Source: @Tencent Animation, Shilu World Wind Topic

Speaking of the names of Nie Feng, Bu Jingyun, Wang Xiaolong, Wang Xiaohu, and Chen Haonan, even those who have never seen Hong Kong comics will never feel unfamiliar. At the beginning of the 80th year of the last century, under the leadership of Huang Yulang and Ma Rongcheng, the two benchmark "gods" of Hong Kong comics, Hong Kong comics quickly became popular with fast-paced stories, hot and exciting scenes, and characters with clear grievances.

However, since the beginning of the new century, the once glorious Hong Kong Marvel is no longer there, not only the base camp Hong Kong has been captured by Japanese comics, but creative talents are facing the dilemma of lack of talent. When a generation of "grandmaster" Ma Rongcheng announced the closure of the pen last year, everyone suddenly found that it seemed that no one in the Hong Kong comic world was qualified to take over. The phrase "Hong Kong Man is dead, there is something to burn incense" has become a mantra for many netizens to ridicule Hong Kong Man.

Although everything in the world cannot escape the fate of prosperity and decline, but the decline of Hong Kong comics is suitable for coming too fast and too urgently, when the heroes of American comics incarnate as the protagonists of Hollywood movies to win the attention of fans around the world, when the combination of Japanese comics and Japanese animation swords won the obsession of young people, Hong Kong comics are already like old men, faltering, making fans heartbroken.

Could it be that Hong Kong Man is really powerless to return to the sky, and those heroes who are powerful can only retire in the exclamation of "the emperor's hegemony is empty, and it is better than a drunk life"? Whether it is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster, this issue of "The Wind of the World" will give readers an analysis of the current situation of Hong Kong Man, and analyze the internal and external factors that caused the decline of Hong Kong Man.

The current situation of the end of the heroes of Hong Kong Manga

Once upon a time, the most popular reading material for young people at Hong Kong newsstand booths was Hong Kong comics. On the subway, whether it is a childish student or a white-collar worker in a suit and leather shoes, they are accustomed to reading with relish in their hands a copy of "Dragon and Tiger Gate" or "Fengyun". But nowadays in Hong Kong, Hong Kong comics have become marginal reading, in the subway, buses, people are more keen to use mobile phones, tablets to watch the news, play games, even if occasionally found that some young people take out comics to read, take a closer look at most of them are "One Piece", "Naruto" and other Japanese comics. Hong Kong comics have been reduced to Jiangsu cakes and lard cakes, and have become the memories of a generation of Hong Kong people.

First, the sales volume plummeted and it was difficult to break 10,000

Say a thousand things and ten thousand, sales are the last word. No matter how reluctant you are in your heart, when you see the sales of Hong Kong comics such as "Dragon and Tiger Gate" and "Fengyun" from 200,000 in the 90s of the last century, to 40,000 today, or even less, you can understand that Hong Kong comics have fallen into a quagmire and are unable to move an inch. It is important to know that the authors of Lu Dao's two works, Huang Yulang and Ma Rongcheng, have a status in the Hong Kong comic world that is similar to Osamu Tezuka and Akira Toriyama in the Japanese comic world, and almost all the well-known cartoonists in Hong Kong today are from these two people.

However, even the two Huang Ma are unable to recover the decline of Hong Kong Man, and last year, when Ma Rongcheng held a golden basin hand-washing conference "Fengyun Feast" for himself, he admitted that he did not want to continue to "and thin mud" for the sales of "Fengyun", and chose to seal the pen. The author is not surprised by Ma Rongcheng's sealing pen. In just a few years, the market value of the property in his hands exceeded 700 million yuan, and the total worth was as high as 1 billion, making him a veritable richest man in the world. For Ma Rongcheng, the comic income is already insignificant, if it weren't for the love of the work, maybe "Fengyun" would have ended a few years ago.

Last year, Ma Rongcheng held a golden basin handwashing conference and chose to seal the pen

And another big man in the comic world, Huang Yulang, although he has been making new works, is actually just a "factory comic" made up with Yulang's gimmick, and in the assembly line operation mode. He himself has long stopped drawing comics by hand, and has focused on the operation of the Jade Dynasty Group.

