Eiji Ikeda

Eiji Ikeda (15 October 1889 - 30 December 1950) was a Japanese cartoonist, painter, illustrator, and haiga artist.

Life Born in Kiyamachi, Kyoto in 1889 and raised in Osaka. Beginning at age 7, he trained with his father as a woodblock printer. After graduating high school, he continued this work, apprenticing at a print and plate company. In 1930, he began serializing his best known work, the comic strip Pichibe, in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

After studying haiga under the artist from 1916-1918, Ikeda became deeply interested in the form. He created a hybrid haiga comic strip called, "Haiku Masterpieces, Turned into Manga" for the Yomiuri Sunday Manga supplement of the Yomiuri Shimbun.

In 1935, he began teaching at the Reformed Pacific School of Fine Arts.