Mangaka
A mangaka is a manga artist, usually both writer and illustrator of a series, often working with assistants and an editor on a weekly or monthly deadline.
Where the word comes from
Japanese 漫画家, "manga" plus ka, "expert" or "professional".
In depth
A mangaka creates manga. In most cases one person writes and draws a series, and the work is credited to them alone. Behind the name there is usually a studio of assistants who draw backgrounds, apply screentone and finish pages, and an editor at the publisher who shapes the story with the artist.
Working to deadline
A weekly series means around twenty pages every week, often for years. That schedule explains the planned breaks and occasional hiatuses of long-running series.
Teams
Some series split the roles between a writer (gensakusha) and an artist; the cover then credits both, for example a story by one person and art by another.
Creator and editor
The relationship between a mangaka and their editor is unusually close by Western standards. The editor helps develop the story, reviews the storyboards (called name) before pages are drawn, and represents the series at the magazine. Many mangaka credit their editors in the afterwords of their volumes.
Credits on English editions
English manga volumes credit the mangaka on the cover, and the translator, letterer and editor of the English edition inside. When a series has separate writer and artist credits, both are shown on the cover.
What it means today
If you love a mangaka's series, their short-story collections and earlier works are the natural next read.
