And writes and doodles about stuff he reads. There is simply Natsume, the columnist/cartoonist who reads. At this early point, there is no Natsume Fusanosuke, the manga scholar. In this and other Readingology essays, there is yet no formal, organized study of the trio of words, pictures, and panels that make up Natsume’s system of “manga expression theory” ( manga hyōgen-ron), which gestates in Where Is Tezuka Osamu?, is born in the How to Read Manga ( Manga no yomikata, 1995) sections he authored, and finally matures for a prime-time general audience in Why Is Manga So Interesting? Its Expression and Grammar ( Manga wa naze omoshiroi no ka: sono hyōgen to bunpō televised in 1996 and printed in book form in 1997). 1 The book consists of essays written several years before Natsume will complete his first serious study on manga, Where Is Tezuka Osamu? ( Tezuka Osamu wa doko ni iru, 1992), but the seeds for that seminal Manga Studies monograph is present in the four Readingology essays about Tezuka, written soon after the Master died in 1989.

Such highfalutin “-ology” ( -gaku) was still entirely “in jest,” Natsume says of the title to Readingology. Scott McCloud's cartoon avatar in Understanding Comics alongside Natsume's avatar from Readingology. Both have their “iconic” and everyman look, but Natsume never takes himself (his persona) seriously.

Compare Natsume’s Natsume versus McCloud’s McCloud. And his self-mocking cartoon persona is visible here in the accompanying comic page. Natsume always destroys his own pretensions and razes his own soapbox. Often these jabs boomerang back, where he mocks himself along with his subject matter. Usually with any essay, Natsume would contribute a manga cartoon or an illustration page to help get across his point-and his jabs. Flourishing his wit and his drawing pen, Natsume wrote a large number of columns on manga for manga magazines as well as larger media venues like Weekly Asahi, one of Japan's oldest weekly news magazines. It is classic Natsume writing from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Readingology consists of over 60 mini-essays on a variety of subjects, ranging from his favorite current books to books he’s nostalgic over, to his reading of Stan Lee’s & John Buscema’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (the subject of the present essay). Readingology, published in 1993, was a collection of Natsume Fusanosuke’s monthly manga columns that ran in Comic Tom ( Komikku Tomu) magazine from May 1986 through January 1991. Features Drawing American Comics the Marvel Way

How to draw comics in marvel way