The Japan Punch

Charles Wirgman, a British artist and correspondent for the Illustrated London News, settled in the foreign quarter of Yokohama and in 1862 launched The Japan Punch, a satirical magazine for the port's expatriate community. Modeled directly on London's Punch, it ran until 1887 and brought the Western political cartoon — with its captions, caricatures, and topical wit — to Japanese soil.

Its influence outran its small readership. The magazine's name entered Japanese as ponchi ("punch"), and the cartoons it inspired became known as ponchi-e, "punch pictures." That word marked the arrival of a whole format: the recurring comic image aimed at commenting on the news. Wirgman, who lived out his life in Japan, is remembered as the man who planted the seed of the modern cartoon there.