Fighting pressure from abroad as artists sought to compete with imported US, Japanese and French comics, the magazine came during a tumultuous time
Staff writer, with CNA
A new exhibition in central Taiwan is revisiting the rise of Taiwan’s comics culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s through the legacy of an ambitious weekly magazine that sought to build a local comics industry.The exhibition, titled “1989, A Sunday Comics Dream,” centers on the weekly magazine Sunday Comics (星期漫畫), which published 80 issues between 1989 and 1993.The magazine was a bold attempt to establish a Taiwanese comics series at a time when the local industry was still in its infancy, said Aho Huang (黃健和), who curated the exhibition.
Cartoonist Chang Sheng was nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Asian Work (US Edition) and Best Illustration.
Although Sunday Comics initially printed 50,000 copies, circulation had wound down to about 5,000 copies by its final issue amid fierce competition from pirated Japanese manga magazines, according to Huang.HOMEGROWN ART
