Japanese Crepe Paper Fairy Tales

'The Goblin Spider'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1926.

'Chin Chin Kobakama'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1925.

'Der Sperling mit der Geschlitzten Zunge'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa (undated).

'La Bataille du singe et du Crabe'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1885.

'La Sierpe de Ocho Cabezas'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1914.

'Le Mont Katsi Katsi'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1897.

'Le Vieillard et les Démons'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1897.

'Momotaro'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1886.

'Sippeitaro'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1914.

'The Boy Who Drew Cats'
Published by Takezirou Hasegawa in 1898.

'The Old Woman Who Lost her Dumpling'
Published by Yosaku Nishinomiya Tanigawa Takeshi Stores in 1937.

The Baika Women's University Collection of Crêpe Paper Books in Japan consists of more than one hundred and fifty works produced between about 1880 and 1940 in English, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese editions. Not all of the books are present in each language and some of the books were published on thick Japanese paper rather than crêpe paper. Most, but not all, of the books are traditional fairy tales.

The semi-flash site is fairly slick and very easy to negotiate and includes a preface and an introduction in english. That's the good news. The unfortunate part is that the image sizes are rather small. Normally I would have bypassed this material but it's unique and exquisite and worth posting despite the down side in my opinion. In most cases, slightly larger versions of the above images can be found by clicking through to the flickr page and clicking 'All Sizes'. In a few cases, what you see above is the full size image -- they are all screen captures. I've posted about sixty images all told to this flickr set in any event. I haven't actually looked all the way through the site yet.

Alternatively, larger image versions of many (?) of the books are available in non-flash format at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies - Nichibunken - but I think the image quality is poor.

"The crêpe-paper books in this collection were published mainly in the Meiji era by Hasegawa Kobunsha. Each picture drawn by the artist was cut on a woodcut, one woodcut for each color used in the picture. The printer applied the color to the woodcut, making a print on Japanese paper each time a different color was added. As to the story, each word was set in type, or, in some cases, in handcarved letters.

Lightly moistened Japanese paper was wrapped around a vertical cylindrical form and crinkled by pressing the paper down to the bottom of the cylinder. The crinkled paper was removed, opened, and wrapped around the cylinder again in a different direction. This was repeated eight or ten times. By this laborious method, soft, crêpe-like paper was finally produced. In the process, the size of the Japanese paper was reduced to about 80%. The pages were assembled and bound with silk thread."

"Formerly, crêpe-paper books were largely thought of as a souvenir for foreigners to take home, but this is a mistaken idea. [...] Through such books, Japanese culture could be spread abroad and appreciated."

Calligraphy Portraits

"Bust portrait of William III and Mary in state robes, in two ovals facing towards each other, printed within calligraphic flourishes; a cutting of the top left corner from a official legal document. 1690s Engraving printed from a single plate on vellum" by William Elder.








"Bust portrait of William III in state robes, with garter chain, in an oval facing left, printed within a second plate with calligraphic flourishes; a cutting of the top left corner from a official legal document. 1690s Engraving printed from two plates on vellum" (Anonymous).




"Portrait of Charles II in penmanship, drawn in an oval with calligraphic flourishes on all sides, printed on the Thames in the Frost Fair of 1684 Engraving"

"Lettered with motto round frame, and below ''Invented, performed by command of hand & engraven by John Seddon. Carp not at what you see for tis no more than th'untaught act of one ne'r grav'd before', and 'Printed on the River of Thames, Feb.1683/4'. "

"The bust of Charles is composed of calligraphic flourishes. John Seddon was the leading calligrapher of the time, and master of Sir John Johnson's Free Writing School in Priest's Court, Foster Lane. His portrait was drawn by William Faithorne (Vertue I 140), and was engraved by John Sturt as the frontispiece for his copy-books, such as 'The Ingenious youth's companion' of c.1690 and 'The pen-man's paradise' of c.1695. These were engraved after his work by others. This print declares that it was the first plate he engraved himself, and it probably remained the only one."







"Bust portrait of [King] Charles II in state robes, with garter chain, in an oval, printed within a second plate with calligraphic flourishes; a cutting of the top left corner from a official legal document. 1660s Engraving printed from two plates on vellum" (Anonymous).







"Bust portrait of Queen Anne in state robes, with hair piled high, in an oval, printed within calligraphic flourishes; a cutting of the top left corner from a official legal document. 1704/14 Engraving printed from a single plate on vellum" (Anonymous).





"Bust portrait of [King] Charles I in state robes, with garter chain, in an oval facing right, printed within calligraphic flourishes; a cutting of the top left corner from a official legal document. 1630s Engraving printed from a single plate on vellum with some colouring" (Anonymous).




'Jean Guttenberg de Mayence Inventeur de l"Imprimerie. 1436 à Strasbourg'
[Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, inventor of the Printing Press]
"Lithograph. Portrait by Simon fils [c. 1836], calligraphic border executed by Ald. Berliner. Printed on wove paper." [source]


All but the last of the above images were found in the marvellous British Museum Prints Database.

Doubtless there are more calligraphic portraits to be found in this style but they are fairly resistant to searching (I admit I didn't try tooooo hard). The more esoteric and specific the style or theme, the harder it is to find desirable images, seems to me. More image captions and metadata please!

Will Eisner's Preventative Maintenance

Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries have just posted full copies (145 regular issues; 5 special issues and 14 index issues) of the Army publication 'Preventative Maintenance Monthly', illustrated by Will Eisner and covering the years 1951 to 1972. [announcement]

The images above are front and back covers in chronological order - mouseover for issue number and date.

New York comic artist, Will Eisner (1917-2005), is a legend in the industry and arguably the most influential comic illustrator of all time. He pioneered what he called the sequential art form and was a leading protagonist for the graphic novel genre and the use of comic strip art as an instructional device.

The early Eisner-Iger Studios (with friend Jerry Iger) employed such luminary artists as Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four/X-Men/Captain America) and Bob Kane (Batman). Eisner's own 'superhero' appeared in 1940 in the highly influential and popular comic, 'The Spirit', revered as "the Citizen Kane of comics": "a crimefighter dressed in a suit, fedora and the concession of a small blue eyemask".

During WW2 Eisner worked for the Pentagon, producing educational comics "whose mixture of hard facts with entertaining cartooning made them memorable and effective". From his post-war company, American Visuals Corporation, Eisner turned out illustrations for 'P*S: The Preventative Maintenance Monthly', one of his longest lasting contracts, published by the US Army between 1951 and 1972.

As a testament to his significance in the industry he helped shape, the Eisner Awards were established in 1988, the most prestigious accolades in the comic art trade. (Eisner reluctantly accepted a few Eisners himself) He died as a result of complications following a quadruple bypass in 2005.

• Will Eisner official site.
• Obits - New York Times; The Guardian.
• Lambiek page.
• Wikipedia article.
• The Library of Congress has an hour long lecture (.ram - film) by Will Eisner in (I think) 2003. In the lecture, Eisner discusses his own approach to writing and illustrating graphic novels and explores his views on the evolution of popular visual media.
• Correction just noted: It's Preventive Maintenance and not Preventative. We imagine what we see we read.