MANGA ONCE MEANT COMICS produced exclusively in Japan, where they still cater to every age group and interest, accounting for up to 40 per cent of all publishing. But now they have invaded the UK: this year manga versions of Shakespeare and the Bible have been produced by British publishers, and next weekend British manga artists will discuss their work at Comica, the London International Comics Festival.

Even the Japanese Government recognises that manga can come from anywhere. In 2006 the Japanese Foreign Minister, Taro Aso, a passionate manga reader, launched an International Manga Award for a foreign artist who had best helped to spread the form. Entrants came from 25 countries, including Britain, and the winner was Lee Chi Ching, from Hong Kong. As Chigusa Ogino from the Tokyo manga agency Tuttle-Mori said: “You don't have to have a Japanese passport to do manga.”

Many British youngsters first see manga styles and stories through Pokémon-type cards, computer games and anime (Japanese animation) in the form of television cartoons such as Naruto and Oscar-winning movies such as Spirited Away. Then they discover that bookshop and library shelves are heaving with manga paperbacks. These are often printed with “authentic” right-to-left, back-to-front reading directions, baffling adults, but captivating kids.

And you don't just collect manga, you can make your own. “How to Draw Manga” manuals have become the biggest growth area in art-instruction publishing. British mangaka (comics authors) are self-publishing as fanzines or print-on-demand graphic novels and posting them on the internet. The prime mover in this scene is Sweatdrop Studios. Two of its members, Emma Vieceli and Sonia Leong, won talent searches, and landed the job of illustrating the first of the publisher SelfMadeHero's manga adaptations of Shakespeare. The text-adaptor, Richard Appignanesi, edits Shakespeare's language to fit the balloons and captions while staying faithful to the original. But the locations have been reimagined, with Romeo and Juliet transported to a modern Tokyo of rock stars and yakuza gangs or Hamlet to a cyberpunk future.

Out this month are Paul Duffield's The Tempest, set after an energy crisis has plunged humanity into a second Dark Age, and Patrick Warren's Richard III, rooted in a darkly gothic medieval England. Across 200 pages, these artists demonstrate how vividly manga techniques and pacing can convey motion and emotion.

SelfMadeHero's goal is to make Shakespeare accessible to as wide a readership as possible, and it seems to be succeeding in Britain — the launch titles were reprinted within six months — and also in Japan.

Emma Hayley, the publisher, and two artists received a warm welcome at symposia in Kyoto, Tokyo and Nagoya. “Our books are being used at Japanese universities and I have had many educational institutions there expressing interest in our Manga Shakespeare workshops,” she says.

The Bible has been adapted into comic form before, but the portrayals, especially of Jesus, in Hodder & Stoughton's The Manga Bible are worlds away from traditional Sunday school imagery and, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says, “convey the shock and freshness of the Bible in a unique way”. The artist responsible is Siku, who fuses Japanese influences with experience on the science-fiction weekly 2000AD, home of Judge Dredd,

These are only the most high-profile examples of made-in-Britain manga. The boldest example must be The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga, two volumes of more than 500 pages each of impressively diverse work, from as far afield as Sweden and Thailand. Its editor, Ilya, praises contributors for creating “neither fake manga, nor a pale imitation but something entirely original”.

The appetite for manga culture in Britain shows no signs of abating. Starting next weekend, manga are spotlighted at the ICA's Comica festival, involving 14 young talents from across Asia and Europe.

Comics were mass-marketed by America in the early 20th century, stimulating imitations everywhere, including Japan. A century later, a Japanese export has become the template for the future of comics.

Manga reading list

Manga Shakespeare SelfMadeHero, £7.99 each

Growing series of dramatic comic-book adaptations. selfmadehero.com

The Manga Bible: Raw

Hodder, £8.99

The full Bible in manga form — dual text versions are also available. www.themangabible.com

The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga vols 1 and 2

Constable & Robinson

Seminal international anthologies. bestnewmanga.com

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