Were and when did the art of manga start its way to America?

Question:

Were and when did the art of manga start its way to America?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It started back in the mid 1960's with the works of Osamu Tezuka being syndicated for American Television. I'm sure one of the more hardcore fans can give you more exact dates. Astroboy and Gigantor were among the first to show up in America, but the commercial popularity took off in the 1970's with Speed Racer, G-Force and Battle of the Planets.

Nickelodeon made its impact in the early 1980's by syndicating several popular shows from Japan, alongside home video game systems with improved graphics, as most games were made in Japan, so the avatars were Manga, such as MegaMan and Mario.

For the Manga comic genre, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia...

The first Westerner to introduce the visual approach and concepts of manga into English language comics was Vernon Grant, who drew comics in 1969-1972 while he was living in Japan. At the time, he was absorbing numerous Japanese comics, including Kazuo Koike's 28-volume samurai epic Lone Wolf and Cub, which he wrote about in the Mainichi Daily News in 1972. From 1977 to 1988, Grant published his series, The Love Rangers about a racially mixed space crew spreading love thoughout the universe. In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt's Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha) profiled creators and detailed manga's background and history for American readers.

Following increasing interest during the 1990s, manga eventually grew into a large industry in America, tripling during 2002-05 to become a $180 million market by 2005.[1] Also as evidence of their pervasiveness, at least 40 syndicated newspaper have added manga strips to their funny pages.[1] Manga has also been noted for making female readers interested in comics. In a nation where the American comic book readership is largely dominated by males, females make up an unheard of 60% of all manga readership.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/manga...