I’l be in Anaheim this weekend for LACon V! I’m on programming, I’m co-presenting the Sidewise Awards, and I’ll be helping out at the M.A. Carrick table in the dealers’ room. I’ll have limited copies of Manga’s First Century for sale there. And, if you bring your copy of Manga’s First Century for me to sign, I’ll give you a very shiny Eisner winner sticker to go on it. See you soon!
I was interviewed for the new podcast The Clio Dialogues, hosted by historian Jennifer Robin Terry. It’s available on their website, or wherever you get your quality podcasts!
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 a rating or a short review on Amazon/Goodreads/Storygraph.
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!
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!
Greg Sholette and I will be talking about One Piece and the political iconography of protests for this event put on by the Forum on Life, Culture, and Society. Free RSVP is available now, and the (prerecorded) conversation broadcasts online on Monday, May 11, at 7pm Eastern!
I recently spoke with Nathan Hopson about Manga’s First Century for the New Books Network podcast. The episode is available now on the NBN website and through your podcast feeds.
I’ll be speaking about Manga’s First Century at the San Francisco Public Library on Saturday, April 25, from 2:00-3:30pm at the Main Library. Full details are on the event page. I’ll also have limited copies of MFC available for purchase (and signing). I hope to see you there!
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!
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.
Andrea Horbinski 