The eighth annual Comic Book Exhibition opened yesterday in Taipei, attracting thousands of comic lovers.
"There were already people lining up outside the exhibition hall last [Wednesday] night," said Candy Chou (
"More than 72,000 people visited the exhibition [yesterday.] We're expecting more than 400,000 visitors during the six-day exhibition," she said.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
As the doors opened at 10am, comic book lovers rushed into the exhibition hall, forming lines in front of their favorite publishers.
Pang Kuang-yi (
"I love comics," he said after buying eight comic books to add to his collection.
As well as comic books sales, book signings by popular cartoonists from Japan and the first-day launch of several new titles were also big draws on the first day of the exhibition.
"We've sold 200 copies [of a first-day-sale title] in just 10 minutes this morning," said Yang Chung-wei (楊仲偉), a publicist with Sharp Point Press. "Buyers of the 200 copies could also have their books signed by the cartoonist."
A hundred souvenir packages of another first-day-sale title, "were sold out in seven minutes," another salesperson said as she was busy guiding customers into another company's exhibition area.
The nation's eight major comic book publishers were all present at the exhibition yesterday.
Officials vowed to help to develop the local comic book industry during a news conference to launch the exhibition.
"Most of the comic books marketed in Taiwan are from South Korea and Japan; works by local cartoonists only have about a 9 percent market share," said Chen Chun-hua (陳俊華), a Government Information Office (GIO) official.
"Developing the local comic book industry is a task that has been identified by the GIO," he said.
Taipei City Cultural Affairs commissioner Lee Yong-ping (
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS