Wong enjoys the challenge of drawing the characters in poses that human models can’t achieve. In one instance he had to figure out how to show off a Hermes outfit with a fur-trimmed coat over a dress and boots on Old Master Q’s love interest, Miss Chen (陳小姐).
“I thought, ‘How am I going to draw the dress?’ because with the coat on you can’t really see it. Then I thought, ‘I’ve got it!’ Old Master Q is a hypnotist, he does his magic, his girlfriend falls asleep, levitates into the air and the coat falls to the side, so you can see the lining, the dress and the orange boots,” says Wong.
When asked why Old Master Q still attracts new readers after 45 years, Wong says he has no idea.
“The only way you can know is by asking readers and maybe each reader will give you a completely different reason. But there is something there, something that they feel that they have in common with the characters or maybe they simply like the design of the comics,” says Wong.
While Old Master Q has traveled into outer space and sat down for noodles with Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro, most of the comic’s humor derives from placing Old Master Q and his friends into ridiculous situations that are inspired by the challenges of day-to-day life.
“He represents an everyday person with a job who, for example, works at an insurance company behind a desk. But that doesn’t mean he’s ordinary. He’s got imagination, he’s got desires, he’s got feelings,” says Wong.
Wong believes that comics are taken more seriously as an art form now than when his father drew the first Old Master Q comic, thanks in part to Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and other artists who created fine art based on comic book imagery.
“To us, it’s always been an art. The line quality and the shadows in the drawings are very seriously dealt with, even though to a regular person flipping through a magazine or newspaper, a comic is only four frames that take a few seconds to read,” says Wong. “But if a reader catches the humor in it, then the artist has done his job.”
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