A publishing executive, who has received a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the comic book industry, said that Taiwan should help foster a new generation of comic artists.
“Comics are a kind of sub-culture in society, but all sub-cultures will turn into mainstream culture in the future. We should believe in the younger generation [of comic book artists] and create a healthy environment for them,” Michael Huang (黃鎮隆) said in his acceptance speech on Tuesday last week.
“I already know dozens of young comic artists and I am deeply impressed by their talent,” Huang said.
The annual Golden Comics Awards are presented by the Ministry of Culture to recognize original Taiwanese comic works and a new generation of comic book artists in Taiwan.
Huang is the CEO of Sharp Point Publishing Group, a company owned by Cite Publishing Group. Sharp Point is one of the most influential publishers in Taiwan for teenagers, publishing comics, magazines and video games.
The ministry applauded Huang’s contribution by presenting him with the Golden Comics Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Huang has devoted himself to the comics industry for more than 30 years,” the ministry said.
“By introducing and translating foreign comic books to Taiwan, he has provided soil in which local comic artists can grow. Moreover, he has created an online platform to embrace the digital world, which makes him a pioneer in this area,” the ministry said.
“There are several factors for a comics company to be successful,” Huang said in an interview after the ceremony. “The most important is cross-industry cooperation, such as producing TV series and staging shows based on comics stories.”
Like the publishing industry as a whole, the comics industry is struggling from the impact of digitization, Huang said.
Only about 1 percent of books are digitized in Taiwan. With such a low rate, the publishing industry is unlikely to make a difference in the digital age, he added.
Huang said that people assume that Taiwanese comic companies prefer to expand their business to China due to the huge potential market. However, Huang said comic book companies should be careful when deciding whether they want to enter the Chinese market.
“If you cannot do well in Taiwan, where the total population is only 23 million, how can you conquer a far bigger market?” he asked.
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