Comic strips and modern comics

The current situation and development direction of Chinese comic strips

With the advancement of modern science and technology and the development and diversification of communication means, the concept of mass media has begun to profoundly affect the lives of modern people. In the field of contemporary information and entertainment mass media, comic strips, movies, and television all use images as media. Therefore, whether in terms of reflecting reality or creating fantasy, images are more concrete and vivid than text media, and are easier to interpret. It was accepted by the public, thus promoting the arrival of the era of "image reading". When we read comic books, rather than treating them as literary readings, it is more appropriate to classify them as entertainment mass media. In the history of human culture, the most prominent phenomenon in the twentieth century is the emergence of three popular popular cultural trends: comic strips, movies and television, and pop music. Culture is no longer controlled by a few elites. If we look at it from this perspective, it is not difficult to understand why the contemporary popular culture trend is so surging and unstoppable. As an important part of it, comic strips are a product of the times. They have achieved unprecedented development on a global scale and will continue to evolve with the progress of the times.

In our country, a generation of teenagers who grew up in the era of reform and opening up have formed their own cognition, thinking and reading methods in the information age, and have a natural affinity and identification with comic strips characterized by images. It was they who gave birth to Chinese comic strips.

In the early 1980s, China suffered from the impact of overseas comic publications. Some comics with bad content spread through piracy and were boycotted by public opinion circles, education circles and parents. It should be said: The negative impact caused by piracy of comic strips in China has not yet been completely resolved. In the summer of 1995, the country launched the "5155" project, which means: "Establishing 5 animation bases, publishing 15 sets of comic books, and specially approving 5 comic journals." At the same time, protective policies have been formulated for overseas comics, and the crackdown on the piracy market has been strengthened to ensure the development space of local comics. Therefore, Chinese comic strips with periodicals as their backbone have developed gratifyingly. They have an increasingly mature group of authors and readers, a number of iconic works have emerged, and they have gradually attracted the attention of the public and the media. Academic and exhibition activities centered on the Comics Branch of the Chinese Oriental Culture Research Association under the Ministry of Culture have become increasingly active. In 1998, the "China's First Comic Book Grand Prix Original Works Exhibition" was held at the National Art Museum of China. Little-known young authors entered the country's art palace. This Grand Prix has been held for three times. At the same time, as one of the founders of the "Asian Comics Summit", the Research Association has organized Chinese cartoonists and editors to participate in the summit's exchange exhibitions five times, and will hold the "6th World Comics Congress" in China in October 2004. 》. Comic Festival has become an influential cultural event in major cities. Comic clubs, doujinshis, and studios have sprung up. Various comics workshops and training schools, as well as related professional disciplines and education systems established by the Animation School of Beijing Film Academy, the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, and the Animation School of Jilin University of the Arts, mark that China's comic strips have entered a period of growth.

There are still four pressures on the development of Chinese comic strips:

1. Lack of internal development resources and insufficient originality:

Comics are a collection of paintings , film and television, craft design, and literature, it is also a popular art. Whether the work is welcomed by readers depends on habits and fashion. Comic strip cartoonists must have good artistic accomplishment and professionalism, and must also have rich imagination and Channeling fashionable creativity and skill in using the language of comic strips. Obviously, most young cartoonists in our country also have to go through a process of growth, and there is currently no team of professional painters in the practical sense. The original works can generally be summarized as first-rate paintings and second-rate stories.

2. Social awareness and expectations:

Although comic strips had a rocky start due to piracy, the macro social and educational background are deeper factors. In our country, adults generally respond with indifference, incomprehension and resistance to new comic strips.

What we are facing are Chinese people who have accumulated a long cultural heritage. They have been immersed in broad cultural tastes from their bones, which also includes market culture. Even the funny sketches and cross talk must contain a layer of deep meaning and aftertaste. The people's instinctive Reject shallowness. Therefore, in the process of transplanting foreign art, we cannot simply copy and imitate it, but there must also be a process of localization. Young authors also need to get out of the creative mentality of self-entertainment and keep the Chinese people in mind when creating.

