Featured A Will Eisner Award statuette with the plaque bearing the category and work title, placed in front of a copy of Manga's Frist Century with the gold "Will Eisner Award" winner sticker placed on the cover.

Eisner Award WINNER!!

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A Will Eisner Award statuette with the plaque bearing the category and work title, placed in front of a copy of Manga's First Century with the gold "Will Eisner Award" winner sticker placed on the cover.

I’m proud and delighted to say that Manga’s First Century won the 2026 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work on Friday night! I was able to attend the ceremony at SDCC and had an excellent time. Aside from the people I thanked in my speech, thank you as well to the people who saw the leaked results online before the ceremony and didn’t tell me about them. (The first I heard of the leak was when I sat down at my banquet table for the ceremony, and I didn’t look before the results for my category were announced.)

Full results are available on the Eisner Awards website. Congratulations again to all the winners and nominees, it was another excellent year for comics!

And as always, if you enjoyed Manga’s First Century, it really helps the book’s visibility if you can leave even a short review on Amazon/Goodreads/Storygraph.

Manga’s First Century available worldwide!

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A book cover with three comics images horizontal, a boy and Betty Boop, a girl and boy looking scared, and an adult man being harassed by an old-fashioned telephone.

Manga’s First Century is now available worldwide! If you haven’t gotten yours yet, you can order a copy at any bookstore, large or small; if you purchase through the UC Press website (via indiepubs.com), use code HOLIDAY30 for 30% off in the United States and Canada–ebook and print for the States, print only for Canada. 

Thank you to everyone who’s already bought a copy. If you liked the book, it would be a great help if you leave a review online–more reviews helps the book be more visible to the algorithm and thus to more readers who might enjoy it. And it’s always a great time to request that your local library purchase a copy.

See you on Discord for my CasaCon talk tomorrow!

Events

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Worldcon, Anaheim, CA – 27-31 August 2026

World Fantasy 2026, Oakland, CA – 22-25 October 2026

I’ll keep this page updated as more events are scheduled.

Want me to come to your area? Talk to an organization or an event that can invite me!

Event at Books with Pictures

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I’ll be at Books with Pictures in Portland, Oregon on Sunday, May 31 for a book event! Books with Pictures is a great store and I’m thrilled to be doing an event there. It’s at 3:30pm in the garden (Instagram post with details). I hope to see you there!

Also, if you’ve read Manga’s First Century, it would be great if you could leave a review on the Amazon page. More reviews really do help the book’s visibility in the almighty algorithm. Thank you!

Eisner Award nominee + JAMS@Anime Expo

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Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards logo on a background of the San Diego Comic Con logo.

I’m thrilled to say that Manga’s First Century is a 2026 Eisner Award Nominee, in the Best Academic/Scholarly Work category. Thank you so much to the judges, and to my editor Enrique Ochoa-Kaup. Congratulations to all the nominees!

While I won’t be at SDCC, I will be at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Specifically, I’ll be at the JAMS@AX Academic Symposium, speaking on July 2, 2026, as part of the “Representations of History, and History in Anime” panel. I’m very much looking forward to being back at AX, and I hope to see you there!

Manga’s First Century coming soon outside North America

/ ahorbinski
A book cover with three comics images horizontal, a boy and Betty Boop, a girl and boy looking scared, and an adult man being harassed by an old-fashioned telephone.

First things first: the rest-of-world publication date for Manga’s First Century is now 13 January 2026. Which means that you still have time to preorder your copy from your favorite bookstore, including from Bookshop UK (which has the ebook available!), or request that your library purchase a copy. I’ve updated the book page with a few more links.

Back in North America, thank you to everyone who has already purchased a copy! As always, if you are able to leave a positive review of the book online, especially Amazon and Goodreads, these help the book be more readily “seen” by various shopping algorithms.

Finally, there’s been some more press about the book lately. I did a Q&A for the UC Press blog about the book and the availability of some of the manga I talk about in it in English, and Manga’s First Century was also reviewed (favorably!) in Buzz magazine Wales.

CasaCon 2025

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Thanks to everyone who came to my talk at ULB in Brussels last week. Next up, on December 14 at 1pm Pacific, I’ll be speaking at CasaCon 2025 on “Framing Fans in Manga History: Manga’s First Century.”

CasaCon is free to join and all online, taking place on Discord! You can register to join the con now and check out all the other great programming on the website. I look forward to seeing you there!

Sidewise Awards

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As announced on File 770 a few days ago, I’m excited to be one of the three new judges joining the Sidewise Awards jury. I’ll start reading books for the 2026 awards year. As a history nerd, I’ve always been a fan of alternate history, and I’m excited to have the excuse to really dig into the subgenre and highlight exciting works in it. I hope to see you at Worldcon and World Fantasy in 2026! And if you’re looking to read one great work of alternate history, I highly recommend the 2025 winner Sargassa by Sophie Burnham, or the classic Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson.

Also, I was interviewed last month for this article in The New Republic on the One Piece flag at protests.