Manga belongs in the British Museum as much as the Elgin marbles

The Japanese graphic form has contributed to modern culture for over a century, says comic-book writer David Barnett

Beware of the lions: a comedian’s guide to the Indian election

What do the Stay Awake party stand for? Could anyone vote cauliflower? And will officials in the Gir Forest get out alive? As the world’s biggest election ends, one comic reveals how it gives him a lifetime of material

Manga review – where has all the riotous fun and filth gone?

It has moments of brilliance but asking us to compare today’s graphic artists with greats of the past is misguided

Fukushima, golf and Jesus on a gap year: why no subject is now off-limits for manga

Once regarded as too niche for the west, Japan’s comic genre has become a global phenomenon, generating billions of dollars. So why is it still so misunderstood?

Manga and the art of the mass-market masterpiece

As the British Museum opens the biggest exhibition of the comic-book artform outside Japan, graphic novelist Fumio Obata celebrates its enduring appeal

Stan Lee’s business manager charged with elder abuse of Marvel creator

Keya Morgan, the memorabilia dealer who became close to the comics magnate, is accused of ‘false imprisonment, forgery and fraud’

‘I’m sucking up your IQ!’: what 90s Batman tells us about Hollywood

The dialogue is corny, the heroes moody, the fights risible, but the Batman films of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher paved the way for today’s blockbusters

Watchmen trailer: HBO reveals first look at superhero series

The network hopes to follow the end of Game of Thrones with another blockbuster series, an adaptation of the cult graphic novel

Why are comics shops closing as superheroes make a mint?

The latest Avengers film is expected to take $1bn in its opening week, but the shops that are those characters’ natural homes are battling to stay in business

It’s a #masterpiece! What if Gauguin and Monet had been on Instagram?

Illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme has imagined how great painters would have fared on social media – and the trolling their work might have received

Defying Chinese censorship: a comic dedicated to nakedness

When artist Yan Cong was told he could not print any nudity in his books, he set out to produce an anthology with characters in the buff

Hellboy review – a soulless descent into the seventh circle of tedium

The dehorned battler is reconfigured into a franchise figurehead – and loses all his devilish excitement

Funny peculiar: will Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker be the strangest DC movie yet?

Joker’s teaser promises an absorbing origins story for Batman’s nemesis. It remains to be seen how much of its twisted Gotham vision survives beyond a one-off outing

Blossoms in Autumn review by Zidrou and Aimée de Jongh – never too late to fall in love

Passion in later life between two lonely people is explored with tender sweetness

What’s the next Game of Thrones? All the contenders for fantasy TV’s crown

The saga of the Seven Kingdoms may be bowing out, but it has opened the floodgates. Here’s your guide to the next big heroes