Mini-documentary on Cult Youth on making comix in China

CULT YOUTH from Diesel New Voices (by Coco Wang and Mi You) on Vimeo.

Just discovered this gem recently, an 8-minute mini-documentary about the people behind Cult Youth, one of the leading underground comic groups in China today. What comes off as surprising for a group whose motto includes “If you were not born in the 80s and couldn’t decode the plots, then give up! This is not for you!” is that they do not have a revolutionary bent in the same way the undeground comix movement did in the US and UK in the 60s and 70s.

As Nadim Damluji notes on the Hooded Utilitarian:

In my interview with Ca, he politely deflated my suggestions that maybe China was on the verge of a new comics renaissance. Instead, he explained that for him comics are more about a group of friends having fun on the side of their day-jobs, not a potential career path.

Yet the stylistic similarities to comix remains:

For more about Cult Youth, read Damluji’s article over at the Hooded Utilitarian or follow him on Tumblr at Tintin Travels.