of ‘Asian comics’ as a unified concept. Fortunately Gravett’s book is available in the gift shop.

The exhibition, produced by Barbican, debuted in Rome in 2017, made two other stops in Europe, and was previously at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA. It is running at MoPOP through January 4, 2026.