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<h2 class="entry_title">Sinophone Comics: A World of Changes</h2><h2 class="entry_title"><span class="gmail-date entry_date gmail-updated">11 Jan 2021</span> </h2>
<div class="gmail-post_info"> <span class="gmail-post_author">by <a class="gmail-post_author_link" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://isapuclan.org.uk/author/rowann/__;!!KGKeukY!mRb8DNDak-mmIZRqAVo9cKF-eAGTcoocMPNSo4-DJdM522crIcmOh1PGJxYdjhlYwX_NQ7atUgtb$">Rowann Fitzpatrick</a><br></span></div><div class="gmail-post_info"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://isapuclan.org.uk/sinophone-comics-a-world-of-changes/__;!!KGKeukY!mRb8DNDak-mmIZRqAVo9cKF-eAGTcoocMPNSo4-DJdM522crIcmOh1PGJxYdjhlYwX_NQ2W0pPG_$">https://isapuclan.org.uk/sinophone-comics-a-world-of-changes/</a><span class="gmail-post_author">
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<h1>SINOPHONE COMICS: A WORLD OF CHANGES</h1>
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<div class="gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align:center">ONLINE SYMPOSIUM<br>
13-14 JANUARY 2022 (THURSDAY-FRIDAY)<br>
NORTHERN INSTITUTE OF TAIWAN STUDIES<br>
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-ii04i59q">
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<p style="text-align:center">During the last few years, the world has
witnessed a series of deeply disruptive changes, which called for
immediate and radical adaptive and counteractive measures. This workshop
proposes to explore graphic narratives published in the Chinese
language, addressing issues pertaining to ethnic Chinese groups in Asia,
or produced in Asian countries and other locations with a predominantly
Chinese population.</p>
<h3 style="text-align:center"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sinophonecomicsaworldofchanges.eventbrite.co.uk__;!!KGKeukY!mRb8DNDak-mmIZRqAVo9cKF-eAGTcoocMPNSo4-DJdM522crIcmOh1PGJxYdjhlYwX_NQ1g67RSk$">To join us, register you place on Eventbrite.</a></h3>
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<p style="text-align:center">This event is based in the UK; the hours below are provided in UK time (UTC+0).<br>
The organisation of the workshop panels will be as follows: each
recorded presentation will be briefly summarised by the author (5 mis),
followed by a dialogue with the discussant. Each panel will include 15
mins of open floor discussion with the audience.</p>
<p style="text-align:center">Prior to the event, please take some time to read the below abstracts for each paper.</p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h4>Past, Present and Future of Manhua in Italy</h4>
<p><strong>Martina CASCHERA</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>“Gabriele d’Annunzio” University, Pescara, Italy</strong></em></p>
<p>At the turning of the XXI century, the People’s Republic inaugurated
the “going out strategy” (zou chuqu zhanlue 走出去战略), which was
implemented during the following decade (Yelery 2014). To facilitate the
PRC’s global rise, the strategy comprises the export or
internationalization of Chinese cultural products. As a consequence,
since 2010, the circulation of Chinese comics, also known as manhua, has
experienced an expansion in the European market (Chen 2020, Pan 2012).
France can be deemed as the first and foremost European importer of
manhua, but in the last five years, a growing interest in translating
and purchasing manhua has been detected in Italy too. This phenomenon
offers a new viewpoint and additional info for investigating the
presence of manhua in Europe.<br>
The present research poses at its basis a broad definition of manhua
that includes 1) Sinophone comics 2) comics made by Chinese citizens
residing and/or working in foreign countries 3) second-generation
artists that maintain a meaningful and meaning-making relationship with
China. This broad definition draws on the notion of post-loyalism, a
relatively recent theoretical proposition (Wang 2013) that goes beyond
the fields (and idiosyncrasies) of Sinophone and diaspora studies for
the sake of inclusivity. Firstly, the paper presents a report on the
publication of Chinese comics in Italy, taking into account the last
twenty years (i.e. the time since the launch of the “strategy”), to show
when and how a change occurred in the Italian market. Although the
number is still not high, the report shows a considerable surge of
Chinese comics publishing in the last 5 years. Secondly, the paper
examines specific products, trends, and responsibilities, to track down
recurrent themes, successful activities, and productive networks.
