"I love Taiwan, but I love comics even more," said President Chen Shui-bian last week as he visited the exhibition documenting the history of comics in Taiwan since 1945. Though trying to be humorous, Chen probably echoed the feelings of almost every teenager in Taiwan.
This is one show the kids will think is all right. Local comic books from the past are displayed alongside a few from Japan and the western world. Others included are manuscripts from the cartoonists, and popular comic books still out on the market.
Exhibit items go back to the year 1945, which is a defining year for local comics when the magazine "Hsin-hsin" (新新雜誌) was published. Active proponents of comics Ye Hung-chia (葉宏甲), Hung Chao-ming (洪晁明) and Chen Chia-peng (陳家鵬), whose samples can be seen in the show, filled the magazine with cartoons depicting social chaos after the World War II. Corruption, injustice, and inflation are vividly recorded on the "paper movies" by those socially conscious cartoonists that were unshaken even by political threats during the White Terror period.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY
The 1950s is another exciting phase for local comics. Some long-standing cartoonists started to flourish during this decade, exhibiting tremendous creativity and style, showing a strong local color and emotional attachment. Some of the artists featured in the show include: Chen Ting-kuo, (陳定國) who animated the local opera story "Beauty with the Chinese Eyes" (鳳眼美人); Liu Hsing-chin, (劉興欽) who detailed the life and culture of locals through the loveable, popular cartoon characters "Brother A-san" and "Great Auntie" (阿三哥與大嬸婆); and Niu Ke, (牛哥) who attracts a range of comic fans with his creation Uncle Ox (牛伯伯). Another special feature of the show is the work of Chen Hai-hung (陳海虹), who used traditional media of ink and brush to create martial arts stories and is thus dubbed the father of that type of comic book in Taiwan.
Local comics has their halcyon days until the mid-1960s, when comic artists came under political suppression. Censorship caused a dramatic drop in comic book publications, from 4,000 in 1966 to 200 in 1970. That year, when restrictions were relaxed, Japanese comic books dominated the market and have done so ever since. Recovery was slow for local comics, yet in the mid-1970s some local comics began to show up in newspapers, a harbinger of another heyday for Taiwanese strips.
Comics came to life again mainly because of the relaxation in the political arena and this encouraged new artists to express themselves. As can be seen from the multitude of copies in the show, all kinds of comic magazines flooded the market, with the long-awaited coming-of-age for local comics occurring in the 1990s.
Uen Cheng (鄭問) is one of the artists featured that rose to stardom in the mid-1980s. He was able to more freely express himself after the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979 because freedom of speech became a major issue. His comics could be seen in newspapers like the China Times Weekly (時報週刊) and he enraptured local readers with works such as "The Master of Warrior (鬥神)," "Panzer General (裝甲元帥)" and "Sword A-Bi (阿鼻劍)." Uen later on even drew the attention of the Japanese comic fans and aroused hugh interest with his "The Legend of Heros in East Chou Dynasty (東周英雄傳)."
For comic buffs, the museum has more information available.
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
Yesterday, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) as their Taipei mayoral candidate, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) put their stamp of approval on Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) as their candidate for Changhua County commissioner and former legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has begun the process to also run in Changhua, though she has not yet been formally nominated. All three news items are bizarre. The DPP has struggled with settling on a Taipei nominee. The only candidate who declared interest was Enoch Wu (吳怡農), but the party seemed determined to nominate anyone
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but
RSS