1. Could you tell us about your recent works of creation?
How's Hong Kong people's feedback to the work?
My recent work is “The road has been long: 25 years of independent comics in Hong Kong”. I edited it together with Mr Craig Au Yeung (歐陽應霽). It is an interview book featuring 27 independent comic artists over the past 25 years. It includes long interviews, selected work, biography and recommended books by each artist.
At this moment when doing interview with you, I have just finished the proofreading of the whole book again, because it is now going to have its second printing! All of us are very happy that the book is selling better than we thought, the first edition is almost sold out now.
2. When did you start drawing? How did you start creating comics?
I started drawing since very little. My father used to love drawing at his leisure time, so I was fascinated when I was sitting next to him and watched him draw. But in secondary school and in university I was studying science, so drawing for me was just my hobby, and I used to draw pastel works, not comics. Later when I felt that I could not give up drawing, I began to take it serious. I started to draw comics in 1996, when I discovered the brilliant work of Lai Tat Tat Wing (黎達達榮), it was super inspiring.
3. How come did you choose comic as media of your creation? You also do other creations like writings or editing. How do those creations mean to you? Are there any differences among creation in each media?
I choose comic because I love drawing and I love story-telling. The differences among different media is that: writing, editing, making illustrations for commercial purpose, or teaching classes, are to deal with the problems from the outside world around me. It’s like doing homework assigned by teachers. They are also a means of survival, to make some money and earn my basic living. But drawing comics is to deal with the inner world within my self, digging into the intrinsic problems in me. When drawing comics I don’t care about the outside world, I don’t care if I can make money from my comics or not. It is my own belief to pursuit.
4. Is there any other media you are interested in doing by yourself now or in the future?
At the moment I am preparing myself to do some woodcut printing. My development in drawing seems to come to a point that I’m not enough satisfied with the texture of drawing, which is too flat. I want to create a visual atmosphere that can synchronize the texture of my imagination. After exercising woodcut printing I hope I can go back to story-telling again, to make new comics made of woodcut print.
5. Who is your favourite comic artist, writer, or in any other fields?
For comic artists:
- Amanda Vähämäki from Finland -- her works always reach the most silent part deep in the heart where I can find so much purity and love.
- Joe Sacco from USA -- his comics of war journalism often hit me at the heart to do something to make a better world.
For writer:
Kafka is the best of the world, he is the ultimate source of human creativity.
6. What kind of events, things or moments turn to be the source of your inspiration? Is there any event inspiring you lately?
Human existence, human relations, and human sentiments inspire me most. For example, how people live in this time, how people react in difficult love relations, how people think about mother-son / father-son / brother-sister relationships, etc. These are the things that can be shared by all human kind, regardless of nationality. Searching and reading old books also inspire me a lot, for there is so much beauty in the past that is now lost. I somehow hope that my own books can endure such a long time and 60 years later people would still want to find my books to read.
7. Through your work, we could often feel nostalgia and disquiet. Is such feeling always close to yourself? Where do you think such feelings come to you, or your works?
I’m surprised that your description is so accurate. Disquiet and nostalgia. I would say they both exist in my works. Disquiet comes from the problematic feelings to the outside world, or to the problem one has to face, it is often depressive; nostalgia is the hope to find a resolution. For myself, I tend to feel touched and want to cry when I see hope and love, more than when I face trouble and see desperation.
8. What would you like to share with your readers/audience through your works?
Wisdom but not cleverness, love but not cuteness, and a happiness that has gone through sadness.
9. Could you choose one from your work especially you like or very impressive to you? Please tell us reason, too.
"Papa", collected in Still Life. When I look back at it now, I still have very rigorous emotions in myself that I cannot tell.
10. What do you think of creative scene in Hong Kong now? How do you want to be involved in it?
I’m happy that artists of my generation are more connected to each other than in older generations. I hope we can connect the people from the generation older than me, and the generation younger than me, to collaborate and make conversations between us.
11. What kind of works do you want to create in the future? Is there any plan for next creation?
I want to draw a 200-page comic book, telling a story of a family, where the older and younger generations both have love affairs besides their marriage. But drawing this story I have to be very concentrated. Now I’m looking for opportunities to go for artist-in-residency outside Hong Kong, so that I can shut myself alone and stay quiet. On the other hand, I want the story to set base in the countryside of Hong Kong, so I really want to travel around in Hong Kong and draw sketches, for I want to present a cityscape of Hong Kong which is totally different from what foreigners normally see.
12. At last, could you give any message to people seeing your work in Japan?
I want to come to visit Japan one day.
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| Cow |
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| dancer |
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| Sorry |
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| Still Life (默示録) |
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| Papa (爸爸) |
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| Sea |
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| Sea |
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