Text | Listen to the wind and listen to the rain Ayakoji
Before the 1980s, the picture books that Chinese students secretly circulated in the classroom were still tattered comic strips, that is, villain books.
The themes of villain books are mostly ancient masterpieces or revolutionary stories, and there are very few children's themes. But the students still like it tightly.
There are even special comic strip stalls near the school, and for a dime, you can sit on a small bench and read a comic strip.
At that time, a person's popularity was probably directly proportional to how many villain books he had. In the social circle of students, the villain book is the hardest currency.
This kind of cultural life has been completely rewritten with the advent of Japanese manga.
The introduction of "Aspen Boy with An Iron Arm" in the early 1980s was still published in the form of a villain book
In 1987, the People's Fine Arts Publishing House published "Robot Cat", which retained the original form of the work and was the first comic book introduced in the true sense of China
In the early 1990s, when the spring breeze continued to blow all over the ground, it seemed that overnight, the overwhelming number of Japanese manga came across the sea. Brochures from Hainan Photography And Art, Spring and Autumn, Ningxia People's, Dunhuang Literature and Art and other publishing houses quickly seized the extracurricular reading market.
Dragon Ball published by Spring and Autumn Publishing House in 1989, translated as "Little Monkey King"
Hainan Photography Fine Arts Publishing House published Saint Seiya in 1990, translated as "Female Divine Fighter"
In the face of menacing Japanese manga, the villain book that has accompanied countless people to grow up collapsed.
After all, in the face of the changing style, interesting plot, and mature market system of Japanese manga, villain books have almost no advantage.
Moreover, the first batch of Japanese comics that landed in China were "Robot Cat", "Dragon Ball", "Saint Seiya", "City Hunter", "Fuxing Kid", "Football Boy", which were selected even in Japan after the big waves.
Since then, countless Chinese children's childhoods have begun to be marked by the imprint of Japanese comics.
As a Chinese reader, when I and my friends are excited to discuss Super Saiyan or Pegasus Meteor Fist, I occasionally sigh:
Why can't Chinese draw such a wonderful comic?
I am not the only one who has such a question.
Perhaps the Chinese people have a character of not accepting defeat in their bones, and in the field of inferiority to others, there will always be someone who stands up, from scratch, from less to more, from backward to leading. We've seen too many stories like this for decades.
It is difficult to say that the birth of "The King of Picture Books" did not have the motivation in this regard.
1. "The King of Picture Books" became popular
In August 1993, at the Zhongguancun Book Market in Beijing, a magazine quickly became popular among booksellers.
This is a new manga magazine that imitates the production of The Japanese Shueisha "Shonen JUMP" and is also the first new manga magazine in the history of Chinese mainland to adopt all Japanese storyboarding techniques, called "Picture Book King", referred to as "Picture King".
The first issue of The Picture Book King
As soon as the magazine came out, it caused a sensation.
The founder, Mr. Wang Yongsheng, still remembers the scene twenty years later:
"The inaugural issue of "The King of Picture Books" was first printed in 20,000 copies, and it was quickly sold out, and it was urgently reprinted and reprinted. Subsequent issues have risen in the process of continuous printing. Letters from readers from all over the world also flew like snowflakes. ”
In just a few months, the sales of the painting king reached 200,000 copies, and since then it has continued to rise.
Ye Yongqing, a reader in Shanghai, said: "I have read many comic books that are Japanese. I often wonder, why doesn't China have its own comic books? I really envy Japan's well-developed manga business... Yesterday, I saw "The King of Picture Books", China finally has its own picture magazine, people who are concerned about the cause of comics, comics are no longer 'pediatrics', no longer meaningless. ”
At that time, the Chinese book market was mixed and was one of the profiteering industries.
Whether it is a book or a magazine, it can reach more than 10,000 copies per month to protect the book, more than 50,000 copies are best-selling, and more than 200,000 sales can enter the Forbes list of books.
Although comic books are very popular, they are still limited to Japanese comics.
Even the relatively mature Hong Kong comics have a much weaker limelight. For example, Huang Yulang's "Legend of Tianzi", because of its full-color craftsmanship and expensive pricing, is not a big seller.