With the retirement of the two benchmark figures of Hong Kong comics one after another, at least no one can really carry the banner of Hong Kong comics now, mainstream such as Qiu Fulong, Kwong Binqiang, Zheng Jianhe, Situ Cambridge, Liu Yunjie, He Zhiwen and other cartoonists The sales of their works are hovering around 10,000, as for newcomers, hehe, it is enough to have a carnival party if you can sell thousands of copies.

Second, the income is halved and the career change is frequent

Money is not everything, and no money is everything. As the saying goes, any prosperous and profitable industry is bound to attract attention and attract talents, and on the contrary, few people are willing to waste time in a sunset industry. In the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, it was the golden age of Hong Kong comics, and comic companies offered high-paid chief writers, such as Ma Rongcheng when he serialized "Chinese Heroes" for "Yulang Agency" (the predecessor of Cultural Communication), with an annual salary of more than 5 million, and the annual salary of other main writers such as Zhang Wanyou and Xie Zhirong was also as high as one million. It can be said that at that time, cartoonists were an incomparably glamorous and enviable high-paying profession.

However, after 20 years, when all walks of life are generally raising salaries and gaining weight, the pockets of Hong Kong comic writers have been slimmed, and those with an annual salary of five or six hundred thousand yuan can be called first-line cartoonists. The increasingly embarrassing industry environment has also forced many Hong Kong comic authors to change careers and devote themselves to the fields of games, animation, and advertising design.

On the other hand, in the mainland comic industry, Zhou Hongbin, the author of "Stealing Stars in September", sat at the top of the 2013 Chinese cartoonist rich list with an annual income of 23 million, and the top 15 cartoonists on the list all have an annual income of more than one million.

Natural disasters and man-made disasters, who is to blame

In the past ten years of the decline of Hong Kong comics, whether it is industry scholars, practitioners, or general readers, they have checked the pulse of Hong Kong comics, and put forward the views of Hong Kong comics with a single theme, monotonous painting style, and piracy impact.

It is true that Hong Kong Man does have the above shortcomings, but according to common sense, these shortcomings are not incurable, and it is not impossible to change. Could it be that Hong Kong's cartoonists would rather be terminally ill than cured, just like Jin Jinggong?

1. "Success is also martial arts, defeat is also martial arts" is a false proposition

There was once a comic book boss in the mainland who commented on the Hong Kong comic market,Used a sentence "Success is also martial arts,Defeat is also martial arts",Many industry insiders and animation fans also feel that this comment is very pertinent,I feel that Hong Kong comics are called all day long.,It's really annoying.、I'm tired of watching.,It's not as diverse as Japanese comics.。 Can't Hong Kong's cartoonists draw something else? Clutching martial arts?

Actually, it's not that Hong Kong cartoonists don't want to draw other types of comics, they can't. After decades of market baptism, the "martial arts" element has long been ingrained in the hearts of Hong Kong readers, except for a few others such as "McDull" author Xie Liwen, Mai Jiabi and his wife, and "100% Feeling" author Liu Yunjie, the rest of the cartoonists who want to be non-mainstream have basically encountered Waterloo, and their sales have been miserable.

Detached from the "martial arts" element, most cartoonists have encountered Waterloo

Reality tells Hong Kong cartoonists that if they are not based on the Hong Kong comic feature of "martial arts", then let alone barely survive, everyone may have to roll up and go home to sell tea eggs immediately.

Only those who belong to the nation are in the realm of the world. Since "martial arts" has become a characteristic trademark of Hong Kong Man, practitioners should think about how to carry it forward, rather than abandon it.

And when we turn our heads to look at American comics, we don't rely on many "superpower heroes" series of comics to compete for the comic market in the world, but we don't see American comic fans disgusted and say that they have seen enough superheroes.

Second, the style of painting is difficult to adjust, and it is a dilemma

Speaking of the fact that the style of Hong Kong comics is relatively uniform and monotonous, we can't help but talk about the creative mode of Hong Kong comics. Different from the small workshop-style creation of a cartoonist with several assistants in Riman,Hong Kong comics from creativity、Composition、Drawing scripts to coloring、Filler and distribution,It's often a team job,Everyone has a clear division of labor,Gradually transmitted,It's called "assembly line operation"。 Although this mode can maximize the quality and speed of comic creation, it loses personal style, which is equivalent to everyone dancing in a fixed circle. Coupled with the homogenization of the subject matter, it will naturally make readers feel that Hong Kong comics are just a group of muscular men, who will only fight back and forth.

