While Manga seems to be growing increasingly popular, which often leads many to believe that it`s a relatively modern creation it`s actually been around (in its early form) for over a thousand years.































The tradition of telling stories with a series of sequential images has been a part of Japanese culture long before what we now know as present day Manga ever came about. In fact Toba Sojo, an 11th century painter-priest, has been attributed with the earliest examples of pre-manga art with his animal scroll paintings which satirised the Buddhist priesthood.































Over the years the religious world refined the art, even as the country was torn apart by warfare.































Another credited for development of modern Manga is Katsushika Hokusai, the famous 19th century artist and printmaker while his woodblock print images of 36 views of Mount Fuji are known throughout the world, his good manga website sketches are several of the best examples of humour in Japanese art. Hokusai was also the very first to use the term Manga to describe his sketches although he did not invent the phrase himself.































Adult storybooks - text surrounding ink brush illustrations became popular within the middle class Japanese population. Printed with woodblocks these books were much like modern manga in that they covered a wide variety of subjects from fantasy and drama to humour as well as pornography. Shunga (Erotic Art) and Yokai (Ghosts and Monsters) are other kinds of popular Japanese Art that have influenced modern manga































By the 19th century the art became influenced by western culture and also the illustrated story books became a mixture of Japanese and Western Cartoons.































As it progressed many state that Osamu Tezuka was the father of Modern Manga, his most popular creation was Mighty Atom (or Astro Boy). His Manga debut came in 1947 with his New Treasure Island a comic that was produced cheaply and sold 400,000 copies with this success he was able to develop a following of young manga artists eagre to continue with what he had started. These would soon broaden and from here the young people that started reading those earlier comics would continue to read manga as adults and with which is it said that modern manga was born.