Hopefully, this research represents a starting point for cultural agents
to reflect on possible future developments of manhua
production/dissemination in Italy and beyond.</p>
<p><strong>References</strong></p>
<ul><li>Chen Shujiao陈淑姣 (2020), “Tansuo zhongguo manhua xiang haiwai
shuchude shijian – yi Beijing Tianshi quanjing wenhuachuanbo
youxiangongsi wei lie 探索中国漫画向海外输出的实践 ——以北京天视全景文化传播有限公司为例”,
Chuangshe创意设计3, 72-76.</li><li>Pan Jian盘剑 (2012), “Zhongguo dongman ruhe ‘zouchuqu’ 中国动漫如何’走出去’”, Dongyue luncong东岳论丛 1, 53-59.</li><li>Yelery, Aravind (2014), “China’s ‘Going Out’ Policy: Sub-National Economic Trajectories”, Institute of Chinese studies 24, 2014.</li><li>Wang, David Der-wei (2013) ‘Post-loyalism’, in Shu-mei Shih ,
Chien-hsin Tsai , and Brian Bernards (eds), Sinophone Studies: A
Critical Reader, New York: Columbia University Press, 93–116.</li></ul>
<p><strong>Dr. Martina CASCHERA</strong> is an adjunct professor of
Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature at the University “Gabriele
d’Annunzio” in Pescara, and of Classical and Literary Chinese at the
Ecampus online University. She graduated in Comparative Literatures and
Cultures (English and Chinese), and obtained her Ph.D. in Oriental and
Southern Asia Studies from the University of Naples L’Orientale with a
dissertation on Shidai Manhua (Modern Sketch), as a case study for
Chinese Modern periodicals research. Dr. Caschera has often collaborated
with her Alma Mater, L’Orientale, for the tutoring of undergraduate
students of Chinese Language and of graduate students of the training
course in Chinese Pedagogy and teaching. Her main research areas are
Chinese media studies, with a focus on transmedial/transtextual
phenomena, gender studies and transcultural studies. Dr. Caschera is an
active member of the 2021 Society of Animation Studies (SAS), of the
Association of Asian Studies (AAS), and of the European and of the
Association of Chinese Studies (EACS). She also joined the recently
established network for Italian Chinese Media Studies, YZMT
(MediumItaliaCina), contributing with her research on Chinese animation.
Dr. Caschera translated two graphic novels from Chinese to Italian and
has been steadily attending and organizing events on Chinese comics,
contributing to their popularization in the Italian market.<br>
Among the latest publication in Italian and English:</p>
<h4>Changing lyrics: A case study of comic parody</h4>
<p><strong>Kin-Wai CHU</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>KU Leuven, Belgium</strong></em></p>
<p>This presentation focuses on a parodic comic adaptation of Disney’s
Frozen theme song ‘Let it go’. “Let’s eat cakes” (‘cake(s)’ is
pronounced as ‘go’ in Cantonese) is created by Hong Kong comic artist
Siuhak in 2014, narrating a story about snacks commonly seen in Hong
Kong with brief commentary in response to the social and political
events at the time. The panel background are film shots of the original
singing scenes, and the rewritten Cantonese lyrics serve as the text of
the comic. The main character Elsa is replaced by Siuhak’s uncouth panda
comic character with additional side characters.<br>
This comic adaptation poses challenges to media specificities between
films and comics, as well as the phonological differences of English and
Cantonese. The most obvious media challenge is that audio elements can
only be represented visually. This is solved by an intermedial reference
of karaoke to entice audiences’ mental reconstruction of the original
song melody and bodily response to sing the rewritten lyrics displayed
like the guided lyrics in karaoke videos. Besides, changing the original
non-tonal and multisyllabic English lyrics into tonal and monosyllabic
Cantonese has exemplified not only technical difficulties, but also
evoked the unsettling issues concerning the legitimacy and decency of
written Cantonese. I will conduct a close reading of this comic from an
intermedial and linguistic perspective. I propose that Siuhak has
foregrounded the language controversy of Cantonese but he settled it in
his comic parody by demonstrating the phonological and symbolic capacity
of Cantonese. The intermedial strategies adopted in the comic has also
changed the ways audiences consume comics.</p>
<p><strong>Kin Wai CHU</strong> is a PhD Fellow of the Research
Foundation of Flanders (FWO) at KU Leuven (University of Leuven),
Belgium. She researches on Hong Kong comics and cultural studies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Contemporary Comics Reviews in Taiwan: Towards a New Editorial and Aesthetic Paradigm?</h4>
