Draw like a Pro! Part 1: The origins of Manga

I'm sure that a lot of you guys out there want to learn how to draw like professional mangakas. I wanna learn too! I'll dedicate an entire series of posts to amazing techniques, tools, LOTS  of pictures and some input from amazing established manga authors/artists that will help us all with our learning process!
But first of all, have you ever wondered who was the GENIUS to ever first hold a pencil and start sketching those really cool, shiny eyed characters?
I'm sure that it would be so cool going back in time just to high five the dude! :D

"Originally, the word manga is composed of two Chinese characters—the first meaning "in spite of oneself"  and the second meaning "picture"—and has been used to describe various comical images for at least two centuries."

There are a lot of arguments as to who actually started it all and whether or not the late 19th century European/American comic strips were the major influence on today's modern manga, but let's not get into all that. It was Osamu Tezuka, Japan's first established manga artist, also known as "God of manga", who was the first to create a manga based on cinematic story board production instead of the old 2D based comics. Remember, Mighty Atom? (or perhaps the American name "Astro Boy" might ring a bell with ya) Well, Tezuka was the artist! :D 

However, whether or not Tezuka is REALLY the first, we'll never know. After reading through a lot of articles, I found that there were a lot of artists before Tezuka, some even more skilled than him, who used the same "cinematic techniques", but were unfortunately constrained by the publishers who thought that manga should be educational for children and not too "stimulating". I guess Tezuka was just in the right place at the right time. (Lucky bastard! :D) So we can't pinpoint who it really is for sure who got the modern manga thing going. :(

Well, manga history turned out to be a complicated deal. (I wonder if they study manga history in schools in Japan? :D) 

If you wanna know more about the origins of manga, check out the source article.  

This is pretty much it for this post. I'll try to start our manga drawing lessons as soon as possible! I've already started compiling the materials for lesson one so get ready!! Although I do hope more followers would come my way before then...(Pwetty please? :D:D)

Until then, here's a cute chibi for ya!!! ^.^

    What did you think of this post? Good amount of info or would you have perferred less, or perhaps more? Tell me all about it in the comment section!