So why is this "Picture Book King" from the mainland suddenly rising up and even red and purple?
This has to start with Wang Yongsheng, the founder of the magazine.
2. Retired uncle's manga entrepreneurship
The editor-in-chief of "The King of Picture Books" is wang Yongsheng.
When the magazine came out in 1993, he was 62 years old and was actually a retired uncle.
At that time, the standard life of the retired uncle was to go to the park in the morning to hang out, play chess in the morning, stare in the afternoon, listen to crosstalk, watch skits, and rub a few games of mahjong in the evening.
So why did this retired uncle have a sudden idea and start a comic magazine?
As the saying goes, the economic base determines the superstructure, and how big a person's pattern is often related to his social circle.
Wang Yongsheng has a wide range of friends, especially with the Japanese book industry.
Before retiring, Wang Yongsheng was the director of the Publicity and Exhibition Department of the China Philatelic Corporation, and one of the main responsibilities was to preside over the magazine Philatelic.
If a magazine wants to gain a foothold in the market, it must keep pace with the times and remain open.
After Kakuei Tanaka's visit to China in 1979, exchanges between China and Japan, both official and non-governmental, began to be frequent. At that time, Japan's philatelic activities were very hot, and Wang Yongsheng went to investigate and learn from the scriptures in 1980.
After returning to China, he used the activities organized by the Japan Postal Fun Association to carry out the annual selection. The price of the elected monkey stamp became the hottest stamp at the time, soaring, and China's philatelic fever also reached a historical peak with the help of activities.
He himself did not collect stamps and never bought stamps, but he ran the magazine Philatelic with great success.
The magazine, which resumed publication in January 1980 and started selling less than 10,000 copies a month, had risen to 320,000 copies by 1983.
It is higher than Li Dongbao's "Guide to the World" that is so high that it is not known where it went.
In "The Story of the Editorial Department", the figure of "Philatelic" has flashed
These experiences make Wang Yongsheng feel that the rise and fall of an industry lies in people who love this industry. What outsiders need to do most is to provide them with a boost and build a free and open platform.
The idea of building a platform and creating opportunities for enthusiasts has also been used by Wang Yongsheng to "The King of Picture Books".
As for the idea of making "The Picture Book King", it originated from an incident in 1992.
That year, the Hong Kong comic book company "Jade Emperor Dynasty", which had been successfully listed for 6 years, imported and licensed manga from Japan, causing a shock to the Hong Kong book industry.
Hong Kong version of "Cat's Eye Three Sisters"
Although he had retired, Wang Yongsheng's habit of opening his eyes to see the world had not been shelved.
In his memoirs, he mentioned how he felt when he first saw the comic:
I entrusted Xiao Zi, general manager of Hong Kong's old friend Sanlian Bookstore, and Abeda, an old Japanese friend who has worked in China for many years, also helped to find many Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japanese, and American comics and related materials, and their horizons were wide open, and it turned out that outside the mainland of China, comics have been completely different, another world!
Such an impact made him think:
Why did the Hong Kong comics company go public?
Why are Japanese manga able to impact the world?
Why are Chinese comic strips facing a desperate situation?
A series of whys triggered Wang Yongsheng's brainstorming.
The comic strips of the 1970s in the mainland can only be called illustrations or picture books at best. The content is basically adapted from novels and famous works, and there are few originals.
Comic strip "Swallow Li San"
As for the form of expression, it is an illustration with a few lines of shrunken text, which is almost like a shotgun compared with Hong Kong comics and Japanese cartoons.
If the mainland wants to make some progress in manga, it must learn Hong Kong manga and Japanese manga and make new types of original manga.
But Wang Yongsheng does not understand comics and only understands magazines, what should I do?
Then get a comic magazine!
So how did Wang Yongsheng, who has passed the age of 60, learn to run a comic magazine?
What he did first was to bring the enthusiasts together first.
In 1992, the China Comics Research Association was established, a national industry organization voluntarily formed by comic book researchers, creators, painters, publishers, educators and related comic groups. And the president is Wang Yongsheng.
Running a magazine also requires the help of a publisher. Although Wang Yongsheng at this time did not have the yellow robe of the publishing group's public institutions, he was still able to rely on his popularity accumulated over the years to spread heroic posts.
