"China's comics industry is in its infancy" is a cliché. Influenced by policies, markets, and publishing houses, domestic cartoonists often find it difficult to follow their inner ideas and paint their own stories as they please.
However, even in such a difficult environment, there are still a group of dream-chasing cartoonists who continue to inject a steady stream of vitality into the rise of Chinese comics.
On March 24th, the Quick Look Comics Officer conveniently launched a cartoonist ecological documentary "Comic Life" on Station B, which turned the camera on a number of new and old Chinese cartoonists and comic-related practitioners, with the criterion of "not magnifying bitterness, not singing success", objectively telling the persistence and love of several Chinese cartoonists on the road to chasing their dreams.
In the impression of many people, Chinese cartoonists often hide from the public eye, writing and guarding the slightly desolate land acquisition of domestic comics, including the best people who go abroad and run to the world, as well as nameless people who cannot even guarantee their lives.
Due to limited channels, the public can rarely understand what kind of beliefs and hardships this group of creators are carrying, let alone the development of China's comic industry.
Therefore, when "A Lifetime of Comics" was launched on Station B, many people were relieved that as ACG enthusiasts, they were finally able to understand the unknown side of the Chinese comic industry.
After all, the comic industry itself is an industry that is highly dependent on popularity, and no matter whether the level of Chinese cartoonists is balanced or not, it needs to have an entry point to take the audience to feel the real situation. However, just after the official release of the first episode, the comments section showed a mixed praise.
This makes some people who have not yet watched the film confused, is the reason why Chinese cartoonists do not get the public's attention is because of the huge controversy itself?
No, what these viewers are spraying is not the cartoonist himself or his works and experiences, but the disappointment of the documentary "Manga Life".
Because in the first episode of nearly 40 minutes, the audience did not get the expected harvest, wasting precious time.
01. Documentary or vlog?
"A Lifetime of Manga" is named after the realistic theme of the manga work of the same name by Chinese cartoonist Zhu Gengfu and Doll Fish Animation.
The semi-autobiographical manga of Ikofu tells the story of 1999, when Ichisei, an ordinary teenager who loves manga, met Ichirashi, a transfer student, and her student days changed dramatically with manga, so the first person to focus on the camera was Tsukifu.
Zhu Gengfu is the representative of Chinese horror comic book authors, in the past ten years of creative career, Gengfu's "Human Evolution" and "Nightmare Fragments" have achieved good results in major domestic comic platforms.
The former uses creepy plot directions and picture impacts to arouse readers' reflection on human nature; the latter depicts a terrifying and heart-wrenching story with delicate pictures, revealing some irony and intriguing about the phenomena of life and society.
Looking at the cultivator from the manga, it is easy to mistakenly think that he is a dark personality and desperate for society, but in reality, he is a sunshine cartoonist with a successful career and a happy family, and the beginning of "Manga Life" records the picture of the cultivator and the child playing.
The camera then turns, and The Cultivator begins to --- his wife to the first reader of the comic, explaining his ideas: which historical facts to draw inspiration from, lines, and how the storyboard should be designed.
On the way, the two had to take care of the children because of the noisy, while continuing the work at hand.
Just when the camera implies that the film is about to cut into the background of the creation of "Human Evolution", the camera suddenly changes again and introduces the cartoonist "Ding Bing".
This veteran manga artist with more than 20 years of experience in comic writing is conceiving the lines of his latest work "Flowers and Hedgehogs Escape", due to the critical period of the development of the plot to the turn of the plot, how to use the lines to hint at the relationship between the male and female protagonists is related to the direction of the entire manga. Therefore, Ding Bing had to be cautious and cautious, and carefully consider every line.
And when Ding Bing is talking about his shortcomings in the plot, a blunt transition pulls the audience's attention to the comic "Absolute Top" and its author Xiao Xinyu (pen name "Xiao Who"), and begins to tell the general situation and creative concept of this comic.
Originally, Xiao Xinyu wanted to create an orthodox martial arts comic, but because of the market and his own reasons, this comic was tragically cut off; after adjustment, he created a martial arts comic with a style of "Absolute Top", which is more funny and adventurous.
From Xiao Xinyu's painting process, we can glimpse his high painting skills. Only when the audience has not yet seen Mr. Xiao's drawing method, the camera switches to the cultivator's home again, listening to him tell how he reconciles the relationship between work and family, and briefly summarizing his ideas and inspiration when drawing horror comics.
In his student days, the cultivator was seriously bullied in school, and even almost died in Huangquan, although this experience of escaping from death made him see the dark side of human nature, he still believed that goodness is still the nature of human beings, so in the comics, he can always convey warm stories with delicate emotions.
In fact, until his college days, he looked forward to the warm comics he created to be serialized in a commercial form. Unfortunately, the manga platform that he originally signed a contract with was positioned only as a horror comic, and the cultivator, who did not want to miss this precious opportunity, had to take the road of horror comics hard.
What he never expected was that this debut became a representative of Chinese horror comics.
Subsequently, after the film briefly summarizes the few healing works of the cultivator and the source of the film's name, "Manga Life" in the form of a combination of graphics and text, it then switches the camera bluntly and continues to introduce other cartoonists. The subsequent record is to introduce several writers in such a frequent switching rhythm.