3. The neglect of publishing institutions and the squeeze of pirated books:

Although the government vigorously cracks down on pirated comics, driven by the lack of money and profit, piracy has not been completely eliminated. Comic-loving people Teenagers can satisfy their reading needs from pirated channels, which is facing an existential crisis for the comic periodical industry that relies solely on distribution.

The neglect of comic strips by publishing organizations is another factor restricting development. Since comic strips are a new thing, publishing houses have insufficient awareness of their value and market potential, regardless of the scale of financial investment and the general lack of development of human resources. A systematic industrial development system from talent training, story design, collaborative creation, and all-round product promotion has not yet been formed.

4. The competition mechanism and market operation capabilities are relatively backward:

As the backbone of the comic book industry, periodicals and editorial departments, after several years of hard work, the current publication revenue has There is a slight profit, but there is no ability to expand the scope of business. Therefore, it is still limited to the print media level. It is far from being formed: serialization of works in periodicals? Single volumes? Collections? Adapted animations and multimedia? Authorization logos and images? A three-dimensional industrial chain in cooperation with the film and television, toys, clothing, and stationery industries. There is also a lack of interaction from distribution to advertising to marketing, so it is difficult to attract the injection of commercial investment.

Several suggestions:

1. Develop adult comic strips:

There is no book classification system in our country. There is currently a common understanding in society that comics are children's books for children and teenagers. Now that we have entered an era of popular culture that emphasizes relaxed entertainment, it has obviously restricted the development of comic strips.

2. Give full play to the backbone and guiding role of the journal:

At present, the readers of the journal are stable in the circle of comic enthusiasts. They learn and appreciate through the journal and try to publish their first novels. The focus is on admired painters and their painting techniques, as well as experimental and Japanese-style works. The tendency to run a magazine based on readers' demands has led to the fear of becoming a professional publication over time, thereby deviating from the purpose and mission of popular culture for the comics public. The majority of comics lovers read pictures for the purpose of reading pictures and are keen on the readability and pleasure of the stories in the works. Therefore, the readership of the publication must shift from a niche audience to the public, and it must be oriented to the large market. Change the passive situation of authors independently submitting manuscripts and establish a responsible editing system for manuscripts. For major works, the editor should be assigned full responsibility through topic selection and planning, and coordinate the entire process of editing, drawing, proofreading, and distribution. When necessary, convene forums with readers, publishers, and experts to encourage early discovery, early support, and all-round planning and packaging of promising works and artists. The editor's performance is linked to the fate of the work. The second step is to strengthen the editing and directing of the story and organize the adaptation appropriately. Launch new works by new artists in a planned and targeted manner, and encourage outstanding works with personal style and national tradition. At the same time, we will expand our horizons, introduce excellent works from around the world, and gradually build the image and brand of the journal.

3. The direction of promoting comic strips:

After years of exploration, people began to turn their attention from the outside to the inside, and began to think about Chinese cultural traditions and real society. Many people Absorb creative nutrients from traditional comics and comic strips. It is believed that these precious traditions are inexhaustible treasures of contemporary Chinese comic strips. From "comics" to "serials" and then to "serials" it is a continuous line. Today's new comic strips should not cut off the connection with national culture and tradition, but should be inherited and developed. In the process of inheritance and development, it is not a flow in a single direction, but a process of simultaneous intersection and mutual learning from three different fields. In the process, the creative team will be expanded and mature comic book artists and cartoonists will be recruited to participate in the creation team of new comic strips.