<p><strong>Norbert DANYSZ</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Université Lumière Lyon 2, France</em></strong></p>
<p>During the last ten years, a significant number of comics-focused
magazines have arisen in Taiwan. They are often thick volumes, published
on a regular though scarce basis, always presenting contemporary
creations – in short, these periodicals relate closely to the forms and
functions of the artistic or literary review. They show the recent
changes that are redefining Taiwanese comics since the beginning of the
21st century. Their emergence is also taking place in the context of a
broader movement of institutional and economical promotion of comic art
in Taiwan, be it with the inauguration of comics dedicated places, the
development of international partnerships, or the implementation of
subsidies programs for the artists. By analyzing these periodicals from
an editorial point of view as well as from an aesthetic point of view,
we can try to comprehend the new comic art ecosystem that has been
structuring in Taiwan since the 2000s.<br>
This paper examines such diverse publications as the monthly Creative
Comic Collection [CCC 創造機] (launched in 2009 and relaunched in 2018),
the yearly documentary Monsoon [熱帶季風] (launched in 2017), the
collectives Taiwan Comix [TX] and Bo_ing Comix [波音漫畫誌] (launched
respectively in 2010 and 2018), and the very recent Zigma (launched in
2020). In this highly contrasted landscape, conventional styles stand
alongside more innovative styles and independent groups coexist with
financially stronger structures. Notwithstanding that works and artists
can circulate between the different reviews, I will try to establish a
typology of the periodicals based on various criteria: the target
audiences, the ways in diffusion and distribution, the formal
characteristics of the objects, the styles and conditions for the
creation, the economic aspects of the publications, etc.<br>
Finally, the fact that some of the above-mentioned reviews have ceased
their publication or have decided to continue their activities by other
means, can shed another light on the apparent vitality of the
contemporary comics scene in Taiwan.</p>
<p><strong>Norbert DANYSZ</strong> is a PhD student at Université
Lumière Lyon 2, under the supervision of Marie Laureillard and Laurent
Gerbier. He currently works on the subject of comics stylistic
evolutions in China between the 1920s and the 1980s, but is also
interested in research projects on sinophone comics in general, in
Taiwan and Hong Kong.<br>
Cartoons for the People of New China:</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Rural Authors and Scenes in Manhua Magazine, 1950–1960</h4>
<p><strong>Mariia Guleva</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Charles University, Czech Republic</strong></em></p>
<p>The phenomenon of manhua 漫画, which for China of the 1950s can be
roughly translated as ‘cartoon,’ by that decade became a recognised
element of newsprint. The entertaining ‘sketches’ of the 1930s grew into
the militant ‘weapons of satire’ of the 1940s and with the
establishment of the PRC turned into an inextricable part of mass
campaigns and agitation. The “new,” post-1949 China required a reshaping
of the previously existing genre to make it “serve the people.” Yet the
already established notion of manhua remained, kept even in the title
of the central magazine of satire and visual humour, Manhua, published
from 1950 to 1960. John Crespi in his recent monograph traced much
continuity between the manhua of pre- and post-1949.1 However, because
his focus was mostly on urban modernity, Crespi left aside the large
segment of pictures which appeared in Manhua: cartoons created by
China’s rural population and cartoons showing village life.<br>
This paper, therefore, poses two questions:</p>
<ol><li>What sort of images developed in the initially urban culture of
cartooning under the influence of amateur contributors from rural areas
of the country, who were encouraged to give free reign to their
creativity?</li><li>How life in these areas came to be seen by urban authors, many of
whom had to go to the countryside during the first decade of the PRC?</li></ol>
<p>By analysing the amount and contents of relevant cartoons in Manhua
magazine, I propose to direct attention to the less noticed aspect of
cartooning in China and thus to add an angle to our understanding of
manhua’s developments there.</p>
<p><strong>Mariia GULEVA</strong> is currently a 3rd year Ph.D. student
at the Department of Sinology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. Her
research focuses on the production of Manhua magazine and its
