Comics and life

What is a comic? Comics are pictures that express life or current events in a concise and exaggerated way, usually with a strong sense of irony or humor. Many comics are not just funny, but these drawings also contain a lot of things worth thinking about. The comic of woodpeckers and lumberjacks are a good example.

A lumberjack is wearing blue overalls and a hat. With a cigarette in his mouth and an axe on his shoulder, he walked into the forest. He walked to a big tree, rolled up his sleeves and picked up his silver axe, and then the big trees fell. At this time, a woodpecker flew over the lumberjack’s shoulder, pecked the lumberjack’s head fiercely, and said: “There must be worm here…”. After reading this comic, I think this worm is real. Its name is “greedy”. It is not in the tree of the forest, but in the head of the lumberjack. The reason is that this person does not know how to protect the environment or forest resources, just thinking about his own profits. This comic satirizes those who maliciously destroy the ecological environment. There are many such comics in our lives. I think this is not only a comic, but also a kind of public welfare. They are reflecting to people the issues existing in society.

Comics need to clarify the character’s gender, age and identity from the character’s image, appearance, clothing, etc.; readers need to speculate what he is doing from the character’s facial expressions and actions, and it is necessary to observe the surrounding environment to understand what happened. time. The location and project related to the event. According to the content of the picture, reasonable imagination should be carried out to make the picture “move” to form a complete story. This is the meaning of closure. Comics are actually derived from our daily lives, and the themes of comics can be found everywhere in our lives. For example, you can draw a road with a traffic jam, and then draw a snail who says: “I am faster than cars” next to it. Therefore, as long as you are good at discovering, you can also draw your own comics. It is worth mentioning that caricatures often use deformation, exaggeration, metaphor, symbol and other techniques to improve the image of the characters, so that the characters become more characteristic. If you are interested in drawing a comic, try these techniques.

From my perspective, the satirical comic affirms beauty and justice indirectly by denying ugliness and evil directly, thus creating artistic beauty that is higher than reality. Therefore, there is a saying in China that art comes from life but is higher than life.

Gender and Comics

First of all, I want to mention how to distinguish between male and female characters in comics. The poses of male and female characters in comics are quite different. Males are thicker and taller; they will be more deterrent and easier to gain the favor of women. Take the arms and hands as examples. Men have broad shoulders, strong limbs and strong muscles. However, the role of women is the opposite. They have no muscles, small limbs and narrow shoulders. For example, the sitting postures of men and women are also different. When a man sits on his knees, his elbows are stretched out, his palms are on his thighs, and a certain amount of space is left between his knees. When a man sits on a chair, his elbows are extended, and his knees are open. If you are a female, when sitting on your knees, your elbows are closer to your body, your palms are placed on your thighs nearly parallel, and your knees are close together. When sitting on a chair, the knees are close together and the elbows are close to the body. If you sit more relaxed, place your elbows on your knees and your palms on your face. This position is generally only performed by girls.

Sum it up, men are more extroverted in their movements, while women are more introverted in their movements. These are all common posture. Exceptions are inevitable, but in most cases they are common. The male figure tends to be muscular and the elbows usually expand outward, while the female figure is generally small and delicate, and the elbows usually contract towards the body. This is not absolute, but it is almost universal. In addition to the posture, the gender difference of the characters is still obvious. For example, long hair and big eyes are generally only the main embodiment of female characters, and the outline of the main body is relatively soft. The outline of male characters is mainly composed of various combinations of line segments.

How did Soviet comics mock the United States during the Cold War?

I will describe that the Soviet Union using comics to ridicule the United States during the Cold War. The Cold War can be said to be a very important period in human history. As two superpowers confronting each other in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union have engaged in all-round confrontation and hegemony. The degree of fierceness and profound influence is unprecedented. The United States and the Soviet Union spared no effort to expose each other’s shortcomings and ridicule each other. In this way, on the one hand, it can combat the momentum of opponents, and on the other hand, it can boost the morale of the people and allies of the country.

The map is “Eastern Neighbors”, and the barrels are “Oil”. Explanation: Here, the Soviet Union reveals that the United States is squeezing oil resources in the Middle East.

Explanation: The Soviet Union pointed out that the United States is the absolute leader of NATO, and its allies can only be manipulated and controlled by it.

The title “Opponent”. Explanation: The Soviet Union believes that economic competition in the West is nothing more than tumbling against each other for profit, but it is the vast developing countries that suffer.

Title: “The United States is putting pressure on NATO allies to force them to follow its own strategy”. Explanation: The Soviet Union pointed out that if the United States has formulated a strategy, it will force its allies to follow.

The green barrel on the left is “America’s NATO partner”, and the factory window on the right is “US military industry”. Explanation: The Soviet Union revealed that the United States developed its own military industry and expanded its armaments by squeezing NATO allies.

Title: “Property of Wall Street”.”Биржа” in the picture on the left is Stock exchange, and “банк” is bank. Explanation: The Soviet Union is mocking that the US economy is essentially controlled by Wall Street. Similarly, in the United States, no matter what kind of characters, they are essentially controlled and dominated by Wall Street.

The one in the pocket is “NATO”. Explanation: The Soviet Union revealed that NATO members can only be driven by the United States. The United States uses the US dollar to drive NATO members, that is, the United States has strong financial resources.

The text on the sign is in English, namely the United States, France, Belgium, and other Western countries. Explanation: The Soviet Union pointed out that in the United Nations, the United States, with its strong economic power, has effectively surpassed its Western allies and turned it into a voting machine.

