From the pages of Hokusai Manga to Astro Boy animation cels and contemporary digital art, a new Vancouver exhibition will explore how comics have evolved across Asia and beyond.
Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form opens at the Chinese Canadian Museum on October 7, marking the Canadian premiere of the internationally touring exhibition developed by London’s Barbican Centre. It will be on view through August 15, 2027.
The exhibition brings together more than 400 works from over 20 countries and regions. Visitors can expect original comic art, rare publications, Japanese woodblock prints, Hindu scroll paintings, animation cels and digital media. Together, they trace centuries of visual storytelling and the influence comics have had on film, fashion, animation and video games.
For its Vancouver presentation, the museum is adding something new to the tour: Diaspora Stories, a section dedicated to Chinese Canadian artists and authors.
From historic prints to Astro Boy
Curated by comics historian Paul Gravett with more than 20 international advisors, Asian Comics moves well beyond any single style or country. Its seven sections explore folklore, history, the people who tell stories, censorship, multimedia work and the experiences of diaspora communities.
Among the exhibition highlights are 19th-century woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, pages from Katsushika Hokusai’s Hokusai Manga and original Astro Boy animation cels associated with manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka.
The exhibition also features creators whose work draws on deeply personal experiences. One is Vannak Anan Prum, a formerly enslaved fisherman who used comics to share his story.
“We are incredibly excited to work with the Barbican and for the Chinese Canadian Museum to be the first institution in Canada to bring Asian Comics to audiences here,” said Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee, the museum’s CEO. She described comics as a form of popular culture that can connect generations and carry stories across borders.
The exhibition has toured internationally since 2017, with presentations in Europe and the United States. Its most recent stop was at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.
Vancouver adds Chinese Canadian stories
The museum’s Diaspora Stories section brings the international exhibition closer to home. Curated by Olivia Chow, the museum’s Director of Curatorial Programs, it places Chinese Canadian comics alongside the wider history of Asian visual storytelling.
The section features work by David H. T. Wong, Zoe Si, Lee Lai, Ruth Chan,Hartley Lin, and more It also includes archival comics by Vivian Chan Moy that appeared in The Asianadian, an Asian Canadian publication that ran from 1978 to 1985.
“Comics have a remarkable ability to make complex histories deeply personal,” Chow said. “The artists in this section remind us that there is no single diasporic story.”
That addition gives Vancouver audiences a way to see local creative voices within an exhibition spanning centuries and continents. It also reflects the Chinese Canadian Museum’s broader purpose: sharing Chinese Canadian history and living heritage through exhibitions and public programming.
Gravett said the exhibition celebrates the global reach of Japanese manga while drawing attention to comics cultures that audiences may encounter less often, including work from Mongolia and Bhutan. Chinese comics, from earlier printed traditions to digital media, are part of that wider picture.
For visitors who grew up with comics, the show offers a chance to revisit a familiar medium through new histories and artists. For those who have never picked one up, it makes the case that visual storytelling has always been far bigger than a single genre.
Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form opens October 7, 2026, at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver’s Chinatown and runs through August 15, 2027.
