Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that 91 year-old manga creator Shigeru Mizuki has a new serialized manga starting later this month.
Mizuki is best known for creating supernatural horror manga GeGeGe no Kitaro.
Going on sale on December 25 in the January issue of Big Comic, Mizuki’s latest manga is titled Watashi no Hibi (わたしの日々), or “My Days.” According to Nico Nico, the manga chronicles Mizuki’s life, looking at ordinarily tranquil existence, as well as his experience fighting in World War II and living in poverty.
During World War II, Mizuki came down with malaria in Papua New Guinea, had his arm blown off in an air raid, was captured, and almost married into a Tolai tribe, before returning to Japan to work in a movie theatre until he made it as a manga artist.
This isn’t the only manga Mizuki is working on. He’s also been doing a manga for horror magazine Kwai.
Mizuki must be the oldest working comic book artist. Can’t think of an older, working comic or manga creator. Can you?
漫画家・水木しげるさん、91歳で新連載『わたしの日々』開始 [ニコニコ]
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One response to “Is This The Oldest Working Comic Book Artist In The World?”
Recently one of Mizuki’s books (Showa 1926-1939: A HIstory of Japan) was released in translated form. Obviously this doesn’t cover the WW2 years, but it does cover most of the leadup to it. I picked up a copy at Kinokuniya in Sydney.
The comic is a mix of historical and autobiographical information. It’s never going to make the bestseller lists, but it does a good job of summarising the history while giving a sometimes scathing self-portrait of his earlier years. It’s interesting to read how the increasing view of the Emperor as divine basically led to the whole mess.