About half a year later, the Ningxia People's Publishing House threw an olive branch and sent people from thousands of miles away to Beijing to negotiate with him on the details of running the journal, and the two sides hit it off.
In March 1993, ningxia People's Publishing House applied to the Press and Publication Administration for the "King of Picture Books", which was approved in May.
Wang Yongsheng wrote the preface to the first issue of The King of Painting Books
After everything was ready, Wang Yongsheng spent 3 months preparing for the first issue.
In August 1993, the inaugural issue of "Picture Book King" was officially launched.
Wang Yongsheng set a main tone for the magazine, referring to the late Qing Dynasty Western Affairs Movement "Shiyi Long Skills to Strengthen Himself":
Learn from the strengths of the families, follow their own path, and strive to develop their own comics based on the new types of comics that are popular in the world.
Make original comics, recruit and train original comic authors to become the basis of the "Picture Book King".
This magazine has thus become the first stage for Chinese original comic book authors to display their talents.
3. The sun is long and opens the way
Although the painter was committed to supporting the national comic at the beginning of the founding, the national comic was previously in a blank space, and there were no mature works.
In order to "make up the numbers", Wang Yongsheng even personally wrote the script, and the comic book author Tan Xiaochun drove out of "Peach Society".
In the first few issues, although Chinese original comics and Japanese comics accounted for roughly the same length, although every reader was cheering up Chinese cartoonists-
However, even elementary school students can see that whether it is the level of art or the excitement of the plot, those national comics have a huge gap with the Japanese comics serialized in the same period.
Issue 1 Table of Contents
In fact, this is no wonder for them, after all, the Chinese cartoonists at that time had just transformed from comic strips and were making a new attempt, and some cartoonists had never even seen the dot paper.
They were competing on the same stage as famous masters such as Akira Toriyama, Masami Cheda, Rumiko Takahashi, and HojoJi.
Therefore, in the early days, it was those who undertook the heavy responsibility of opening up the market for the king of painting and accumulating popularity.
In the selection of Japanese comic works, Wang Yongsheng is as unique as he was when he ran "Philatelic".
Classic Japanese comics such as "Football Boy", "Dragon Ball", and "As boy" have all appeared on the cover
In addition to popular comics such as "Dragon Ball", "Football Boy", "City Hunter", there are many classic works that were not known to the Chinese people before, which also appear in the painting king -
For example, the first issue of Zheng Wen's "Qin Shi Huang" was awarded a grand prize by the Japan Cartoonists Association. In the Hong Kong comic book company Jade Emperor Dynasty, his comics are used as textbooks.
Issue 5 features Osamu Tezuka, the god of manga, "Komabird and The Boy," a short story from Doctor Strange Black Jack, which has been hailed as one of the three masterpieces of Japanese manga in the 1970s.
Issue 7 featured Rumiko Takahashi's Tale of the Mermaid. Rumiko Takahashi is one of the few outstanding female manga artists in Japan, and is a graduate of the first phase of the "Drama Painting Village Academy" sponsored by Kazuo Koike, a master of drama painting.
"Argon the Little Dinosaur" winner of the American comic book Oscar "Esnar Award"
Issue 11 featured Masashi Tanaka's "Agon the Little Dinosaur", a comic that is realistic, has no lines or words throughout, and uses character expressions entirely instead of language, winning the Eisner Manga Award, known as the "Oscar of the American Comic Book Industry".
Issue 22 features The Masked Superman by Shotaro Ishimori, an early prominent manga artist of the Tokiwaso era in Japan in the 1950s, and many of his comics have been adapted into feature films with far-reaching influences.
Of course, there is also controversy over the works of some popular manga artists published by The King of Paintings, such as Masami Cheda's "Shizuka Shimoshixiang".
In terms of plot and characters, this work has a large part of the repetition with his previous work, Saint Seiya, and then directly cut off.
But the flaws are not hidden, and most of the Japanese manga that the king has serialized are excellent.
Wang Yongsheng selected these excellent comic works, on the one hand, to read and appreciate readers, on the other hand, to let people who like to draw comics see more diverse excellent works of various ages.