Of course, there are also some Hong Kong cartoonists who follow the Japanese-style creative mode and begin to imitate Japanese comics in terms of painting style, but they will be said to have lost the characteristics of Hong Kong comics. For example, when manga artist Tong serialized "ROCK'NZERO", some readers criticized the cover character for imitating Ken Obata too much. In fact, just like practicing calligraphy, anyone starts by copying famous calligraphy, and the same is true for comics. For example, Hiroshi Mashima, the author of "Fairy Tail", imitates Eiichiro Oda in his painting style, and Mizuki Kawashita, the author of "Strawberry 100%", imitates Katsura Masakazu in his painting style, which is an indispensable growth stage for new manga artists.

For today's Hong Kong cartoonists, learning the painting style of famous Hong Kong comics such as Ma Rongcheng and Qiu Fulong will be criticized for sticking to the rules and refusing to be flexible; Learning Japanese comics,Draw a cute girl with big eyes will be accused of having no personal style.,Anyway, it's a dilemma.,It's not a person inside and out.。 If you want to change, one word - difficult!

3. Online pirated comics are a double-edged sword

Before writing this feature, the author interviewed several familiar Hong Kong cartoonists by phone, and when they answered why the sales of Hong Kong comics were declining, they all invariably raised the point that physical comics were affected by online pirated comics. "Today's readers are accustomed to reading pirated comics on the Internet, so naturally fewer people are willing to pay for books."

The author does not deny that online piracy does affect the sales of physical comics, but we should also see that the prevalence of online comics has a positive impact on the promotion and popularization of works. Like the American Boom Comics (Boom! Comics) launched the weekly comic book North Wind in both paper and free online versions. At the time, many retailers were concerned that this would affect the manga's print sales, but it turned out that the first issue of "North Wind" sold out within a week of its release, and the publisher had to reprint it.

When young people are accustomed to using mobile phones and computers to enjoy the fast-paced Internet information age, webcomics help attract potential readers who are not used to buying books in bookstores, and when they really like this comic, they will naturally not be reluctant to pay for a pack of cigarettes, the key to the problem is whether the work itself can be exciting, but what we see on many pirated comic websites in China is that the click-through rate of Hong Kong comics has been in an embarrassing situation. The click-through rate at the top of the list is all Japanese comics, and even many domestic webtoons have better click-through rates than Hong Kong comics. So instead of blaming online piracy for the drop in manga sales, it's better to sit down and come up with a story that really catches the eye.

The building will be tilted into the roots

Just as a fortress is always breached from within, perhaps we should think about this question from the inside rather than looking for the mystery of Hong Kong's decline on the surface. In the author's opinion, Hong Kong Man's current recession has actually laid the root cause in its golden age.

First, it is difficult to get ahead in terms of seniority

As we all know, Hong Kong Man adopts an assembly line factory-style creation model. Therefore, when a newcomer enters a Hong Kong comic company, no matter what his ability and talent are, he has to start from the very basics, such as assigning you to draw backgrounds, clothes, coloring, etc., and this painting is several years or even more than ten years. There are very few cartoonists who can get the role of chief writer from this kind of sketching worker.

Some people may say that it is normal for a profession to start from the grassroots level, like most Japanese manga artists also start as manga assistants. This is true, including Eiichiro Oda, Yuhiko Inoue, Nobuhiro Kazuki and other manga gods all started as manga assistants, but if you really study their resumes, you will find that they will never be assistants for too long, basically one to two years, they will debut in magazines and start serialization.

And this kind of situation is extremely rare in the Hong Kong comic world, without five or six years of assistant qualifications, comic companies will not be relieved to let people be the main writers of serialized comics.

This kind of unspoken rules of the industry on seniority has greatly hurt the creative enthusiasm of young cartoonists, and it is important to know that the time when people are in their 20s is the most acute and creative period of people's thinking, and at this time, it is really stifling their talent to let a cartoonist work as an assistant for a long time and carry out some uncreative work.

