Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form opens Oct. 7, 2026, at the Chinese Canadian Museum and runs through Aug. 15, 2027.
The Story
Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form opens on Oct. 7, 2026, at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver’s Chinatown, marking the exhibition’s Canadian debut.
The show will be on view through Aug. 15, 2027, bringing together more than 400 works from over 20 countries and regions.
Curated by comics historian Paul Gravett and organized by the Barbican Immersive, the internationally touring exhibition has seven sections that explore topics including folklore, history, storytelling, censorship, multimedia work and the experiences of diaspora communities.
Organizers say visitors can view a mix of original and historic materials, including comic art, rare publications, Japanese woodblock prints, Hindu scroll paintings, animation cels and digital media.
Among the cited 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.
For the Vancouver presentation, the Chinese Canadian Museum is adding a dedicated section called Diaspora Stories, which focuses on Chinese Canadian artists and authors.
The Diaspora Stories section is curated by Olivia Chow, the museum’s Director of Curatorial Programs, and places Chinese Canadian comics alongside wider histories of Asian visual storytelling.
The museum says the section includes work by David H. T. Wong, Zoe Si, Lee Lai, Ruth Chan, Hartley Lin and others, as well as archival comics by Vivian Chan Moy that appeared in The Asianadian, an Asian Canadian publication that ran from 1978 to 1985.
In the exhibition materials, Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee, the museum’s CEO, said she is “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.” 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, and its most recent stop is described as the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle before the Vancouver opening.
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