Masahiko Matsumoto is considered a pioneer of alternative manga through his incorporation of cinematic techniques into manga from the mid-1950s onward.
14 Facts About Masahiko Matsumoto
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Masahiko Matsumoto's style known as komaga, together with the manga of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Takao Saito, was the catalyst of the gekiga movement.
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Masahiko Matsumoto began drawing during middle school and won a prize for an oil painting in 1949.
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Masahiko Matsumoto rented titles such as Nextworld from rental libraries.
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In 1951, Matsumoto visited Tezuka at his home in Takarazuka to get his autograph.
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Masahiko Matsumoto drew both full-length books as well as short stories for Hinomaru Bunko's mystery anthology Kage from its first issue in March 1956.
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Masahiko Matsumoto's work became a catalyst for the manga movement komaga due to its innovation in importing visual motifs from cinema.
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Masahiko Matsumoto was strongly influenced by Tezuka at the beginning of his career, especially Tezuka's focus on story rather than humor.
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Unlike Tezuka, Masahiko Matsumoto drew more elongated characters and made his stories consistently dramatic without comic elements, which Tezuka had included in all of his works.
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Masahiko Matsumoto imported visual motifs from cinema, especially film noir, and drew inspiration from crime literature by Edogawa Ranpo, Seishi Yokomizo, and the Tarao Bannai series for his detective and mystery manga.
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Masahiko Matsumoto used low-angle shots, metered breakdown, metered montage, and chronoscopia in order to provide a film-like experience.
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Manga scholar Ryan Holmberg credits Masahiko Matsumoto as one of the pioneers of alternative manga through the development of komaga, but says that it is a lesser-known term than Tatsumi's gekiga.
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Masahiko Matsumoto was one of the first to use a consistent dramatic, rather than comic, story mode in his manga.
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Masahiko Matsumoto's work was translated into English, French and Spanish.