I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it, but watchmaker Francois-Paul Journe is starring in his own Japanese manga comic. Written and illustrated by actual Japanese people. Yes, it is weird, but totally true. I picked one up at a F.P. Journe boutique store here in Los Angeles and apparently there aren’t that many of them.

The manga is called “Story of F.P. Journe” and proceeds to walk through some elements of Francois-Paul’s life and career– and some of the the brand’s watches and developments. Actually, the “story” is not entirely new but rather an adaptation of a previous manga made especially for F.P. Journe. That previous manga was produced for the Japanese watch magazine called Tokei Begin and was called “Tokei Kigen Monogatari” from 2005. If you want to know, it is written by Yasutoshi Murakawa and drawn by Nakano Kung-fu.

The Japanese have a manga for pretty much everything, so that they would have one to explain watch history is not particularly surprising. I think there is a manga version of the Christian bible as well. As a watch or F.P. Journe collector, it is a cool item to have since it is genuinely interesting as a novelty. It is also a great way of learning what Journe would look like if he was an anime character. This isn’t actually the first time a watch brand has dabbled in comics. Linde Werdelin had a small comic series called The Perfect Five back in 2010, and in the same year Urwerk had a promotional comic book. Don’t you just love the stuff that indy brands will do?

If you want a copy of the “Story of F.P. Journe” you’ll have to visit one of their stores or ask them. This is gonna have a place on my watch book shelf, for sure. fpjourne.com