connections with and distinctions from the satire periodicals of the
socialist camp during the 1950s. Mariia previously taught China-related
subjects at Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint Petersburg
State University, and Saint Petersburg branch of the Higher School of
Economics.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Change through Stylistic Innovation: The Contributions of Chen Uen’s Comics</h4>
<p><strong>Marie LAUREILLARD</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Lumière-Lyon 2 University, Lyon’s East Asian Studies Institute, France</strong></em></p>
<p>Comic book writer Chen Uen 鄭問 (1958-2017) achieved acclaim in Japan
with a manga award, and then in his native Taiwan in a posthumous
exhibition at the Palace Museum in 2018. With Assassins (刺客列傳), first
published in 1986, but also with The First Emperor (始皇) or his other
productions, Chen Uen brilliantly adapted the heroic wuxia武俠literature
which features big-hearted heroes who defend the oppressed, a Chinese
version of samurai or knights of the Western Middle Ages.<br>
The idea of adapting this type of literature was not new and even goes
back to the beginnings of Chinese comics in the 1920s, but the treatment
that Chen Uen proposes is very personal: his drawing style is
characterised by traditional Chinese expressive and unconstrained ink
painting (xieyi寫意). It is these new techniques that we will attempt to
analyse here, combining the use of the brush with that of the
toothbrush, using paper soaked in water and oil or glued with plastic.
The result is a drawing, sometimes in black and white, sometimes
enhanced with vibrant colours, which gives the fighters an extraordinary
energy by hollowing out the forms or making them emerge from empty
spaces, closely mixing realism and abstraction. We will reflect on the
causes and impact of this stylistic revolution which might be connected
with the migration of this artist to Japan.<br>
Keywords: Chen Uen, wuxia heroic literature, comic book, breath-energy qi, Chinese painting xieyi, change</p>
<p><strong>Marie LAUREILLARD</strong>, Associate Professor of Chinese
language and civilisation at the Lumière-Lyon 2 University in France,
member of the Lyons Institute of East Asian Studies, specializes in
modern art and literature history, semiotics, and cultural studies of
China and Taiwan. She has published Feng Zikai, a Lyrical Cartoonist:
Dialogue between Words and Strokes (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017, in French)
and co-edited At the crossroads of art collections, Asia-the West from
the 19th century to the Present (Paris: Hémisphères, 2019). She is
currently working on comics and cartoons from the Republican period.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Sonny Liew and His Double: Exploring Pan-Asian Metacomics</h4>
<p><strong>Corrado NERI</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3, France</strong></em></p>
<p>Malaysian-born, Singapore-based Sonny Liew is a chameleonic,
versatile, resolutely transnational comic artist. He draws many covers
and interior for Marvel and DC comics, as well as other major American
publishers. His work with Gene Luen-yang – The Shadow Hero – was already
hybridizing American superhero genre with a more realist approach,
namely the description of the experience of Asian immigration in the
States. With The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, Liew upgraded his
Sinophone connection by creating a vertiginous “mockumentary”.<br>
I argue that this term, usually destinated to movies (fake documentary)
can aptly describe this “trompe l’oeil” graphic novel. Liew tells the
story of an imaginary artist – imagine a mix of Osamu Tezuka, Li Kunwu
and Chen Uen – and via this biography he reviews the story of Singapore
and its neighbors, and he creates a kaleidoscopic meta-narration of
comic books history and aesthetics (therefore: national imaginary,
western influences, rivalry and admiration for Japanese manga). Both a
celebration of the heritage of Sinophone comics and a funeral of missed
opportunities and censored masterpieces, this presentation will be
Janus-faced as well: one take will dwell in the highbrow art of Liew,
the other take will raise questions on the possibility of a renewed
Sinophone graphic novel outside the savant mimicry of past (and alien)
masterpieces.</p>
<p><strong>Corrado NERI</strong> is associate professor at the Jean
Moulin University, Lyon 3. He has conducted extensive research on
Chinese cinema in Beijing and Taipei and published many articles on
books and magazine (in English, French and Italian). His book Tsai