In order to let Chinese manga authors get more systematic knowledge, The King of Painting has been serializing Akira Toriyama's teaching manga "Manga Research Institute", an anti-commercial choice that can be described as well-intentioned.
So, when will Chinese comics mature? No one knew the answer at the time.
Readers didn't wait long, though.
Several young people under the age of 20 gave a surprise response.
4. National flood flash
Wang Yongsheng's idea of supporting domestic comics was very valuable at that time.
What is even more valuable is that he knows how to make dreams shine into reality.
In an era when comics were still something new and not recognized by the mainstream, it was difficult for China's original comic writers to get the recognition and support of their families and people around them.
But the emergence of the platform "The King of Picture Books" has allowed them to shine.
Wang Yongsheng set up a studio in Beijing and sought out young creators who loved comics across the country, providing them with food, lodging, and logistics, so that they could devote themselves to original comics without any worries.
Chen Xiang and Zheng Xusheng, 19, and Yan Kai, 18, gathered in the studio in 1994 to become the first three professional cartoonists in China.
The encounter between each of them and the painting king is a good story.
In 1993, Yan Kai, who was only 17 years old, was studying at a university in Shenzhen
For example, Yan Kai, who has loved comics since middle school, was once regarded as a "madman" by his classmates because he buried his head in drawing every day.
When he was a university student in Shenzhen, he rented a house majoring in international trade, read comics and drew cartoons in it every day, and when he was happy, he would suddenly laugh, and once scared the neighbors enough to think that he was a strange person.
It was not until he came to the Painting King Studio that he finally met the like-minded Chen Xiang and Zheng Xusheng, and was never regarded as crazy or strange by the people around him.
Later, they were hailed by readers as the "Three Musketeers of China's New Comics".
On January 20, 1994, on the 10th issue of "The King of Picture Books", Chen Xiang, who was only 19 years old at the time, brought "Diary of a Small Mountain" to the audience, giving readers a huge surprise.
Many people's eyes lit up when they first saw "The Diary of a Mountain", which is a work that has no sense of violation in many Japanese manga.
Although it has traces of imitating Akira Toriyama, it also has its own innovations, the character shape is exaggerated and cute, the story is humorous and funny, and the imagination is wild.
More importantly, "The Diary of a Hill" no longer sees the shadow of the comic strip style, which can be described as a standout among the original comic works of the time.
Therefore, it has only been serialized for a few issues, and "The Diary of a Little Mountain" has become the top work of the king of painting.
Many readers said in a letter to the editorial department: "I didn't expect that the authors of our country could also create such a good comic!" ”
Also in the 10th issue, "The King of Painting Books" made a far-reaching decision - to hold the "94 Painting King Cup Super Short Story Prize Solicitation Activity".
The "Painting King Super Short Story Contest" that has inspired countless people to create enthusiasm
The so-called ultra-short story refers to a comic work with only four pages. Due to the small number of pages, the requirements for the artist are not high, and even those who have not drawn comics can try their hands.
As soon as the call for papers came out, the enthusiasm of domestic comic fans was fully stimulated, and snowflakes flew from all over the country to the editorial office of "Picture Book King".
In the 15th issue of "The King of Picture Books", the first manuscripts were met with readers, and then about fifty short comic works were published successively.
The great reversal of the national comic appeared in the 17th issue of the painting king.
In that issue, Yan Kaifu, who was only 18 years old, got the front page treatment as soon as he appeared.
Along with him, there is another name that countless readers still miss: Snow Coconut.
I still remember the first time I met Snow Coconut.
During a recess break, a classmate ran excitedly and said, "Did you see the latest issue of 'Painting King'?" There is a man named Yan Kai, who is so well drawn! ”
The popular national comic "Snow Coconut" published in the 17th issue
If "The Diary of a Little Mountain" gave a surprise to domestic readers at that time, then Yan Kai's "Snow Coconut" can be said to have caused an unprecedented sensation, and readers rushed to see it, and Luoyang paper was expensive for a while.
The reason why "Snow Coconut" caused a sensation is probably that both the drawing skills and the plot reached the extreme of the original Chinese comics at that time.
Even from today's point of view, the style and plot of "Snow Coconut" do not feel outdated at all.