The text below is “НаСвоюГолову” which means “Put on own head”. Explanation: The Soviet Union is telling the United States that as a superpower, the Soviet Union has a self-contained economy. The United States launched economic sanctions against the Soviet Union, not only to no avail, but also in the end it still suffers itself.

The text is “Язамир, Разоружение” which means “I fight for peace and disarm”. Explanation: The Soviet Union pointed out that the U.S. claims to reduce its armaments for the sake of world peace is a disguise of self-deception. In essence, the United States is using its economic strength as the backing to vigorously expand its armaments and launch local wars, such as the Vietnam War.

The left heading is “Freedom”, and the right heading is “In America”. The text on the high-rise buildings in the distance is “Wall Street”. Explanation: The Soviet Union is here to show that in the United States, there is no real freedom, everything is governed by finance, and Wall Street is the supreme leader.

The yellow text is “Washington’s Dove of Peace”. The black text is “Although the bomb is hidden, it is actually detestable”. The font on the peace dove is “peace-lovers”. Explanation: The Soviet Union here reveals that the United States is expanding its armaments on a large scale, but on the surface, it portrays itself as a pacifist.

There are many political comics on similar themes, and many authors intentionally or unconsciously include their own views and opinions on the politics of certain events. If readers are good at discovering, they can always discover new things in some comics.

Japanese Manga

The first manga (Heian Period) of Japan just base on the painting of the animals. These pictures show these animals’ action, do not like the manga in American show a person’s action and words. Most people think that these ancient paintings have nothing to do with modern Japanese manga, so there is no formal name such as “The origin of Japanese manga”.

The word “Manga” first appeared in 1798. In 1814, the famous Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai of the Edo period was the first to use the word “manga” as the title of his work, which refers to the use of random brushwork and simple lines to draw the main characters. Group paintings that highlight features. The content of the pictures is based on mythology, history and daily life. It is undeniable that modern Japanese manga has absorbed many expressions from traditional Japanese paintings such as Zen painting, Ukiyo-e, Kuanghua, and Spring painting. In 1862, Italian Charles Wirgman founded Japan’s first manga periodical “The Japan Punch” in the foreign settlement in Yokohama. In 1877, a “Punch”-style publication “Tuan Tuan Zhen Wen” appeared in Japan, in which the comics used “Balloon Dialog Box” and some Western drawing techniques. In 1902, Japan’s first four-frame manga with typeset dialogue appeared.

Lotte Kitazawa (1876-1955) was the first professional manga artist in Japan and was known as “the ancestor of modern Japanese manga”. Founded “Tokyo Elf” (1905-1915), “Lotte Elf” and other manga periodicals. The popularization of the term “manga” in the modern sense started with “Kitazawa Manga”. In addition, another factor that affects Japanese comics comes from the comic explosion in the 10s and 30s of the 20th centuries in the United States, and the spread of Disney animation has affected many Japanese cartoonists.

The most widely known Japanese manga is the Japanese story manga, and the creator of the story manga is Osamu Tezuka, known as the “God of Manga”. Osamu Tezuka gives manga a new meaning. He absorbed the characteristics of traditional art and tried to apply various impressive drawing techniques to comic creation. He incorporates various film expression techniques such as zoom, wide-angle, and top view into the comics, giving the comics a movie-like dynamic. Osamu Tezuka successfully brought Japanese manga into a new period of development, giving it a distinctive style and laying the foundation for the rapid development of the Japanese manga industry.

Japan is very good at shooting manga into cartoons. Then a series of joint products are produced, such as comics, drawing books, hand-made models and so on. These series of products can often generate huge benefits for these companies or factories, and the prices of some hand-made models are very expensive.

Bandai and Japanese jewelry manufacturer BaiGinza Tanaka announced a RX-78-2 Gundam,made of pure platinum. This platinum Gundam model has a full height of 125 mm and a weight of about 1.4 kg. The whole body is made up of 89 parts. It is also inlaid with a 0.15 carat diamond on the head. The reference price is 250,000 US dollars.

The first comic I read: One Piece

So far, I have read a lot of comics, and the first one I read was “One Piece”. At that time, there were four major versions released and sold in China, namely the Mainland version, the Hong Kong version, the Taiwan version, and the Japanese version.

Mainland
Taiwan
Hong Kong
Japanese

Although the Mainland version is the cheapest of these versions, its quality (such as paper and book glue) is also the lowest. The price of the Mainland version is generally around 18 RMB, the price is not fixed, it depends on the thickness of the comic book. Both the Hong Kong version and the Japanese version are of good quality, and the price is relatively similar, generally close to 37 RMB (depending on the exchange rate and the thickness of the comic). The main difference is the shipping cost.

If black is used more in the comics, the Mainland version will perform worse and appear fuzzy. I prefer the Hong Kong version, because its pictures feel clearer and have obvious changes in depth. The image quality and workmanship of the Japanese version are also very gardenly, and the contrast of the shadows is also jelly.

Mainland

Hong Kong

Japanese

It is worth mentioning that the translations of each version are different. For example, the mainland version translates One Piece is “航海王”, while the Hong Kong version is “海贼王”. There is a cue that many roles and skills in each version have different names. The mainland version inherits the translation of the Taiwan version, while the Hong Kong version follows the Japanese version and is named by “One Piece”.

If you only want to read this comic, I suggest you buy the mainland version because it has the best price-performance ratio. If you want to collect, I suggest you buy the Hong Kong version or the Japanese version.