How do you make a politician’s latest speech interesting enough to grab the attention of a visually-oriented generation raised on comic books? Make it into Manga. Japanese website ‘Manga No Shimbun‘ presents the day’s current events in comic strip format – from the release of the new iPhone to the story of that smoking Sumatran toddler.
Editor Son Yang collects information about the day’s biggest news stories from TV, the internet and his own sources and distributes it to a team of in-house and contract artists, who spend an average of eight hours on each 2-page news piece.
“We think that reporting the daily news in a manga format will make it much easier to understand current topics and will help attract attention to the news from people in broader walks of life,” said Yang in a press release.
It might seem a bit touchy to portray serious or tragic events in Manga style – like the earthquake in Haiti or human rights issues in North Korea – but Manga No Shimbun isn’t trying to editorialize the news, making it humorous or satirical. They’re just breaking it down into engaging, easy-to-understand works of art. Next up? Versions in Korean, French, and – yes – English.