Ming-liang on the Taiwanese film director appeared in 2004 (Venezia,
Cafoscarina). Ages Inquiets. Cinémas chinois: une representation de la
jeunesse, was printed in 2009 (Lyon, Tigre de Papier). His third book,
Retro Taiwan: Le temps retrouvé dans le cinéma sinophone contemporain,
has been published for l’Asiathèque (Paris, 2016). He co-edited (with
Kirstie Gormley ) a bilingual (french/english) book on Taiwan cinema
(Taiwan cinema/Le Cinéma taiwanais, Asiexpo, 2009); Global Fences (with
Florent Villard, IETT, 2011); Reinventing Mao: Maoisms and National
Cinemas/La Réinvention de Mao. Maoïsmes et Cinémas Nationaux (Special
issue of Cinéma & Cie International Film Studies Journal (with Marco
Dalla Gassa, Federico Zecca) and Politics and Representation in
Sinophone Cinema after the 1980s/Politique et Représentation dans le
Cinéma Sinophone après 1980 (Special #55 de Monde Chinois Nouvelle Asie,
with Jean-Yves Heurtebise).</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Chinese Comics in All Their Forms: Materiality to the Test of Consumption</h4>
<p><strong>Laetitia RAPUZZI</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3, France</strong></em></p>
<p>In the People’s Republic of China, comics exist in various forms:
bound works, urban displays, digital forms on computers and since the
beginning of the 2000s on mobile phones. Although it is not very visible
on the shelves of bookstores compared to novels, essays or illustrated
books for children, it floods the digital space.<br>
In a context where the creation and distribution of contemporary Chinese
comics depend on a complex editorial system, the digitization of
society seems to be able to be a factor of creative emancipation for
authors and entertainment for readers. In 2015, the Internet Plus action
plan was promoted by Prime Minister Li Keqiang, heralding a radiant
global economy driven by big data. Thus, artistic creation and
digitization of the economy seems to find a meeting point that can be
qualified as late modernity, including Harmut defined by this slogan
ʻExpect everything to be new and different tomorrowʼ.<br>
Drawing on the theory of social acceleration developed by Harmut Rosa
and a study conducted in 2017 by the Beijing Film Academy aimed at
defining the ecosystem and the profile of the online comic reader, we
offer a reflection on the factors that determine the choice of
materiality for many of the actors in the creative process (authors,
editors and readers) and to what extent digital materiality would imply a
change in the construction model of comics.</p>
<p><strong>Laetitia RAPUZZI</strong> is preparing a doctoral thesis
entitled “Materialities of contemporary Chinese comics: expression of
(in) visible bubbles” under the supervision of Corrado Neri within the
IETT of Lyon, within the framework of the Doctoral School of Letters,
languages, linguistics, arts (Lyon). In 2016, she defended a research
master’s thesis on Foreign Languages and Cultures Chinese Studies
entitled “Franco-Chinese relations in comics from 1900 to 2016:
intertextualities and representations of China” under the supervision of
Florent Villard. Laetitia Rapuzzi worked as a photographer and
documentary maker in the French Navy for 25 years, she also held an
assistant position at the French Embassy in Beijing from 2017 to 2020.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Model(ing) Creative Workers: A New Genre of Taiwanese Cartoon Character</h4>
<p><strong>Teri SILVIO</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica</strong></em></p>
<p>This paper looks at a new genre of cartoon character that has emerged
along with the expansion of new media and the rise of creative industry
and creative economy discourse. There are a surprising number of comics
produced in Taiwan which not only represent the daily life of
white-collar workers, but in which characters appear who clearly
represent the artist creating the comic. These characters, some of the
best known of which are the ones created by designers Wan Wan and Mark,
often begin as a self-representation on designers’ personal blogs or as
free-to-download stickers for messaging services before they become the
protagonists in narrative comics, as well as logo characters reproduced
on a wide assortment of products. The comics are critical of corporate
logic (like Scott Adams’ Dilbert) while simultaneously promoting the
values of hard work, entrepreneurship, and the continual reanimation of
one’s “inner child,” sometimes through the citation of self-help
discourse, but more through techniques of composition and visual style.
