If you want to develop the comic industry in Hong Kong, you must have a well-known series of comics to support it, otherwise it will always be a small fight. The reason why Kang Jianfei bought the 82 Painting Society is because the "Bruce Lee" series of comics has been selling well in Hong Kong for more than ten years, and some other comics of the painting club are also famous.

As for the comic club that acquired Shangguan Xiaobao's younger brother Shangguan Xiaowei, it wanted to diversify the comics from a single kung fu comics, because Shangguan Xiaowei is a rare thriller cartoonist in Hong Kong, and he is also a very famous thriller cartoonist.

For Kang Jianfei, who has a lot of money in his hand, it is very easy to enter the comic industry, he did not come forward in person, and bought Shangguan Xiaowei's comic club for only 300,000 yuan, with various copyrights of the comic club and several comic talents.

The two comic clubs will move into the No. 3 administrative building of Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City in the next few days, and the name of the comic club after the merger has not yet been decided, and everything is still being discussed and prepared.

Kang Jianfei doesn't just want to make comics, he further aims to make cartoons.

Compared with Hong Kong comics, which were once prosperous in the 70s, Hong Kong's animation industry started not late, and animated footage appeared in movies in 1948. From the 40s to the 70s, Hong Kong's animation was only designed for people's trademarks, animated shots for movies and TV dramas, and the cartoons shown on TV were completely imported.

It was not until 1976 that TVB and RTHK set up an animation team to produce some animated titles and endings for TV dramas, and shoot some animated short films.

After entering the 80s, more and more advertisers used animation to advertise, and Hong Kong's animation industry developed, and in 1982, Hong Kong's first animated film "Old Master" was filmed.

Even so, there are very few animation talents in Hong Kong, and most of them work in the TVB animation team. The rest are dedicated to animated ads. As for the cartoons that Phoenix TV is currently broadcasting, I'm sorry, most of them are imported from Japan and Taiwan, and some are purchased from the United States.

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Administration Building No. 3, Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City.

Shangguan Xiaowei commanded his apprentices to set up the office, turned back to Kang Jianfei and said, "If Mr. Kang wants to find animation talents, don't just focus on Hong Kong. ”

"Do you want to go to Japan?" Kang Jianfei asked.

Shangguan Xiaowei said with a smile: "How can you go to Japan to invite, Japan's labor is too high, and now many Japanese cartoons are outsourced to animation factories in the mainland." ”

"Japanese animation outsourced to animation studios in Chinese mainland?" Kang Jianfei asked in surprise, this is in the 80s, China is not the world after 2000.

Seeing Kang Jianfei's puzzled face. Shangguan Xiaowei began to tell Kang Jianfei in detail about this situation.

Chinese animation was originally very powerful, and Osamu Tezuka, the father of Japanese comics, also embarked on the road of comics after watching the Chinese animation "Iron Fan Princess", and in the decades since, Chinese comics have never lagged behind any country in art.

And the United States, far away on the other side of the world, is overpaid by animators. Since 1965, he has been working with low-wage countries to produce cartoons. At that time, Japan was the preferred partner, which directly contributed to the development and prosperity of the Japanese manga and animation industry.

After 20 years of development. Japan's anime industry has begun to flourish. At the same time, it also faced the problem of the American animation industry back then - the high salary of animation personnel. As a result, Japanese animation companies began to cooperate with South Korea, Taiwan, and Chinese mainland to outsource the basic production links of animation.

The most powerful animation studio in Chinese mainland is the Shanghai/Hai Fine Arts Film Studio, and in recent years, the country is calling on the whole people to earn foreign exchange, and the American film studio is happy to take over the outsourcing business in Japan, earning dollars and making dollars I don't know how happy. There is no alarm about the loss of animation talent.

What is the animation staff of the studio today?

Ordinary workers earn dozens of dollars a month, and the skilled master only has a salary of more than 100 yuan.

After giving a general introduction to the situation, Shangguan Xiaowei smiled: "So." If you want to invite professional animation talents, go to the mainland, and dig a lot of them at the Shang/Haimei Film Studio. As long as they solve the visa problem in Hong Kong, a monthly salary of 1,000 yuan can allow them to fight for their heads. ”

Kang Jianfei is still very keen on digging the corners of socialism, anyway, if he doesn't dig, he will be poached by the Japanese, and if he takes advantage of it, it is not enough to get fat and water to flow into the fields of outsiders.

Kang Jianfei said: "Mr. Kuang, you are a professional in animation, why don't you help me go to the mainland?" I'll take care of the things on the part of the Celestial Empire's government. ”

Shangguan Xiaowei waved his hand and said, "I don't have much research on animation, I just draw comics." ”

Kang Jianfei said: "Anyway, the task of picking people will trouble you, and I will send another person in terms of contact." ”

Shangguan Xiaowei nodded and said, "Okay, then I'll go to the mainland for a trip." ”

Shangguan Xiaobao's office had already been arranged, and he pushed the door in and said to Kang Jianfei: "Mr. Kang, you can give our comic club a name first, and hang up the sign first." ”

Kang Jianfei has always been too lazy to use his brain, he said evilly: "It's better to call it Dark Horse Comics Company, a dark horse in the comics industry." ”

In another time and space, Dark Horse Comics (Dark_Horse_Comics) is the third largest comic book company in the United States after DC and Marvel. This company will not be established until next year, but unfortunately the name is now preemptively registered by Kang Jianfei, and I don't know if Lu Dao will have the same name at that time.

The Shangguan brothers don't pay much attention to the company's name, for example, Shangguan Xiaowei's comic club is directly called Xiaowei Comic Publishing House, and they are only interested in the company's logo design.

After establishing the name of the comic company, Shangguan Xiaobao said: "Mr. Kang, the company had better run another doll newspaper (comic newspaper)." ”

Kang Jianfei nodded and said: "I will pick out the general manager of the company as soon as possible, and we will discuss how to operate it together at that time." ”

Shangguan Xiaowei said: "But the development direction must be determined first, and I think the most important thing is to make a comic that sells more than "Chinese Heroes". ”

"Chinese Heroes" is now the most popular comic in Hong Kong, after it began to be sold as a separate volume in 1982, the highest sales reached 200,000 copies, and now the biweekly sales of "Chinese Heroes" have remained around 150,000 copies.

mentioned earlier that the sales volume of the latest issue of "Chinese Heroes" is more than 40,000, and that is because Huang Yulang has released a revised version of "Chinese Heroes" since last year in order to make money. The content of the revised version is all repetitive, but the picture and material are more exquisite, and some unreasonable plots have been modified, which are completely sold to loyal fans for collection, and even then more than 40,000 copies can be sold per issue.

As for the two comics "Dragon Tiger Gate" and "Bruce Lee", the sales volume should be about 50,000 copies under normal circumstances. It's a pity that Huang Yulang has been busy with the company's listing recently, and he has been pouring water into the comics under lack of energy, while "Bruce Lee" has been interrupted for five issues due to copyright issues, resulting in a significant decrease in the sales of both comics.

If Kang Jianfei's dark horse comic company wants to grab the comic market, the most important thing is to beat the sales of "Chinese Heroes".

And Shangguan Xiaowei is so active in dealing with "Chinese Heroes" because its author Ma Rongcheng is his apprentice. At the beginning, Shangguan Xiaowei worked in his brother Shangguan Xiaobao's "Good News", and taught Ma Rongcheng, who also worked in "Good News", to be Ma Rongcheng's actual mentor, as for his brother Shangguan Xiaobao, he was actually only Ma Rongcheng's nominal master.

Now Ma Rongcheng's "Chinese Heroes" is popular in Hong Kong, but the Shangguan brothers hate it so much that they regard Ma Rongcheng as a traitor to the "Shangguan family".

Kang Jianfei's strategy is to use "Bruce Lee" against "Dragon and Tiger Gate" on the frontal battlefield, and "Ethereal Journey" against "Chinese Heroes". In addition, it is to use Shangguan Xiaowei's thriller magazine to open up a second battlefield, and then discover cutting-edge cartoonists to create life and fairy tale comics, and "McDull" can be made in advance.

If the comics of "Ethereal Journey" can't take on this heavy responsibility, then Kang Jianfei has other ways, and now Niu Lao is giving Shangguan Xiaobao a hand, and it is not too difficult to draw the "Crazy Boy" series with a little mention.

Of course, Kang Jianfei also has his own special skills, that is, he can even use them to design storyboards...... Riot.

Kang Jianfei took out a blank piece of paper from Shangguan Xiaowei's desk and drew it with a fountain brush, a few strokes were enough to create a character.

In less than three minutes, Kang Jianfei handed over the violent comics he had just drawn, and said: "In the future, our doll newspaper will publish violent comics on a page in each issue, and it will be open to the public, and anyone can use violent comics to write about their own affairs, so that a large number of diehard fans of the doll newspaper can be cultivated." ”

Kang Jianfei's violent comic has a total of six squares:

The first is a stickman with an exaggerated smiley face and a big head, humming a song in a la-la-la-la

The figure in the second panel is the same shape, but with a few eyelashes and hair, apparently a woman, and she says, "Wang Nima, you are such an interesting person." ”

In the third grid, Wang Nima laughed exaggeratedly.

The fourth female collapsed coriander smile: "However, girls like people who make her laugh, but they love people who make her cry." ”

Curator Nyima of the Fifth Grid Style: "Uh......"

The figure in the sixth grid is finally not a stickman body, Wang Nyima holds down the woman and spanks her in a serious manner, and the woman is crying with a completely deformed face.

"This thing is called Riot?" Shangguan Xiaobao is a very conservative cartoonist, at first glance, Kang Jianfei's rampage is completely unacceptable, but the more he looks at it, the more interesting it becomes, and he can't help but want to laugh out loud.

Shangguan Xiaowei was also amazed by Kang Jianfei's comics, and he smiled: "I don't know what the effect of painting thriller comics in this style is." (To be continued......)