4. Accelerate the process of industrialization of comic strips:

The most urgent thing at present is to promote the industrialization of comic strips in my country. Comic strips play an important role in the publishing industry of various countries around the world. share, and formed their own business models in the long-term development. While rapidly growing and vigorously entering the mainstream publishing industry and the mass book market, they paid more attention to the in-depth development of entertainment media, mainly exporting comic strip images and stories through authorization or cooperation. . Take Marvell Publishing House in the United States as an example: its total annual revenue in 2001 was US$43.19 million, and book publishing revenue accounted for 23% of US$9.94 million. Licensed multimedia (such as Batman, Spider-Man and X-Men, etc.) revenue was $2.33 million, accounting for 5. Due to the popularity of the film and television blockbusters adapted from it, the revenue from toys reached 30.92 million US dollars, accounting for 72%. American comics increasingly dominate and influence contemporary American society and popular culture, and are expanding globally. Japan is a veritable country of comics, with comics accounting for 30% of the country’s publications. The comic industry model is based on weekly serialization, single volume publication, color volume or collector's volume. If the work is welcomed by the market, it will then enter the licensing and cooperation stage; the in-depth expansion of animation, comprehensive media, electronic game software, toys and models, trademark image stores, etc., are all effective models for the development of the comic industry.

Original comic strips are the source of animation and the base of the pyramid. Only with thriving original comics can dazzling Chinese animation works emerge. The purpose of today's forum is to better promote communication and interaction between comics and animation, and to provide a broader platform for Chinese original comics.

Creation and publishing are never personal behaviors. They are closely related to the macro environment. China is in a period of sustained and rapid economic development. While the economy is integrating with international standards, it also drives the direction of culture. Today's cultural atmosphere, the activity and exchange of ideas, and the tendency of internationalization of cultural products all indicate the progress of the cultural environment. Comics already have the soil to cultivate mature original works. The huge space in the comic publishing market is the best catalyst. At present, publishing houses should play a leading role, regard comic book publishing as a new economic growth point, include it in the overall development strategy, absorb and guide the cooperation and injection of commercial funds, and we will surely usher in the glorious maturity period of Chinese comic books.

Today’s mainstream comic strips have evolved from four-frame and single-frame comics to story comics, and it is indisputable that stories have become the soul of comics. Many people refer to comic strips as cartoon comics or neo-comics. Called cartoon comics, the definition is not accurate. Cartoon means animation. If translated literally, it is animated comics. Animation and... Comics, as a carrier of culture, will of course face the same problems as traditional comics. Black and white lines and color blocks are also used to spread ideas and express emotions. Similar to comic strips, illustrations are also paintings created based on literary works.

The purpose of illustrations of literary works is to increase the appeal of literary works to readers. Through illustrations, literary images in literary works are created into more concrete and intuitive visual images, making them more straightforward to attract readers' interest. It can be said that illustration is a painting art subordinate to literary works. However, from literature to illustrations, painters carry out artistic imagination and conception on the basis of original literary works to create new artistic images, which is a process of re-creation. Therefore, illustrations also have relatively independent aesthetic value.

Illustrations of literary works generally do not have too much length. The illustration creation exam usually requires only one or two illustrations, and generally no more than three. In the illustration creation exam, candidates must use this extremely limited frame to reflect the content characteristics of the story or paragraph of the original literary work, the center, essence and climax of the story, and to show the character's image, personality, characteristics, era, historical background and other information. This is no small feat.

Generally speaking, the composition and form of illustrations should be consistent with the style of the literary work. For example, the illustrations of literary works with more serious content should be relatively stable, while the illustrations of comedic or satirical literary works can be more lively, romantic, or even comic or cartoon-like. Performance.

Most traditional literary works have a strong story-telling quality, and the plot content is generally relatively specific, so their illustration style is relatively realistic. They often choose a specific scene, moment, and image from the literary work to express it. The style of modern literary works is often not so specific and realistic, and the stories are often jumpy and not very coherent. They even express the hazy and intermittent thinking activities of the characters in the works from beginning to end. Therefore, modern illustration works often adopt composition and expression methods that break specific time and space and intersperse and overlap images and sections from different time and space and environmental backgrounds into one picture. This form breaks the limitations of specific time and space, thus increasing the information content of illustrations. Nowadays, this composition technique is often used in the creation of illustrations for literary works with strong storytelling.

If the current villain books were published in recent years, they are not very valuable. If it was published before the 1980s, it would be more valuable. Approximately at least 50-100 times the value (the villain’s written value).

