At least in Japan they do!

In the United States comics are mostly thought of as something for children or teenagers. In Japan, manga is popular with people of all ages. (Manga is the Japanese name for Japanese-style comics.) In fact, some types of manga are pretty adult in theme. Adult women in Japan are sometimes fans of “yaoi” or “boys love” – a genre of manga that is created for a female audience featuring men in romantic relationships with other men. Artists elsewhere, including other Asian countries, the United States and Europe, have created manga-style comics.

The manga industry is huge. There are many weekly, biweekly and monthly manga magazines in Japan where new stories are serialized. “At any given time there are at least ten magazines which boast over one million copies of each issue. At most there is one non-manga magazine in Japan which can claim a readership of over one million.”(Source)

Like other Japanese books, manga is presented in right to left format. Many translated editions still follow the same format even though the English words are written left to right. It's a different experience to read comics backwards but I've found you can get used to it.

If you give manga a try, please leave a comment below and let me know how it went.

Many popular manga series such as “Bleach” or “Naruto” can be found in our young adult graphic novel section. Kids' fave “Pokemon” can be found upstairs in The Trove. Here's a few manga suggestions from the adult graphic novel collection:

Araki, Hirohiko. Rohan at the Louvre. New York: Comics Lit, 2012.
Ebine, Kazuki. Gandhi: A Manga Biography. New York: Penguin, 2011.
Hagio, Moto. Moto Hagio's Drunken Dream and Other Stories. Seattle, Wash.: Fantagraphics, 2010.
Mori, Kaoru. Bride's Story. New York: Yen Press, 2011.