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Populär Culture Review
manhua. As mentioned above, the first correspondent department of comics
directed by Lu Shaofei indicated that they were recruiting students of
huajihua and fengcihua. The blurb alleged:
Spending one hour each day in practicing, using
the cheapest pen and ink, can enable you to
achieve an important undertaking. With a piece of
blank paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen, you can
succeed in becoming a great artist. The position
and reputation of artists of “satirical picture” and
“humoristic picture” in the modern times can be
seen: (a) There have already been over two or
three thousands newspapers all over China in need
of talents in this field; (b) There are tens of
thousands joumals all over China in need of talents
in this field; (c) To win great honor intemationally
all over the world, our nation needs talents in this
field. Our agency is the right Organization
particularly dedicated to training talents in this
field. You can do it within the scope of your own
life and profession. {Shanghai Sketch 59, 5)
The emphasis on the market for comic works and the attempt of linking the
mass media-based art to the national honor display the complex motivation
of promoting comic art in China. It was at once commercial and ideological.
The flourishing printing industry provided the demand and market for the art
in a practical way, while nationalist discourse offered a loftier cause to
legitimize its position in official culture. The implication o f the amateur
nature of the genre—any one can make it through practice— also showed a
more democratic attitude toward art, which tried to de-mystify the hierarchy
of art and to bridge art with Contemporary social life. Art in the form of
manhua can be an integral part of everybody’s life.
It was initially in Shanghai Sketch that two of the most famous
comic characters in China—Mr. Wang and Xiao Chen—were created by Ye
Qianyu. The comic Strip series Wang xiansheng (Mr. Wang) may be the first
Chinese comic Strip with continuing characters and consistent graphic
narrative with embedded text. Mr. Wang was also one of longest running
and most influential comic Strips. It ran from the first issue to the last of
Shanghai Sketch almost never interrupted. After Shanghai Sketch was
merged into Modern Miscellany, it was continued in Modern Miscellany,
and later expanded to various joumals, such as Shanghai huabao (Shanghai
Pictorial), Liangyou (Young Companion), Tuhua chenbao (Picture Moming
News), etc., until the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan in
1937 (Bi and Huang, 1986, p. 119-120; Shen, 2001, p. 113-14). The Mr.