They encourage multiple identifications with both characters and
artists, and the transmedia platforms allow fans not only to keep the
cartoon characters co-present in their daily lives, but also to use them
as vehicles for self-expression. I argue that these licensed
characters, with their combination of autobiographical aura and Everyman
genericness, absorb “creativity” into a new model of the ideal
neoliberal subject, and encourage fans to inhabit that subject by
reframing all labor as animation.</p>
<p><strong>Teri SILVIO</strong> is a Research Fellow at the Institute of
Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She is an anthropologist who has
done extended ethnographic research on theater, puppetry, toy design,
and comics. Her work combines approaches from anthropology, cultural
studies, gender and sexuality studies, performance studies, and media
studies. Her book, Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of
Animation from Taiwan (University of Hawai`i Press 2019) develops an
anthropological concept of animation as a complement to the concept of
performance, and elaborates this concept through Taiwanese examples
including televised puppetry, folk religious practice, and manga/anime
fandom.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Arduous Changes: Internet, Censorship, Lives of Chinese Dissident Cartoonists and Their Political Works (2009-2021)</h4>
<p><strong>Piotr STRZALKOWSKI</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom</strong></em></p>
<p>The paper aims to provide an overview encompassing changes in the
lives of six major Chinese dissident cartoonists in exile and identifies
at least twelve that remain in the PRC. In addition, it informs about
shifts in quantity, contents, and style of anti-establishment and
anti-Communist cartoons. To adequately explain these issues, it situates
them within the context of the rapid development of internet access in
China, the appearance of blogs and social media platforms, subsequent
adjustments of censorship, major official propaganda campaigns, and the
growing authoritarianism.<br>
After becoming dissident cartoonists (consciously or not), artists faced
the threat of detention and disappearance. The paper shows that they
mainly dealt with it either by choosing to live in exile, cooperating
with the authorities, or stopping publications on their terms or due to
imprisonment. Some embraced their actual identity while others hid it,
fearing a backlash, and only began to reveal it gradually in exile.<br>
Change also manifested itself in the difference between the initial
abundance of the relevant visual material in the PRC and its subsequent
nearly complete disappearance. In contrast, free from censorship
constraints, cartoonists in exile kept increasing the number of
sketches. Thus, the foreign media and websites are now brimming with
relevant caricatures. While their Chinese equivalents only have traces
of them left. Additionally, they are scattered across different
platforms, making it hard to trace the phenomenon comprehensively.<br>
Finally, the paper shows that the styles and themes developed by Chinese
dissident cartoonists were not merely a result of adopting different
sketching methods. Presumably, they also conveyed emotions related to
their experiences of living in China and their perception of its future.