"Snow Coconut" has two elements of potential popularity: one is the "crossing element" from the future to the present, and the other is the "real life fragment" that resonates with readers. These two points made up for Yan Kai's immature painting style at that time.
Many years later, "Snow Coconut" still makes countless readers worry about their stomachs, and the heroine Snow Coconut is also an important reason.
Xueye is probably the first "goddess" figure in the history of Chinese comics, and her beauty, kindness, and often shy cute expression are all thrilling.
Although from the current point of view, such an overly perfect heroine image is slightly thin and has the suspicion of a vase.
However, at that time, the audience of this comic was some teenagers and a half-year-old children, and the surprise and ignorance of the first sight were intertwined, making it easy for Snow Coconut to become an unforgettable existence.
With the appearance of "Snow Coconut", "Picture Book King" also entered its heyday.
In that issue, The Painting King also published 9 excellent works selected for the "Painting King Ultra Short Essay", most of which were submitted from middle school readers.
These 9 comics, the authors are still in junior high school and high school students, which truly realizes the strategic concept of Wang Yongsheng editor-in-chief to open up a new situation among students -
In the embryonic period when Chinese teenagers most want to draw comics, give them a stage to show themselves, and then encourage more young friends to devote themselves to comics.
For a time, new and old cartoonists competed on the same stage with the king of painting, and Chinese and foreign comic series went hand in hand, and works of different styles came one after another.
Hu Qianrong, who is still in her sophomore year of high school, published "New Year's Gifts"
Hu Qianrong's "Sintilella"
Yao Feila's debut novel " Happy Christmas Eve " was published in issue 16
Yao Feila, Hu Rong, Nie Jun, Free Bird, Zhao Jia, Ah Heng, Lin Min, Chai Meihua, Hu Qianrong... Strange names started from here and gradually became the backbone of China's original comics.
Although most of these short works are very immature and the traces of imitation are still obvious, the painstaking works of different styles show the exuberant vitality of Chinese comics.
And the long works, in addition to the stable serialization of "Snow Coconut" and "Little Mountain Diary", there are ah Heng's "Shaolin Zhengzong", Zheng Xusheng's "Our Opium War", Zeng Tu's "New Blood War Chronicle", Changhong's "Sword Qi Yangtze River"... It can be said that there are many highlights, and each one is good at winning.
"Snow Coconut" appeared on the cover of the 19th issue, and the names of the other 3 national comics also occupied a prominent position
Spreading the world's excellent comics, supporting domestic original comics, and cultivating new authors - the painting king who exerts efforts in these three aspects can be said to be on the right path.
The bright future of Chinese comics seems to be within reach at that moment.
5. Suspension of publication
In my memory, the days of 1994 were happy and fulfilling, and every day was spent flipping through the old "Picture Book King" and looking forward to the new issue of "Picture Book King".
That year, the days with the painter were a precious memory.
However, after the school started in September 1994, I counted the time to go to the familiar newsstand.
But I didn't see the 25th issue of "The King of Picture Books".
For a week, two weeks, and a month, I ran to the newsstand every day in a magical way, but I never saw the familiar figure of the "Painting King".
Until, the owner of the newsstand told me: The King of Painting has stopped publishing.
Like many readers who learned of this news at the time, I stood in the blazing sunshine of late summer, and after the shock, I was stunned for a long time.
How come? Didn't the first anniversary of the inauguration just be launched? Haven't you just pushed a lot of new series? How can a magazine that has only been published for a year, is still on the rise, and has a bright future stop publishing without any warning?
And the sales of its last issue have reached 600,000.
Considering that a magazine was often circulated among many people at that time, the actual readers of "Picture Book King" reached at least one million levels.
The reasons for the suspension of publication are divided.
In summary, there are "leader theory", that is, being urgently stopped by a certain leader; there is a "interest theory", which points out that the huge income of the painting king infringes on certain interest groups; and there is also a "infringement theory", which refers to the illegal publication of works by Japanese manga authors that cause copyright disputes.
Twenty years later, I finally learned from Mr. Wang Yongsheng's memories the reason for the suspension of "The King of Picture Books":
"It happened at a conference about children's journals. At the same time, one of the leaders who attended the meeting suddenly took out a magazine, angrily pointed to a color illustration and said, Can such a picture be shown to children! And instructed to stop the magazine immediately.
