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| The Achievement of Comic Art in the Fifty
Years after the Establishment of the People's Republic of China.
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 At
the beginning of 1950s, many famous comic makers issued a batch
of comics, such as "The Chicken Feather Letter" pictured by Liu
Jiyou, "The Heroic Boys and Girls" by Li Qi and Wu Biduan, "The
Millionaire Zhao" by Gu Shengyue and Lou Shitang, "Child Labor",
"I Want to Go to School" by Wang Xuyang and Ben Qingyu. These comics
were endowed with good materials and experienced drawing skills.
From 1951 to 1956 there were more than ten thousand sorts of and
over two hundred sixty million comics published. The materials and
the means of drawing were various. The materials included classical
works, film, play, foreign literature, fairy tales, myth and modern
heroic deeds, the drawing skills included pen drawing, sketch, brush
painting, aquarelle, woodcut, paper-cut and so on. The comic makers
all formed their own styles.
In the comics of "The Chicken Feather Letter" and "Scholar Dongge",
Liu Jiyou described vividly charactors' kind and evil, wittiness
and clumsy, pedantry and guile. His pen drawings---"The Monkey Troubled
the Heaven" and "Wusong Killing the Tiger" were created with experienced
skill and abundant imagination and brought comics a new development.
Gu Bingxin, from Shanghai, after having finished "The Blue Tapestry",
tried to draw "Cross The River To Recce" in sketch, and expressed
vividly the dangerous and scary battling situation and heroism.
The two artists were honored "The Big Gu in the South and Big Liu
in the North".
 After
the famous comic maker He Youzhi finished "Yang Gensi" and his other
works, he changed his style to make voluminous comics of "The Great
Changes in Counties" which exhibited the great changes in counties
after liberation. Hua Sanchuan who was famed for drawing the realities
created "Relatives", "Story
of a Contact Point", "Wang Xiaohe" and so on. He also drew two
editions of "White Hair Girl". Wang Lihong made "King", "Paradise
Marriage" after he finished "Fifteen Strings of Cash". Chen Shifa's
"Kong Yiji", "Ghost in Beauty Skin", "108 Pictures of Biography
of A-Q" and "Courage and Sword" were all excellent in art and innovation.
Those works, active and abundant in art, are a great amount of
wealth in the history of comic in China. Especially the two voluminous
comics "The Marsh " and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", published
respectively by Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House (SPFAPH)
and People's Fine Arts Publishing House (PFAPH) in various editions,
were reprinted for many times. For checking the achievements of
comic's publication, the Arts Association of China (AAC) and Ministry
of Culture of China held the First Chinese Comics Competition. Fifty-five
comics and twenty-seven scripts bore the palm. Among them,  "Monkey
Subdues the White-Bone Demon" pictured by Zhao Hongben and Jian
Xiao'ai, "Railway Guerrillas" by Ding Binzeng and Han Heping, "The
Western Chamber" by Wang Shuhui, "The Poor Overturned the World"
by Liu Jiyou, "The Great Changes in Counties", "I Want to Go to
School" won the first drawing prize. "Storm" adapted by Wu Zhaoxiu,
"Qu Yuan" by Dong Ziwei, "The Poor Overturned the World" and "The
Chicken Feather Letter" by Jiang Weipu won the first script prize.
There weren't any comics created from 1966 to 1970 during the
Cultural Revolution. In the year of 1971, Chinese Prime Minister
Zhou Enlai issued the document to renew the publication of comics.
A lot of comics were created, such as "Bethune in China" drawn by
Xu Rongchu, "The Songs of Proletariate" by Chen Yan'ning and Tang
Xiaoming, "The Shining Red Star" by Wang Chunxin and Yang Sha, "Huang
Jiguang" by Dong Chensheng, "Blueprint 035" by Lei Dezu, "The Shining
Arc" by Zhan Zhongxiao. Those works made up its vacancy in comic
field that generated during the Cultural Revolution.
After the year of 1976, young artist Chen Yiming created "Scar",
"Red Maple" and startled the society. At the beginning of 1980s
more and more means of drawing emerged. Comics made by the means
of color ink, oil painting, propylene painting and so on also appeared.
It was the feature of comics in 1980s.
The works of that period, such as "The White Light" drawn by He
Youzhi, "Chen Sheng and Wu Guang", "Be Driven to Revolt", "The Series
of 'A Dream of Red Mansion'" by Dai Dunbang, "Hatred of Water Dungeon",
"Li Hui'niang", "Home" by Xu Hengyu, "Man at Midlife" by You Jingdong
all adopted various and new drawing means to express the roles.
In the year of 1982 there were more than two thousand and one
hundred sorts, eighty hundred and sixty million volumes comics published.
It was the highest record of the publication of comic since the
establishment of the People's Republic of China.
On the Comics Competitions in 1981 and in 1986 there were respectively
110 and 123 works won the prizes, included "The White Light", "Scar",
"Bethune in China", "The White Hair Girl", "Fifteen Strings of Cash",
"Man at Midlife", "The Crescent", "Bang Jin Mei Duo", "Luo Lun for
Test" with the first drawing prize. "Chinese Idiom Stories", "Courage
and Sword", "The Path on the Grassland", "Man at Midlife", "Chinese
Poetic Stories", "Phenix-Shaped Hairpin", "Advertisement Building"
with the first script prize.
 In
the 1990s the fourth comic competition was held for checking the
new achievement of comics. Among them, "The Red Band of Earth" pictured
by Shen Yaoyi, "Immortal Jingyu" by Zhao Qi, "The
Story of Hu Lanhe City" by Hou Guoliang won the first drawing
prize; "My Son Ank" won the first script prize. For the quick development
of comic, they set up the prize for suit books in the competition.
"World Famous Literary Works" (15 volumes), "The Pilgrimage to the
West" (10 volumes), and "Chinese Ancient Legend" won the first prize;
"The Art of War by Sun Zi", "Strategy of Marketing in Ancient China",
"Pictured 'On Capital' " won the Five One Project Prize recpectively
in 1991, 1993, 1995 which set up by Department of Publicity; "One
Hundred-Thousand Whys", "Ten Chinese Comedies and Tragedies", "The
Marshal of the PRC" were all excellent comics suits.
The comic's development kept growing in the current century especially
after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. And the
achievement of comic art during the fifty years after the establishment
of the PRC was splendid and fruitful.
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| By Yun Hai
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