Barefoot Gen in the US and UK: Activist Comic, Graphic Novel, Manga

This book's theme was the reception of manga in the west, and especially the volume 'Barefoot Gen', which deals with the Hiroshima Bomb (2005 being the 60th anniversary).

My essay explores the way in which the comic has been republished for different reasons since 1978 – as an anti-nuclear (activist) statement, as a graphic novel, and finally as a manga i.e. situated within a market that has become accustomed to Japanese comics. The rationale involves asking how far changing attitudes to The Bomb informed the different contexts into which 'Barefoot Gen' was placed, and also how this ‘non-typical’ manga text became elevated into the canon of western graphic novels.

Roger Sabin

Research Interests

Cultural history, cultural studies, subcultural studies, film and television studies. Specialisms: comics, graphic novels, manga; punk and counterculture; 19th century entertainment; television crime drama. Cultural theory, especially postmodernism in history.
Current Research

Currently completing one book and co-authoring two others. The sole-authored book is about 19th century ‘funny papers’/comics, and in particular the character 'Ally Sloper', the first comics superstar. The other two concern TV crime drama: one is about The Wire, and one about the history of the genre. Also, various smaller-scale projects involving comics, graphic novels, manga and other areas listed above.

Previous books include: As Author: Comics, Comics and Graphic Novels (Phaidon); Adult Comics: An Introduction (Routledge); The Lasting of the Mohicans (University Press of Mississippi – co-authored with Martin Barker). As Editor: Punk Rock: So What? (Routledge); Below Critical Radar: Fanzines and Alternative Comics 1976-Now (Codex - with Teal Triggs); The Movie Book (Phaidon – with Michael Newton).