Local comic book artists are collaborating on a project to celebrate Taiwan-related imagery in a bid to highlight the nation’s soft power, as well as draw the government’s attention to intellectual property rights.
One hundred artists from around the nation gathered during the past two weeks to prepare for the Taiwan Comic Artist Show, organizers said, adding that support for the event has been staggering.
Manga artist and Taipei City Comic Artists Guild chairman Lai Yu-hsien (賴有賢) said that Taiwan lacks its own comic art style and culture, and artists typically mimic works from Japan and the US.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Comic Artist Labor Union
The government often commissions work from foreign art studios, overlooking the work of local artists, Lai said, adding that in East Asia, only Taiwan still fails to protect its artists’ intellectual property rights.
“I thought if I brought 100 local artists together to create works depicting the things that are uniquely Taiwanese it would be a magnificent sight,” Lai said, adding that he was sad to see the work of local artists being ignored.
Various well-known artists including Au Yao-hsing (敖幼祥), Uen Cheng (鄭問), Hsiao Yen-chung (蕭言中), Yeh Yu-tung (葉羽桐) and Mickeyman (米奇鰻), pledged support for the exhibition, Lai said, adding that the artists will share a 5m long canvas for their finished works.
Each artist will paint a Taiwan-themed image, such as a famous scenic spot like Alishan or Turtle Island (Guishan, 龜山島), a local dish, such as steamed dumplings or beef noodles, or a creative rendering, such as Hualien’s Cingshuei Cliffs (清水斷崖) taking on the shape of a woman’s body, Lai said.
Artists aim to complete the canvas by Friday with an unveiling at Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park, he said.
The Ministry of Culture gave NT$400,000 for the exhibition, Taipei Comic Artist Labor Union director Chung Meng-shun (鍾孟舜) said.
Exhibition organizers said the event aims to draw the government’s attention to the value of local artists’ work.
Chung said he uncovered numerous instances of government agencies using copyrighted or poorly designed images in campaigns, adding: “Taiwan has lots of creative people — why does the government not use them?”
Lai said that highlighting creative talent could help put the spotlight on the nation, citing similar efforts made by Japan during its campaign to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater