The French Angouleme Manga exhibition is the most famous manga exhibition in France
And is probably the most famous manga exhibition in Europe
So why do we send these 20 artists this time?
It is because in Angouleme or France they do not know that Taiwan has manga
Of course they know very clearly the situation of manga in Europe
Japanese manga is also very much en vogue
In recent years they have focused more on Asia They have invited artists from China, from Hong Kong
And only very recently have they discovered that Taiwan also has manga and it is not bad at all
So among these 20 artists there are some who are older
Some of them very famous the most famous is probably this one, Chen Uen
He is probably the most... one of the most famous Taiwanese manga artists in this genre
He is one of the ones that we invited for the exhibition
There are two artists who we invited. One is this one
The other one is the one who drew the Seediq Bale manga, Chiu Row-Long
These two we invited
And the other 18 registered and the registration the committee chose them
So it was by pure chance really that One third of them were more than 40 years old
One third of them are between 30 to 40 years old
And then one third are quite young, less than 30 years old
So the youngest ones are 20 to 30 years old still studying fine arts at Shida
No matter if it is a regular reader, a publisher, a professional etc.
The first thing they notice is 'Oh, so this is Taiwan!' And only later they notice the manga
Actually there have been a few artists who heard about their work: "You could get your work published"
There are quite a few artists, some 5 or 6 like Chiu Row-long, like Sean Chuang, Chen Uen, and Evan Lee
There are some 5 or 6 artists whose work was noticed and they have already started talks about publishing
But I think this is merely a beginning
There are a few artists who were seized on immediately and were photographed there
It is because he is a Taiwanese artist, but he drew a European story
The readers thought "oh, how come we did not tell this story before?"
“How come we did not tell a story centred around a window before"
So they find it very interesting and the drawin...
They’ll feel "It is like they were telling our story"
So it is very special for a reader
Another artist… Some girls especially like this kind
They find it very Chinese, very exotic "So this is how the East is like"
This is Pin Fan and Shu-fen
So each artist... Some artists will be noticed more but each of them has what they like...
Manga artists have all have their own fans
The style they like themselves
Publishers simply observe, they just look if half a year later there can be...
I do not think it is possible that all 20 of them will succeed
It cannot be that this many will sell, I think it is impossible
I think maybe there will be 3 to 5 works
Like this piece of Sean Chuang already has a Spanish and Dutch edition so let us see if there can be a French version
Each artist needs to find their own way
I cannot say "it is him, he is the one"
The special thing about Taiwanese manga is its mix
They're familiar with the Japanese manga storyboard style and with the character style of American manga
and the attention to detail of and stylistic features of European manga
The best artists will find a way to mix these elements
Taiwan, it's an island nation which has both a positive and negative effect on it
The advantage is that they see everything
The artists have very broad horizons, they've seen lots of different styles of manga
If all the artists can develop their creative abilities independent of Japanese manga
Their perspective and technical skills need to attain a certain level
The technical part is not a big issue, I think they can reach this level
Lots of places have high level technical skills, lots of people have high technical skills
The bigger problem is finding an angle from which to narrate a story
With Taiwan's situation
It has a Chinese cultural background so those stories are very familiar to us
Anything that happened in China is familiar to us
Sun WuKong and The Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms
These are the things...
If we try and think from the Greater Asian perspective I think this is Taiwan's advantage
I mean I think that Taiwan can narrate these stories
Because it's likely China will focus on its own land
Korea has its own situation
Japan because it's sense of self is so strong it doesn't really need a narrative
Hong-Kong is in a different situation, it only has two types
Martial Arts manga
The mainstream in Hong-Kong is all Martial Arts
More independent forms are in the process of coming up
If we can find... A centralized creative method
It will be Taiwanese Manga's next wave
In terms of younger Taiwanese Manga Artists
At the start they were a...
There are several different types among young Taiwanese Manga artists
The first kind are those online like Wanwan for example, maybe you've heard of Wanwan
Or another called Mark
There are several of them, people who draw manga online
They publish all their stuff online and get popular through that
Some others as I said before publish their own Doujinshi
They draw it themselves and they sell it...
an exhibition that lasts two or three days
They print maybe 100 or 200 copies and sell it for TW 200 dollars
It’ll maybe have 20 or 30 pages and they sell it for TW 200 dollars
They get a feeling of... "I drew this and I sold it"
It's something closely linked to university societies
But from this they find their manga pen name
They start to discuss with other artists and find out that a lot of people are drawing too
So this is another type
So there are internet artists, Doujinshi artists, there are collections
There are exhibitions and creative art markets but I want to add to this an international aspect
It will gradually move in this direction
They'll start to move towards the international market
This wave is a result of these different things added together
Any one of them on their own is not enough
If you are only online it will not be enough on its own
If you only publish Doujinshi your audience will be very limited
If you only sell your work at creative art markets or at exhibitions your work will be too arty
If you only focus on the international market you will only end up attending international festivals
You need to incorporate all of these things and relate them to a central core
And that is drawing manga and telling stories
With all these things together as well as this central tenet one will create more energy
This is what I mean by 'wave'
This is what we have been waiting for, the next wave
Subtitles by Conor Stuart and Witold Chudy