1. For a long time, Chinese readers have been talking about cartoons and comic strips separately. In fact, in Western countries, cartoons also refer to single-frame and multiple-frame comic works. Later, we called comic strips compiled based on cartoon techniques and styles as cartoon comics.

In the habits of the Chinese public, there is a difference between cartoons and comics. People generally call comic strips that are mainly realistic style cartoons, while multi-frame comics that are mainly based on exaggeration, deformation and omission are called comic strips. Even within the comics community, there are quite a few people who insist on this statement.

I believe that, regardless of whether they are realistic or not, most of the "cartoon" works should be listed in the comic book family from technique to content. Except for a few works that really have no sense of humor, interest, technique, and comic flavor, these works can only be regarded as ordinary comic strips. There is no need to use the word "cartoon" to describe some comic strips.

The word "cartoon" should be used according to its original meaning and should not be used to specifically refer to certain comic strips. This term has long shown its shortcomings, confusing the concept of comic strips. While leaving industry insiders at a loss as to what to do, it also brings inconvenience to readers. People often face a comic strip, and they don't know which one is more accurate: "cartoon" or "comic strip". You call it one, and they call it another. It's confusing, confusing, and even a little funny.

So, to put it more accurately, comics are cartoons, cartoons are comics, and comic strips are a form of comics (cartoons).

2. In comic strips, very short works are very popular, such as three-frame, four-frame, and six-frame works. Famous ones include "The True Story of Old Horse" by Mr. Duan Jifu, "The Fat Sister-in-law" by Mr. Zhu Senlin, etc. However, an alternative "comic strip" has also appeared in our comics field. Among them, the main ones are Zhu Deyong's "serial comics" (such as "The Girl", "The Vinegar Tribe", etc.).

Zhu’s works are popular in mainland China for several reasons:

One is that they have entered the mainland market in large quantities due to their commercial operations. Just like some Taiwanese film, television, and song works, strong commercial hype and packaging behaviors have made them popular in mainland China. However, the works of many powerful mainland cartoonists have become much darker due to the lack of this operating method.

Secondly, readers’ pace of life is accelerating and social pressure is increasing. What they need after work is adjustment and relaxation, and his works cater to readers’ tastes because they are popular, intuitive and funny.

The third reason is that the public mentality is too impetuous, the pursuit of art is getting less and less, the level is getting lower and lower, the artistic feeling is getting worse and worse, so that there is a lack of calm and good art appreciation and identification. This is why Zhu Deyong's works are so popular.

Fourth reasons are due to the immaturity of readers. Many readers do not have a mature appreciation of comics, and do not even understand what real comic art is. They will read whatever you draw, swallowing it wholeheartedly, and will accept all who come. This shortcoming is concentrated among young people, and most of Zhu's readers are young people, even teenagers. Zhu Deyong's works are always called comics in the public definition, but in the comics industry, the vast majority of painters do not agree.

The shapes of his works are simple, rigid, dull and mechanical, and lack the beauty of shapes, lines and compositions of comics. Most of his works are based on text and supplemented by pictures. Without pictures, it would still be a good joke, but without words, the pictures would be meaningless.

It is inappropriate to call Zhu Deyong’s works comics. To be precise, his works are marginal. It is between comics and jokes, with very little comic content and a lot of joke content. His works should be classified as jokes in literary works.

my country’s comics industry has a fine tradition, which attaches great importance to the artistry, ideological and educational nature of comics. The majority of comics authors are also trying their best to realize these "three qualities" of comics in their creations, and Zhu Deyong's works None of them have these "three qualities", and they are all funny and kitsch works, which brings the already declining readers' appreciation of comic art to an even worse situation. In the field of art, we believe in strength. No matter how great the glory is, if it is not an essential achievement, it will be decaying and temporary, and will be vulnerable to the impact of the long river of art.

We cartoon creators should look at Zhu's "cartoons" calmly and objectively. Don’t just praise or even imitate. However, mainland cartoonists should also learn from this business operation technique and launch their own more powerful works so that people can accept real comic strips.