Yonkoma

Yonkoma manga (4コマ漫画, "four cell manga", or 4-koma for short), a comic-strip format, generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom. (They also sometimes run right-to-left horizontally or use a hybrid 2x2 style, depending on the layout requirements of the publication in which they appear.) Though the word yonkoma comes from the Japanese, the style also exists outside Japan in other Asian countries as well as in the English-speaking market.

Origin

Rakuten Kitazawa (who wrote under the name Yasuji Kitazawa) produced the first yonkoma in 1902. Entitled "Jiji Manga", it was thought to have been influenced by the works of Frank Arthur Nankivell and of Frederick Burr Opper.Jiji Manga appeared in the Sunday edition.

Structure

Traditionally, Yonkoma follow a structure known as Kishōtenketsu. This word is a compound formed from the following Japanese Kanji characters: