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Ever since Harry Potter first took the book world by storm, there’s been a huge surge in Western fantasy novels which have been able to further dominate children’s literature and popular fiction through screen adaptations. First, we saw a spectacular resurgence of the classics such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, then a dizzying array of new works like His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, and so on.

We’ve had wave after wave of these tomes, but the subject keeps shifting. We’ve had books set in imaginary versions of the Middle Ages, or in the kingdom of Christ, or on distant islands, or in dystopian futures, as well as others that draw on traditional lore involving vampires, while others turned to Greek gods and Ancient Egypt.

A Wide-Open Creative Landscape

Given all the above, we couldn’t help but wonder whether our own literary and cultural traditions might have a similar wealth of fantasy novels brewing somewhere beneath the surface. First, Attack of the Sinograph Army by Chang Chih-lu garnered a lot of attention, then readers were even more enthusiastic about Record of the Tomb Pen by Ma Boyong, but both books seemed to be anomalies among those writers’ other works. It wasn’t until Chen Yu-Ju came along that we finally got a taste of fantasy novels that were built on Chinese cultural traditions, it was as if she’d woven various patchwork pieces together into an ornate dress.

Chen’s works have emerged to really satisfy the inner demands of sinophone readers who found that no matter how great Western fantasy novels might be, there was always a slight language barrier, whereas books about distant, ancient China like Record of Heretofore Lost Works and The Classic of Mountains and Seas still always felt familiar.

Chen is extremely good at drawing on different materials, as can be seen in her young adult series Cultivation which is visibly influenced by Western fantasy novels but expertly blends Chinese cultural elements in a way that quickly drew in readers and immediately became a sensation among people of all ages. It was followed by the Legend of the Immortals series where you can see the full breadth and depth of Chen’s creative landscape across the four books: The Soul of Poetry, The Guardian of Poems, The Immortal Painter and The Demon Among Pottery. Her works feel so familiar and don’t go out of their way to seem highbrow, making them fun and engaging for children. She’s constantly innovating when it comes to the subject matters for her books, and it seems like she has an endless supply of creative inspiration.

Continuously Evolving Artistic Expression

Chen doesn’t just set the tone for the fantasy genre but is also a pioneer, demonstrating how artistic expression can continuously evolve.

Guardian of the Everlasting Stone undoubtedly surpasses all of Chen’s previous works and is far more elaborate but natural in terms of plot. Her imagination leads us through a collection of Bronze Age relics in the National Palace Museum from the Shang Dynasty, shuttling between past and present without feeling the slightest bit far-fetched. One moment we’re searching for things on Google, the next we’re in a mythical era of dueling sorcerers. As readers solve the antiques’ various riddles, they are drawn layer by layer into the core of the story in a way that’s like an engrossing mystery novel. The foreshadowing leaves even less of a trace here than it did in her previous novels. It is clear when reading Chen’s books that she does extensive research before putting pen to paper. The historical knowledge enriches the plot in the reader’s imagination, which is a reflection of how Chen’s writing is entertaining and educational at the same time.

In my opinion, Guardian of the Everlasting Stone is a new milestone for Chen’s work, and it has left me eagerly anticipating what she does next as an author, I am convinced that further stages of artistic evolution are in the works. Who knows, perhaps her book series will become a catalyst and spark a literary sensation of fantasy novels rooted in Chinese culture.

There are so many different aspects and feelings involved in final farewells, so in Practicing Goodbye I wanted to tell the story of two experiences: one where there was no chance to say goodbye, and one where it was possible to say a proper farewell.

If separation is inevitable but there’s no chance to say goodbye, even though over time we reframe our emotions and get used to the changes in our lives until eventually we just hope that the other party is doing well, it can still weigh heavily on our hearts if we were the one left behind.

This is a story about a person and a dog called Bibi who are separated then reunited, as well as all the various feelings they experience along the way. Why do we feel such regret and how does it fade with time? And if you’re lucky enough to be given a second chance to meet again and say a proper goodbye, you can turn that regret into a journey and move forward with your life.

Often when I’ve got an idea and I’m creating a new story for it, I’ll be immersed enough in it that I’ll have a eureka moment with the characters where I suddenly realize something. In this story’s case, I had a few scattered thoughts while I was writing and illustrating, but when everything came together I realized that the first time the characters separate would feel like a practice run. After they’re reunited, if they had the chance to say a proper goodbye before separating again, it would still feel like a heavy blow but that cathartic moment when the rain clears to reveal a blue sky would come a little bit earlier.