Also, the gradual professionalisation of cartoonists and improvements
in their style made others refer to them as artists.</p>
<p>By the end of April 2021, <strong>Piotr STRZALKOWSKI</strong>
obtained his AHRC-funded PhD in Chinese Studies from the University of
Edinburgh after completing a dissertation titled “The Red Scare in
China: Caricatures, Anti-Communist Propaganda, and the Foreign Press in
the Interwar Shanghai, 1924-1937.” Currently, he is revising two papers
related to the thesis. His research focuses on the intersection between
modern and contemporary Chinese history, Sino-foreign relations, popular
culture, visual culture, propaganda, and social psychology.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Diversifying Change Strategies: An Investigation of Littler Thunder’s Creations</h4>
<p><strong>Wendy S Wong</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>York University, Toronto, Canada</strong></em></p>
<p>This paper investigates how comic artists have tackled the changing
creative environment in Hong Kong since 1997 with a case study on Little
Thunder (born 1984), a woman artist who became a full-time comic artist
in 2001. Born and raised in an artistic family, Sam-Ling Cheng (鄭心菱),
who uses Little Thunder or Men Xiao Lei (門小雷) as her penname, debuted at
the age of eight with her first original comic published in a local
Hong Kong manga magazine. With her roots in Hong Kong, she embraced the
opportunity to work in mainland China at the age of 17, rather than
pursuing higher education studies. Between 2010 and 2013, she published a
three-part full-colour graphic novel, Kylooe, which was published in
French, Chinese, and Italian versions. This title was also popular in
Japan where Little Thunder developed a devoted international fan base.<br>
Along with her graphic novel creations, she also works on commercial
commissions as an illustrator for high-end clients in Hong Kong and
overseas. Her social media presence is impressive; she has over 862,000
Instagram followers as of October 2021. Through connections in various
social media platforms, her followers can view her work not only in
static image format but also in real-time or time-lapse videos of her
drawing processes. She also sells her drawing reproductions as art
prints, organizes solo art shows, and produces merchandise for sale. Her
latest venue is Patreon, a membership platform for creators to who are
paid for their creations from patrons’ subscription. By walking through
her creations in this presentation, this talk will explore her graphic
narratives and drawing techniques as a woman artist responding to the
changing milieu of Hong Kong in between China and the global world.</p>
<p><strong>Wendy Siuyi WONG</strong> is Professor in the Department of
Design at York University in Toronto, Canada. She has taught in Hong
Kong, the United States and Australia, and has established an
international reputation as an expert in Chinese graphic design history
and Chinese comic art history. She is the author of Hong Kong Comics: A
History of Manhua (2002), published by Princeton Architectural Press,
and she often receives invitations to speak on the topic at
international venues. Her latest book, entitled The Disappearance of
Hong Kong in Comics, Advertising and Graphic Design (2018), published by
Palgrave Macmillan, utilizes the city as a case study to demonstrate
the potential of these three media to offer us a global understanding of
contemporary visual cultures.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Comics and Public Diplomacy in Taiwan</h4>
<p><strong>Adina Zemanek </strong></p>
<p><em><strong>University of Central Lancashire </strong></em></p>
<p>Comics in Taiwan have a long history of association with Japanese
manga, children’s entertainment and negative value judgments. The second
decade of the 21st century witnessed the rise of mangaesque creativity
on local themes, and of independent artists who cultivate individual
styles and target older audiences. Despite these developments, until
very recently the concept of “Taiwan comics” remained largely invisible
to both a general public and to state institutions promoting Taiwan’s
cultural and creative industries and its international image.<br>
During the last few years, the medium of comics gained unprecedented
prominence both as recipient of state funding and as instrument for
public diplomacy. This presentation combines a study of official
documents and interviews conducted with artists and publishers during
the 2020 edition of the Angoulême International Comics Festival. It will
discuss recent ROC initiatives aimed at systematically boosting the
development of comics and the impact of these state initiatives on young
artists’ careers. Finally, it will reflect on the definition of Taiwan
comics as provided by official sources and the artists themselves, with
special emphasis on the relationship between comics and national
representativeness.</p>
<p><strong>Adina Zemanek</strong> holds a PhD in cultural anthropology
from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and currently works as a
lecturer in Asia-Pacific studies at the University of Central
Lancashire, UK. She also is a board member of the European Association
of Taiwan Studies. She has done research into gender issues in PRC
fashion magazines and TV series, the construction of national identity
and grassroots nation branding through tourist souvenirs, graphic
novels, and picture books in Taiwan. Her recent research projects
explore Taiwan-related citizen diplomacy in Europe and the use of comics
for public diplomacy in Taiwan. Her articles were published in journals
such as Positions: Asia Critique, Archiv Orientální, China
Perspectives, and Culture, Theory, and Critique.</p>
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