That painting is an illustration from the early days of The Picture Book King, from the famous Japanese manga artist Hojoji's "Detective Han Yuryo".
What exactly went wrong? If you have read this story, know who the protagonist Han Yuliang is, and know what the people in the picture are doing, probably no one will associate it with 'wading in the yellow'..."
The second color page of the 5th issue of the Painting King became the fuse that caused trouble that year
Here I have to say that even if the leaders do not stop the painting king because of "Detective Han Yuliang", some of the content published in the magazine in the middle and late stages is easy to "provoke the fire".
For example, the 14th issue of The King of Painting published "Auction House" by Japanese manga artist Ye Jingzuo.
At that time, Japanese manga had a strict grading system, and shonen manga magazines could not publish bloody and violent pornography, and Ye Jingzuo's manga works obviously belonged to the category of youth manga.
The 14th issue of Painting King published a coloring page by young Japanese manga artist Ye Jingzuo
On Ye Jingzuo's paintings, there is a character from the Experimental Humanoid Oscar, which began serialization in GORO, a manga magazine for adult men, which began in 1977. Because of its explicit and stimulating depictions, it also caused great controversy in the Japanese manga industry at that time.
Although the "Auction House" selected by the painting king is not as explicit as the "Experimental Humanoid Oscar", there are also violent and bloody pictures.
At that time, the readers of the painting king were still middle school students, and it was quite inappropriate to select the restricted youth comics.
So to be fair, the very few comics of The King of Painting are really not suitable for underage readers.
If I had been more cautious about the selection of comic titles at that time, and had a deeper understanding of the grading and copyright of comic works, the ending of the king of paintings might have been different.
But think about it, many people who have made serious mistakes can escape punishment by "punishing three cups of wine", or get punished and then "make a comeback" elsewhere.
And "The King of Picture Books", which has brought great hope to the cause of Chinese comics, has not even been given the opportunity to correct its mistakes.
Not even once.
As Wang Yongsheng said, "Unfortunately, there was no investigation, no representation, no necessary administrative procedures, and even the meaning of the painting was not clear. ”
Although more than twenty years have passed, I still want to question the painter who can't come back:
Is this one-size-fits-all decision to ban a magazine in a permanent and permanent manner, regardless of the painstaking efforts of many cartoonists and the sincere support of 100,000 readers?
6. The beginning is the end
In the final issue of "Pictorial King", Tadao Kimura, the director of the Japan Manga Academy, sent a message, and also mentioned that he hoped to introduce Chinese manga to Japan.
Tadao Kimura's message
However, after the painting king stopped publishing, this idea that seemed to be realized quickly was also frustrated.
Many years later, Wang Yongsheng still regrets it:
"What the suspension of "Picture Book King" lost was not a magazine, but a good opportunity for Chinese comics to start quickly.
Many of the cartoonists and works that emerged on "The King of Picture Books" at that time disappeared and have never been seen again.
The ill-fated "Gemini Stars" "Snow Coconut" and "The Diary of a Hill" did not disappear, but they began a turbulent career.
The two works have been in many magazines and have also launched a single book, but in the end they have not been able to stick to it.
A stand-alone copy of The Hill Diary and Snow Coconut
On October 3 this year, Yan Kai also recalled on Weibo that after he switched to "The King of Popular Science Painting", he was owed more than half a year's manuscript fee and could only be changed.
Chen Xiang, who once created the history of Chinese comics, has less than 4,000 Weibo followers.
In 2017, he also searched for his name on Weibo and found that it was singer Chen Xiang.
When he was lost, he saw someone asking: Is Chen Xiang still drawing comics when he draws Xiaoshan's diary?
As a result, he just warmed his heart, and saw an answer: I stopped painting for a long time, and went to the decoration company.
In fact, Chen Xiang has never worked in a decoration company, he has been drawing cartoons.
Chen Xiang's later work "List of Divine Essences"
Such an encounter also reflects that after the suspension of the painting king, the domestic original comic authors lost the most mature platform at that time, and then fell into a dilemma.
