[Comicsstudiessociety] Going on NOW: SINOPHONE COMICS: A WORLD OF CHANGES

[Mike Rhode]

 Sinophone Comics: A World of Changes11 Jan 2021
  by Rowann Fitzpatrick <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://isapuclan.org.uk/author/rowann/__;!!KGKeukY!mRb8DNDak-mmIZRqAVo9cKF-eAGTcoocMPNSo4-DJdM522crIcmOh1PGJxYdjhlYwX_NQ7atUgtb$ >
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SINOPHONE COMICS: A WORLD OF CHANGES
ONLINE SYMPOSIUM
13-14 JANUARY 2022 (THURSDAY-FRIDAY)
NORTHERN INSTITUTE OF TAIWAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE

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.
To join us, register you place on Eventbrite.
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sinophonecomicsaworldofchanges.eventbrite.co.uk__;!!KGKeukY!mRb8DNDak-mmIZRqAVo9cKF-eAGTcoocMPNSo4-DJdM522crIcmOh1PGJxYdjhlYwX_NQ1g67RSk$ >

This event is based in the UK; the hours below are provided in UK time
(UTC+0).
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.

Prior to the event, please take some time to read the below abstracts for
each paper.


Past, Present and Future of Manhua in Italy

*Martina CASCHERA*

*“Gabriele d’Annunzio” University, Pescara, Italy*

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.
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.

*References*

   - 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.
   - 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.
   - Yelery, Aravind (2014), “China’s ‘Going Out’ Policy: Sub-National
   Economic Trajectories”, Institute of Chinese studies 24, 2014.
   - 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.

*Dr. Martina CASCHERA* 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.
Among the latest publication in Italian and English:
Changing lyrics: A case study of comic parody

*Kin-Wai CHU*

*KU Leuven, Belgium*

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.
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.

*Kin Wai CHU* 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.


Contemporary Comics Reviews in Taiwan: Towards a New Editorial and
Aesthetic Paradigm?

*Norbert DANYSZ*

*Université Lumière Lyon 2, France*

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.
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.
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.

*Norbert DANYSZ* 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.
Cartoons for the People of New China:


Rural Authors and Scenes in Manhua Magazine, 1950–1960

*Mariia Guleva*

*Charles University, Czech Republic*

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.
This paper, therefore, poses two questions:

   1. 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?
   2. 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?

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.

*Mariia GULEVA* 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.


Change through Stylistic Innovation: The Contributions of Chen Uen’s Comics

*Marie LAUREILLARD*

*Lumière-Lyon 2 University, Lyon’s East Asian Studies Institute, France*

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.
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.
Keywords: Chen Uen, wuxia heroic literature, comic book, breath-energy qi,
Chinese painting xieyi, change

*Marie LAUREILLARD*, 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.


Sonny Liew and His Double: Exploring Pan-Asian Metacomics

*Corrado NERI*

*Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3, France*

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”.
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.

*Corrado NERI* 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).


Chinese Comics in All Their Forms: Materiality to the Test of Consumption

*Laetitia RAPUZZI*

*Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3, France*

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.
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.
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.

*Laetitia RAPUZZI* 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.


Model(ing) Creative Workers: A New Genre of Taiwanese Cartoon Character

*Teri SILVIO*

*Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica*

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.

*Teri SILVIO* 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.


Arduous Changes: Internet, Censorship, Lives of Chinese Dissident
Cartoonists and Their Political Works (2009-2021)

*Piotr STRZALKOWSKI*

*University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom*

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.
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.
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.
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.

By the end of April 2021, *Piotr STRZALKOWSKI* 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.


Diversifying Change Strategies: An Investigation of Littler Thunder’s
Creations

*Wendy S Wong*

*York University, Toronto, Canada*

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.
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.

*Wendy Siuyi WONG* 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.


Comics and Public Diplomacy in Taiwan

*Adina Zemanek *

*University of Central Lancashire *

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.
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.

*Adina Zemanek* 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.
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