Chen, the author of "Fire Phoenix Liaoyuan", can be said to be one of the most talented and creative cartoonists in Hong Kong in the past ten years, but he chose to debut and develop in Taiwan, among which the cause and effect are worth the industry's interest.

The author of "Fire Phoenix Liaoyuan" chose to make his debut in Taiwan

Second, there is a shortage of talents, and the fault line is serious

As the saying goes, talent is the foundation of a country, a rich country, and a strong country, and no matter how prosperous all walks of life want to prosper, they are inseparable from talents. The prosperity of Hong Kong comics was also created by the efforts of a group of comic geniuses such as Huang Yulang, Ma Rongcheng, Niu Lao, Qiu Fulong, Xu Jingchen, Xu Jingchen, Wen Riliang, and Situ Cambridge.

But when 20 years have passed, we see that there are many talents in the Japanese manga world, from Akira Toriyama, Yoshihiro Tomiyasu to Eiichiro Oda, Kishimoto Saishi to Isayama Sou, it can be said that there are talented people in the country, each leading for hundreds of years. On the other hand, looking at Hong Kong comics, the cartoonists who are now the main force are still the same group as 20 years ago.

A friend in Hong Kong once told me about one such classic case. He said that he went to dinner with his old colleagues at a comic company, and because he arrived early, he was asked by his old colleagues to play poker, but when he first started playing cards, he felt like he was back 20 years ago. Because I was playing cards with them twenty years ago, and now I am still playing with this group of people, and I still play Big D. He couldn't help but sigh, "Big brother, now that everyone is playing landlords, why can't you keep up with the times."

When comic creators were still stuck in 20 years ago, readers had changed for several generations, and the information they received was exponentially thrown away from cartoonists, so how did the works created by these cartoonists attract today's readers?

3. Ignoring children's themes

Just as football starts with a doll, cultivating a person's habit of reading comics also starts with a doll. But how many Hong Kong comics are suitable for children to read? "McDull's Story" counts as one, but is there anything else?

Because Hong Kong comics mostly follow the realistic view of the world, and take fierce fights as a selling point, it is not suitable for primary school students to read, but children of this age are actually the main readership of comics, and it can be said that anyone who likes to read comics, basically

I developed the habit of reading manga at an elementary school age. It is indeed unwise for Hong Kong comics to give up competition directly in this comic enlightenment stage. Just imagine, when a Hong Kong child's primary school enlightenment comics are "Doraemon" and "Cherry Maruko", then after he goes to high school, college or even work, will he choose an unfamiliar Hong Kong comic? Or is it Riman who grew up with him since he was a child? The results speak for themselves.

How many Hong Kong comics are suitable for children to read?

In contrast, domestic comics attach great importance to the readership at this stage, and the main readership of a four-for-one color comic magazine that currently ranks among the top in China is primary and junior high school students. And after ten years of market cultivation,Domestic readers are getting more and more recognized with Guoman。 For example, the sales of a single book of "Stealing the Stars in September Sky" have exceeded one million copies early, and the sales of single books of comics such as "Douluo Continent" and "Breaking the Sky" have also exceeded 500,000 copies.

And these advances made by Guoman,I have to attribute it to the importance of children's comics,Improve children's sense of identity with Guoman。 If Hong Kong comics want to change the status quo, they must pay attention to children's themes, and even take a two-pronged approach, and then adapt the work into an animation suitable for children to watch, so as to have a turnaround.

epilogue

There are peaks and valleys, and whether a person is strong is not to see how he scolds Fang Xuan when he is proud, but to see how he strives to improve himself and get up again when he falls. Today's Hong Kong comics want to regain their former glory, it is indeed difficult, but just like Nie Feng, Bu Jingyun, Wang Xiaohu, Hua Yingying and other Hong Kong comic protagonists, who has not experienced nine deaths and a life and death in the road of growth? From the grinding, the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold. I hope that Hong Kong comics, which have brought us many good memories, can also have the indomitable and never-giving spirit of the characters they depict, and I believe that one day Hong Kong comics will be phoenix nirvana and return strongly.