A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
Paradise Systems is a new player in the comics publishing world specializing in independent comics from China and the US. Ahead of their book launch in Brooklyn this Thursday, we sat down with their co-founder Orion Martin to talk about the new venture.
Q: Why publish Chinese comics?
Few people…
Continue readingWhy publish Chinese comics? (Paradise Systems)
Electrocat and Lightning Dog is an indie webcomic set in a futuristic world of talking animals, aliens and psychedelic strawberries. Inspired by Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time, it follows the tried-and-true formula of two best friends going on random adventures, except that Electrocat and Lightning Dog is even more zany and non-linear than its progenitor.
…
Continue readingThe psychedelic art of an Adventure Time-inspired Chinese webcomic
Ng’s webcomics are snappy, short and whacky. His comics are native to Weibo (a Twitter-like service), his strips thrive as self-contained, single-page gags. While other cartoonists in China might publish 100+ page works on Douban (a Tumblr-like service) or one of the many webcomic portals (e.g. 有妖气), Ng focuses primarily on creating short comics on Weibo where…
Continue readingWhacky on Weibo: Dick Ng’s collected webcomics
The Kylooe trilogy brings us three stories of people who are trying their best to fit in with society. In book one, a shy, introverted schoolgirl struggles in her first days at a new middle school. In book two, a broadband salesman reminisces about his first, failed love. And finally, in the last book, a delivery boy finds himself stuck…
Continue readingKylooe: an emotionally-charged comics trilogy about trying to fit in
In A Borrowed Life, esteemed Taiwanese writer-director Wu Nien-jen pays tribute to his working-class father by telling the latter’s life story. His story was made into an award-winning movie way back in 1994 (also called A Borrowed Life), and now it has been retold in comic form. The graphic novel has a grand, sweeping, filmic quality…
Continue readingA Borrowed Life: a superb comic memoir of a flawed Taiwanese patriarch
Ping Pong (《乒 乓》) is a new indie comics anthology featuring works from an up-and-coming generation of Hong Kong comics artists and illustrators. This new generation follows in the footsteps of alternative comics artists like Chihoi (智海) and Siuhak (小克), who grew in fame after the turn of the millennium;…
Continue readingReview: Ping Pong – the collective comics magazine
ACGHK, Hong Kong’s closest equivalent to the San Diego Comic-Con, comes hot on the heels of the book fair every year in late July. Attended by a much younger (and more male) demographic, the “animation, comic & games expo” is, in reality, dominated by toys and comics-related…
Unlike book fairs elsewhere, the Hong Kong Book Fair targets the general public. Instead of a fair where publishing companies to get together to negotiate rights and licenses, the Hong Kong Book Fair is a giant discount-books supermarket, where visitors are encouraged to buy in bulk. Many do by…
Continue readingHong Kong Book Fair 2015: a hodgepodge of concepts, publishers and distributors
A fantastic account about growing up as a teen gamer in China – dodging parental fears of “videogame addiction,” finding meaning in leveling up and going cold turkey as she is forced to surrender her laptop.