Illustrations used for story-telling and mirth-making have enlivened Asian walls, scrolls, books, public and private places, and artifacts for millennia. Often playful and humorous, Asian pictorial stories lent conspicuous elements to contemporary comic art, particularly with their use of narrative nuance, humor, satire, and dialogue.

Illustrating Asia is a fascinating book on a subject that is of wide and topical interest. All of the articles consider cartoon and/or comic art in the historical and social setting of seven South, Southeast, and East Asian countries: India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. The contributors treat comic and narrative art–including comic books, comic strips, picture books, and humor and fan magazines–in both historical and socio-cultural perspectives, as well as portrayals of ancient Chinese philosophy, gender, and the enemy in cartoons and comics.

Contributors: Laine Berman, John A. Lent, Fusami Ogi, Rei Okamoto, Ronald Provencher, Aruna Rao, Kuiyi Shen, Shimizu Isao, Shu-chu Wei, Yingjin Zhang.