and impacted on the styles of comic art. On the other hand, the significant development of modern era Japanese comic art was arising in the aftermath of World War II and further developed into diversified genres. Nowadays, Japan has the largest and most matured manga market around the world. Almost a quarter of all printed materials in Japan are in forms of manga, while the audiences are from all ages. Most modern era one-shot manga (yomikiri 読み切り) have independent settings, characters, and storylines, rather than sharing them with existing works. In Japan and other Asian countries, some one-shot manga are more like takeoff boards to determine the popularity among the audience. The format of a one-shot manga could be changed if it has a broad market prospect, so that: a one-shot manga could become a serialized continuing manga after adapting; a one-shot manga could develop into a series of one-shot manga or serial manga, which are sharing the same world set and character design, but in different story lines; and side stories could derive from the original one-shot manga, such as a prequel, a sequel, and an antagonist or supporting role's side story. One-shot western comics The prototype comic works in Western countries were pamphlets, giveaways, or Sunday newspaper comic sections in the 19th century. These were then developed and published as comic magazines which were distributed with the newspapers sales on newsstands. On the other hand, graphic books in America was also viewed as developing from pamphlets that sold on newsstands. Comic was not highly regarded in the early market, for example, during depression comic was used to increase the sales of newspapers and some other products in America. Most of the comics were one-shot comics before the rise of long continuities in newspaper strips. After some early developments, weekly comic magazines became the major way of dissemination in European comic markets. Influenced by the chaos of social revolutions and changings in 20th century, Western alternative comic art was quickly developed as well as 1970s and 1980s' America. Also, America has stirred up a spree of superhero comics since 1930s, and this comic form is still dominating the comic market. The 19th and early 20th century In this period, comic strips and magazines were the major reading formats that had been leading the markets. Divergent genres such as humour, caricature, and horror were dominant forms of comics in that