La nouvelle manga

Nouvelle Manga is an artistic movement which gathers Franco-Belgian and Japanese comic creators together. The expression was first used by Kiyoshi Kusumi, editor of the Japanese manga magazine Comickers, in referring to the work of French expatriate Frédéric Boilet, who lived in Japan for much of his career but has since returned to France in December 2008. Boilet adopted the term for himself and encouraged other artists to participate.

The Movement was born of several observations. Whereas European cinema often bases its theme on everyday life, French/Belgian bande dessinée has, for a long time, been restricted to stereotyped genres such as science fiction or westerns. Japanese authors on the other hand exploit daily life extensively – but these are often the least likely to be widely translated.

For the participants of Nouvelle Manga there are bridges to build between the comics of all nationalities, not least between the comics d'auteur in each country.

People often restrict Nouvelle Manga to the world of alternative comics, yet there are many examples of Nouvelle Manga authors publishing in all kinds of arenas. For instance, Boilet himself has been published in mainstream Seinen magazines like Big Comics in Japan as well as in alternative editorial structures such as Spore in Japan, Ego Comme X in France and, more recently, Fanfare / Ponent Mon in the US.