A new exhibition in central Taiwan is revisiting the rise of Taiwan’s comics culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s through the legacy of an ambitious weekly magazine that sought to build a local comics industry.
The exhibition, titled “1989, A Sunday Comics Dream,” centers on the weekly magazine Sunday Comics (星期漫畫), which published 80 issues between 1989 and 1993.
The magazine was a bold attempt to establish a Taiwanese comics series at a time when the local industry was still in its infancy, said Aho Huang (黃健和), who curated the exhibition.
Photo: CNA
Although Sunday Comics initially printed 50,000 copies, circulation had wound down to about 5,000 copies by its final issue amid fierce competition from pirated Japanese manga magazines, according to Huang.
HOMEGROWN ART
Huang, a veteran comics editor who received the Special Contribution Award at the last year’s Golden Comics Awards, described the magazine as “a bold experiment” created by artists seeking to push Taiwan comics onto the international stage.
Huang said Sunday Comics reflected ambitions shared by Taiwanese comic artists at the time, including the dream of making comics professionally, establishing a weekly publication system similar to Japan’s manga magazines and eventually reaching international standards.
“Back then, not many people had been abroad. All they could do was read works imported from Japan, the US and France, and marvel at their creative standards,” Huang said.
The exhibition, held at the National Taiwan Museum of Comics in Taichung, features original manuscripts, recreated editorial offices and classroom spaces, and archival materials documenting the development of Taiwan comics during this period.
Among the exhibits are original manuscripts from six comic artists: Chen Uen (鄭問), Joe Tseng (曾正忠), Richard Metson (麥仁杰), Kid Jerry (傑利小子), Ren Zheng-hua (任正華) and Lin Cheng-te (林政德).
Other featured artists include Au Yao-hsing (敖幼祥), Hong Te-lin (洪德麟), Chen Kuan-chun (陳冠君), Chiu Rou-long (邱若龍), Pin Fan (平凡) and Loic Hsiao (蕭言中).
HEADWINDS
Taiwan lifted martial law just two years before Sunday Comics debuted.
“Thirty years ago, they took the first step without fear,” Huang said. “Only in the past few years have we begun to see the fruits of those efforts mature.”
Comparing the magazine to the nascent stage of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, Huang said such early efforts helped lay the groundwork for Taiwanese comics’ growing international recognition, such as Taiwanese comic artist Chang Sheng (常勝), who became the first Taiwanese artist to receive two nominations in the same year at this year’s Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
Huang encouraged the public to visit the exhibition, which opened on Wednesday and runs through Oct. 11, and learn more about an important chapter in Taiwan’s comic history.
“To look back at history is the only way to move toward the future,” he said.
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