Southeast Asian Cartoon Art

<p> This is the first overview of cartoon art in this important cultural nexus of Asia. The eight essays provide historical and contemporary examinations of cartoons and comics in Indonesia the Philippines Thailand Cambodia and Vietnam and sociocultural and political analyses of cartooning in Singapore Myanmar and Malaysia. The collection benefits from hundreds of interviews with Southeast Asia's major cartoonists conducted by the four contributors as well as textual analyses of specific cartoons on-the-spot observations and close scrutiny of historical documents.</p><p> All genres of printed cartoon art are studied including political and humor cartoons newspaper comic strips comic books and humor and cartoon periodicals. Topics of discussion and comparison with cartoon art of other parts of the globe include national identity the transnational public sphere globalization alternative media forms freedom of expression consumerism and corporatism. Southeast Asian cartoon art has a number of features unique to the region such as having as pioneering cartoonists three countries' founding fathers comics that gave their name to a national trait some of the earliest graphic novels worldwide and a king who hired a cartoonist to illustrate his books.</p>