Month: October 2025

Manga’s First Century available now in 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.

Today is publication day for Manga’s First Century! Thank you to everyone who’s already preordered. You can order a copy at any bookstore, large or small; if you purchase through the UC Press website (via indiepubs.com), use code EMAIL30 for 30% off in the United States and Canada–ebook and print for the States, print only for Canada. For those outside North America, you can still preorder in advance of the book’s international release on 28 November, and it’s always a good time to request that your local library purchase a copy.

Thank you again to my editor, Enrique Ochoa-Kaup, and everyone at UC Press who worked on the book. And thanks again to everyone who has told me they’d be interested in reading this book over the years. Now’s your chance.

See you at the AMA tomorrow!

Manga’s First Century out next week in North America + events!

/ ahorbinski

Manga’s First Century is out next Tuesday, October 28, in North America, and copies are starting to ship from warehouses. You can still preorder a copy!

For those who have read the book, please do consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews help the book get noticed by the algorithm so that more people can find out about its existence.

For those with tight budgets (and isn’t that all of us these days), please do consider requesting your local library purchase the book for their collection. A purchase request means the book will be available to everyone in your library system and beyond.

Events!

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be doing an AMA on r/askhistorians next Wednesday, October 29. Starting at 9am Eastern, you can ask me your questions about manga history and I’ll respond over the course of the day.

I’ll also be giving a book talk in Brussels in the last week of November, and I’ll probably be doing some more events in the Bay Area in winter 2026. Stay tuned!

Manga’s First Century: The reviews are in!

/ ahorbinski

Well, two of them anyway.

Publishers Weekly called the book “a vivid ode to the variety and depth of an enduringly popular art form” in their positive review.

And this past week Kirkus Reviews published a very positive review, calling it, “Deeply considered and information rich, a useful, fascinating work of comics history.”

I was also interviewed for this piece on NPR and this piece on DW.com, both about Gen Z protestors and the One Piece flag.