To this day, it is still difficult to say the place of "The King of Picture Books" in the history of the development of Chinese comics.
All we know is that due to the impetus of this magazine, around 1994, there was indeed a golden age of Chinese comics as Yan Kai said.
At that time, both readers and authors had a simple and persistent enthusiasm, with firm confidence in the development of Chinese comics, and everyone believed that Chinese comics would form their own style and would one day catch up with or even surpass Japan.
However, "The King of Picture Books" fell in front of the executive order, the first generation of Chinese cartoonists lost the position of publishing their works, and an entire generation of Chinese children lost the opportunity to contact domestic comics.
Yan Kai once said indignantly in "The Story of Me and the Painting King":
"We lost, well-developed, one of the strongest platforms at first; we lost, initially unearthed a large pool of talent; we missed two years that could develop in gold; we gave up the express train that had entered the fast lane of the positive transformation into original comics. The development of China's new comics, just budding, and stepping on the acupuncture points of the market, quickly entered the fast lane, and was slashed by a horizontal knife. In this way, we lost the golden age of the development of New Comics in China. A generation's dream, like a short flower withering. ”
After this, no matter how many plans the state has introduced to revitalize the national animation industry, the domestic comic industry has never returned to the atmosphere of the past.
A conjecture that will never have an answer remains in the hearts of all who come:
If "The King of Picture Books" could have lived a little longer, if the living environment of Chinese comics at that time had been better, if the state's support for the animation industry had come earlier...
So today, our domestic comics, will there be a completely different situation?
Unfortunately, history cannot be rewritten.
Twenty-six years ago, the truth was —
Chinese mainland the first comic magazine, which survived only 12 months and issued 24 issues, and then died.
The spark that had just been ignited by Chinese comics was also extinguished.
In 1994, King Of Painting's "New Comic Three Musketeers" carried the hope of creating the future of Chinese comics. For all those who like Chinese cartoonists, that year was sunny.
I am afraid that no one can guess that the final direction of this story is "the beginning is the end".
In 1994, at the age of 17, Yan Kai painted in the Painting King Studio
In 1994, there were also three young people in the rock circle who had a big smile
A similar trajectory of fate also happened to the "Three Masters of Magic Rock" who wanted to create the future of Chinese rock.
Coincidentally, the "New Comic Three Musketeers" and "Magic Rock Three Masters" appeared on the historical stage in May 1994.
That month, Yan Kai's "Snow Coconut" began to be serialized; Magic Rock Records released a new album for Dou Wei, Zhang Chu, and He Yong.
I believe this is not a coincidence.
This shows that after more than a decade of reform and opening up, China's young people have the ability to create new cultures such as comics, rock and roll.
It's just the times they're in, but they're not ready.
And man, after all, cannot compete with the times.
7. Don't forget
"Now Lao Tzu has money to buy your comics, but you don't draw them anymore."
Many years later, when I searched for the resources of "Snow Coconut" on the Internet, I accidentally saw this comment, and for a while my heart surged with infinite emotion, as if what I had always wanted to say but always did not know how to express was broken by a word.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2015, 21 years after the suspension of the painting king, 39-year-old Yan Kai left a precious group photo when he visited Wang Yongsheng, who was already 84 years old.
In the photo, both people are smiling happily.
This scene made the readers of the painting king sigh with emotion. They also went from being teenagers who had saved pocket money to buy magazines to their fathers who wanted to earn money for milk powder.
In this turbulent and huge change for more than twenty years, the grand scene of the painting king's year can only be a short episode that has never been heard of for later generations.
But those good and regrets scattered in time will always rise from the depths of memory.
At this moment, the child who was waiting outside the newsstand waiting for the latest issue of the painting king has also passed the year of standing.
Comics have also drifted away from the life of chai rice oil and salt.
I still treasure the entire collection of 24 "Picture Book King", which is the mark of my youth and the best testimony of the golden age that Chinese comics have ever had.
The world is a big dream, and life is cold several times in autumn.
I promised you a dream all the way, full of stars. In the end, the old man was gone, and the paper was ashes.
But don't forget —
Chinese comics used to have hope, and there was a good time that was missed.
The first anniversary of The Picture Book King is also its last issue