Obviously, due to the mistake of the space arrangement, the documentary can only introduce fragments of the life and work of the three writers, and a few words of creative ideas.
Rather than saying that this is a documentary about the "ecology of contemporary Chinese cartoonists", it is better to say that it is just a vlog advertisement made by the comic to promote its own author, and the whole film is watched, which only gives people a feeling of "watching but not fully watching".
Of course, the dissatisfaction of netizens does not stop there, as the documentary progresses, more ills are exposed to the audience.
02. Could it be worse?
The second episode of "Manga Life", "I want to be a cartoonist", features two cartoonists with completely different creative styles and living conditions, Guo Guo (the representative work "Sensitive") and Qingqing (the representative work "Evening Wood") as the protagonists, to show the audience their dream journey.
"Sensitive" is about a director student with bipolar disorder who is "sensitive", and with his innate acuity and observation, he has shown super strength in the field of art.
It's just that as his illness worsens, Sensitivity spirals out of control while preparing the short film, and the entire comic revolves around him breaking through himself. Due to the special sensitive condition, Guo Guo is good at using a realistic style to show his explosive emotions in expressions and actions, so that readers can intuitively empathize with the protagonist.
And "Evening Wood" tells the story of Zhou Wanwan, who has been a happy family as a wife, and is still entangled after reuniting with his lover Bai Mumu in his student days.
As an urban lily comic, Qingqing uses a fresh drawing style to show the gentleness and delicacy unique to female characters.
However, the film does not give a detailed introduction to these works, and like the first episode, it directly cuts into the record of fragments of life without detailing the author himself and his work.
Guo Guo is like a genius creator, and the audience can follow the camera to spy on Guo Guo's rich life and creative daily life: in a well-decorated house, living a daily life of petting dogs, learning, and creating. In his opinion, creation is a very easy and free thing, so he can take a two-pronged approach, while drawing, listening to some professional courses related to philosophy or psychology, which is to add some solid basis to the setting of his comics.
In addition, he can also make his own animation and dubbing soundtrack, as early as during college, his self-made animated music video "Life Poems" caused quite a stir in his small circle.
It can be said that Guoguo's creative career has always been as relaxed and pleasant as he wished.
Unlike the fruit that grows in good times, Qingqing is in line with most people's impression of cartoonists:
She had dreams, but she ran into a wall many times when submitting articles, and it was difficult for her to rely on comics for a living, so she had to use her spare time to work part-time to subsidize her family. Although life is a little difficult, with the support and recognition of her family, she does not think that her experience has been much, and most importantly, Qingqing is still on the road of "becoming a cartoonist".
In the repeated switching of the camera, the audience needs to constantly change their thinking, stringing together the two cartoonists' front and back answers, in order to barely piece together a small growth experience.
Although the whole film of "I want to be a cartoonist" is nearly half an hour long, most of the time is spent telling the daily life of the two and showing the original family. As for why the two became cartoonists, what deep thinking and details they had in the process of conceiving the plot were only brought in a few sentences.
If the first episode chronicles the lives of adult cartoonists after climbing to the top, the second episode is about the vignettes of the lives of young people during the climb.
In addition, some people think that it is easy to tell two cartoonists who have very different growth experiences and creative styles together.
It is said that it is "a lifetime of comics", but the audience can only feel the "comic moment" from the film, obviously under the theme of "Chinese cartoonist ecology", telling only the daily life of a few representatives.
The overall industry environment, development process, and creative process that the audience wants are not shown one by one, and the "wrong goods" is probably the audience's best interpretation of this "documentary".
Until careful netizens found that the producer of "Comic Life" was the controversial cartoonist Chen Annie, all the doubts had a more reasonable explanation, a project responsible for by a "businessman", which is naturally difficult to see.
In fact, in addition to the comment area of station B, other social platforms are also full of many scolding.
"Comic Life" is a documentary produced by "Quick Look Comics", which introduces its own authors, but in the eyes of netizens, the film should not take such a large range of "contemporary Chinese cartoonists" as its own positioning.
Because in addition to the authors of Kuaikan, there are still many cartoonists in the Chinese comic industry who are in the bottleneck period of their careers.
And this group of dreamers, unlike the successful cartoonists in front of the camera, they either did not meet a good opportunity, or had more than enough and lacked strength, or were exploited by the black heart platform, and the mixture of various factors made them still in embarrassment. These people who have not been able to enter the stage of history are the true portrayal of the Chinese comic industry.
For example, Xu Xianzhe, who created "Dart Man", which caused a sensation in Japan, overdrafted several credit cards due to his unsuccessful career before his debut, and almost couldn't even eat;
Miji, who is also famous in Japan, also started from the profession of "chef" that has nothing to do with manga, and when he was confused about his life, he was fortunate to seize the opportunity to achieve the present.
In addition, there are more unknown, in the depths of the water, is holding a pen to chase dreams, if "Comic Life" can tell the story of these people, let them change from nameless to famous, the audience can feel the vitality and hope of Chinese comics more.
03. Conclusion
Obviously, the Chinese comics industry still has a long way to go, but in places where we can't see, those creators are still working on it.
As the first documentary about contemporary Chinese cartoonists in mainland China, "A Life of Comics" is indeed a brave attempt.
In the subsequent update, if you can accept the opinions of netizens and record the cartoonists from a more professional perspective, is it not a happy ending for everyone?