A slice of social history

Members of the household kept sneaking off with this book but were betrayed by their giggles and sighs of nostalgia. It is great fun. Its creation was clearly a labour of love and joy. But it is also the work of a serious and skilled historian.

Nicolas Verstappen is teaching in the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University. He found his sources for this book in earlier studies by Thai authors, in archives and private collections, and in hoards of clippings unearthed from storerooms and attics. He tells the story of Thai comics from 1907 to the present in 40 chapters, of which 30 focus on a particular artist or team, and the others on a publication, group or theme. He starts by noting Thailand’s rich inheritance of tales, many of which mix the real and the surreal — a feature that provides the…