Contemporary cartoon in China - part 4

Article by JMB

The Middle’s Empire and recent China

Although Ding Cong is a famous Chinese cartoonist, these two books’ drawings are not exactly cartoons. Every drawing is an illustration of a joke in a short story. Each story is humorous or/ and witty and this is why this book is not out of place in a cartoon books collection.


This first book is about everyday life in old traditional China





This other book is about everyday life in modern China
(“modern” means the 20 years after the Cultural Revolution)



At the end of this presentation, I would like to openly express my huge thanks to my friend Toshiko Nishida, brilliant Japanese cartoonist, and to her husband too, who are my kind donators of so many cartoon books from Asia.

Jean-Marie Bertin

Cartoonbook files and links: (click to enlarge)
http://lambiek.net/artists/d/ding_cong.htm
http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4793



Learn more - go to:

Introduction

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 1)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 2)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 3)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 4)

China's Cartoon : ChinaCulture.org about Chinese cartoons

Contemporary cartoon in China - part 2

Article by JMB

Here is an anthology showing the works of 30 of the Chinese most famous actual cartoonists. This book was issued for an exhibition of Chinese contemporary cartoonists that was on show in the Museum of Satire & Caricature at Forte dei Marmi (Italy), from August 9th to October 5th 2008. After a one page foreword, there are two articles: “The evolution of satirical cartoon in China (written by The China Artists’ Association (2 pages), and “[Chinese] Cartoonists and power, a short story” written by Giorgio Giacomelli (5 pages). Each artist, of the 30 selected, has a four pages section, with a few data lines + a photo and a selection of 4 or 5 of his cartoons.
The China Artists' Association (CAA) aims to be the nation's principle art institution. This Association was established in July of 1949 and boasts over 6,000 members. Its affiliate organizations include the Chinese Paintings Committee, Oil Paintings Committee, Print Committee, Fresco Committee, Animation Committee and the Children's Art Committee. The association also publishes the monthly magazine Fine Arts.

Cartoons by Bin Zhang.

Cartoons by Jing Zhang (I don’t know if these two Zhang come from the same family).

Cartoons by Jie Luo.

Cartoons by Dachuan Xia.

Cartoons by Lichuan Xia (she is the young sister of Dachuan Xia).

Cartoons by Pengfei Xu.

Cartoonbook file: http://www.museosatira.it/cina

Learn more - go to:

Introduction

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 1)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 2)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 3)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 4)

China's Cartoon : ChinaCulture.org about Chinese cartoons

Contemporary cartoon in China - Introduction

Article by JMB - first article in a series about Chinese Cartoon books

"The world is full of foreigners" (French colloquial joke)

The reading of foreign cartoon books is particularly interesting for discovering different subjects as well as seeing more graphic styles. The trouble comes when the possible captions are not in a language one can understand. Glory to cartoon without caption!
Well… once such books read, sometimes a collector cannot record any data about them. How can a westerner write a bibliography when a book is printed without any Latin letter?

The Cyrillic alphabet, if not really translated, can be transferred (letter by letter / or sounds’ letter by letters) into the Latin one. I suppose the same thing could be done with the Arabic alphabet (harder task, I never tried). This is an option. But how about the Far-East ideograms? Here, it is quite impossible. Nevertheless; it would be a pity to deny oneself the pleasure of entertaining with such cartoons coming from important nations like China.

China in Cartoons Exhibition

- January - March 2010 in the ECC

Learn more - go to:

Introduction

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 1)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 2)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 3)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 4)

China's Cartoon : ChinaCulture.org about Chinese cartoons

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 1)

Article by JMB

Since Jan asked me to present some Chinese cartoon books, I first start to show you some anthologies which title, publisher and publishing place are, for my eyes, unknown. I just can tell you these three books (soft cover, full color, 240 x 213 mm) were printed in 2005.

This one has 204 pages, and shows 350 cartoons by 17 cartoonists
its ISBN number is 7-80188-502-3

Here are two pages from this anthology
(cartoons by Su Ning).

This one has 178 pages, and shows 315 cartoons by 19 other cartoonists
its ISBN number is 7-80188-503-1

Here are two pages from this anthology
(cartoons by Feng Gui Bo).

This one has 168 pages, and shows 230 cartoons (& caricatures) by 41 other cartoonists
its ISBN number is 7-80188-548-1

Here are two pages from this anthology
(cartoons by Xiao Cheng Sen).

Here is another Chinese anthology which I don’t know the publisher and place names. I was told it is a collection of awarded cartoons for 25 years, 1978 to 2002, as shown on its cover. This one has its title (?) printed at the back cover and at every page: Zhongwai Huojiang Manhua. Its first 18 pages are in color on glazed paper, when the 299 other pages are in black & white, these ones are made of a thin and bad paper, so the result is not excellent.

Soft cover, size 210 x 200 mm, 350 cartoons. ISBN: 7-5407-2994-5

Learn more - go to:

Introduction

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 1)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 2)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 3)

Contemporary cartoon in China (part 4)

China's Cartoon : ChinaCulture.org about Chinese cartoons

Chinese Satire & Humour in 1987

Times have changed, China has changed and I don't know if Deng Xiaoping was a cartoon lover, but more than 2 decades ago, another catalogue "Satire & Humour" was published in China, adhering 'socialist principles'.

cover

To be honest, I'm not able to understand most cartoons in this book. Although there is an English translation on the first pages of the book most cartoons are very difficult to appreciate.
Nevertheless I'm happy to own this book of non-western cartoons.

Here's a part of the introduction:

"Caricature, an incisive, vivid and interesting form of art, has always been loved by people. Closely linked with real life, it reveals what happens around us in daily lives.
In the field of this art form, the past decade could not be surpassed by an other single period in Chinese history in its production of caricatures, number of caricaturists and variety of themes. This development has undoubtedly made positive contribution to the construction of socialist cultural civilization.
However there is room for improvement in the creation of caricatures, such as the lack of depth, pedestrion form, and imperfect drawings of some works. We express our sincere thanks to those readers who have sent their criticism in the hope of improving this publiciation.
Since its first issue early 1979, Satire & Humor has published about 8000 pieces of works, offering a favourable condition for both the development of the Chinese art of caricatures and the growth of caricaturists. Adhering to socialist principles, Satire & Humor has done what little it can to emancipate the ideas, to help start criticism against social evils, and to lead the caricatures creation on the socialist road. ... " (Satire & Humor - editiorial department)

Some cartoons in the book (and its English title):

"Surely you can recognize a geat horse
when you see one, can't you?" (Wang Fuyang)

Calculating over personal gains and losses (Sun Yizeng)

The pockets of nepotism (Miao Di)

"So you guys don't want to eat fish, hun?" (Xu Jin)

The bridegroom and his budget (Xu Pengfei)

"Eat some of this old news, it's good for you!" (Li Nailang)

Perils in the pathway of progress. (Wei Tie)

Learn more:
China's Cartoon - history of Chinese cartoon
Cartoonbook file:

Van Cartoonbooks Files