Practicing Goodbye is a story based on a real experience. The second section is different from the other parts of the book with its own tones and color palate to represent how I imagine Bibi’s life was during the time he was lost. When Bibi crosses the physical centerline of the book, he reaches a parallel world where he stays until a voice calls out to him, and he has to cross the line back to his previous owner’s world (where the book continues into the third section). I portrayed it this way because I wanted to give Bibi some initiative in the decision to leave rather than just depicting him as lost. For all we know, it’s a possibility that’s out there.    

The idea that “disappearing is its own kind of existence” was something that I came to realize over the course of illustrating this book. I planned to use basic pencil sketches to illustrate the story because I thought there was a certain purity to it, like they were the handwritten notes of someone who’d actually been through this experience. Erasers are useful for removing mistakes and redrawing lines, but this story helped me realize that an eraser can also be like a white brush that varies the depth of pencil drawings depending on how tightly you grasp it. As a result, on the book cover we can see Bibi disappearing in a way that makes his existence even more prominent.

Just as the protagonist is lucky to have a second chance to say goodbye to Bibi, I also feel extremely fortunate to have had the chance to tell this story about a “proper goodbye”.

Author-Illustrator Lin Ssu-Chen: Creating Beauty and Loneliness

I actually came up with the story for The Moon Wants to Sleep by chance after seeing a photograph. It was a picture of the moon looking big and round on a dark night, shining very brightly but in a way that seemed lonely and stirred something within me, so since then I’d wanted to write a story based on that image. Then, one night I was out walking my puppy beside the river when I saw the moon and suddenly thought, what if the moon was like a person and wanted to go to sleep at night in the same way everyone else does? That was how naturally the story came up.

The moon in the story is always hanging alone in the dark night sky, it wants to fall fast asleep at night like everyone else but that won’t work because its light is just too bright against the darkness, in the same way that anyone who has ever experienced loneliness knows how it feels to look on enviously at the beauty and warmth of everyday life around them. By trying to be like everyone else, the moon ends up forgetting its own beauty and how even though sometimes the silence can be lonely, there’s also a lot of beauty in that silence.

I chose to use charcoal and graphite pencils to create illustrations that were a blend of black, white, and gray. Since there were no other colors, the possibilities between black and white felt endless and there was a gentleness to the shading which was perfect for portraying the soft halo of light around the moon.

Judge and Author-Illustrator Lesley Liu: The Moon’s Midnight Wish

“Moon, what’s the matter with you? Isn’t it time for you to go to work? Why do you want to sleep?”

Doesn’t seeing these questions make you want to ask: “What’s the moon doing out in broad daylight?”

When the sun is out during the day, the moon is in pitch darkness. Given that the moon’s only friends are the millions of planets and stars who stay fast sleep all year round, what can the moon do during the day besides sleep? Could you imagine if you had to sleep until it was time for work, only to roll out of bed and look down on a cloud-filled sky to see that everyone else was already asleep? It makes total sense for the moon to want to sleep at night! It would even sleep better in the cold, solitary night sky bathed in a soft halo of light! The moon coming out can also symbolize being awake at night when you’re tired and want to sleep, which could make this a good book for people suffering with insomnia.  

 For the book’s illustrations, the image design and composition are all well thought out and skillfully drawn. Although Lin Ssu-Chen only uses variations of black and white, the images still feel warm and the full moon is a soft, plump sphere which feels so cozy that the reader can imagine it snuggling in bed. Lin gives it just the right amount of expressiveness and has added a pair of hands which work well for dramatic purposes. Even better still, when we see the moon from behind as it scuttles between buildings in the city, we discover it has butt cheeks! Never underestimate the power of a single brushstroke! Children really love this kind of humor and it can leave them feeling happier and more relaxed. Believe me, that single brushstroke might just have an influence on how they see the world. I’m someone who absolutely loved funny drawings as a child and that humor ended up shaping my personality to a certain extent.

Doesn’t the moon always seem aloof in a way that makes you want to approach but you don’t want to disturb it? Lin’s book captures this feeling too. Between the moonlight in the starry sky, the reflections in the water, the shadows and brilliant rays of light rendered solely in black and white, this is a rich picture book filled with a sense of anticipation that makes it a truly enchanting read.

What’s in your fridge? By phrasing the title as a question, Who’s in the Fridge? tells the reader right from the get-go that there isn’t just food in this refrigerator! Who could possibly be hiding in there? Readers who have picked up the book are probably just as confused as the little boy on the cover. However, as soon as they turn the page, the midnight adventure of opening the fridge starts to unfold!

A Story Written from a Child’s Perspective

The earliest version of the story for Who’s in the Fridge? started to take shape around the time that author-illustrator Severus Lian was in high school, but the concept was based on her real childhood experience of sneaking to the fridge in the middle of the night. Could she make it to the fridge without being discovered? Who would she meet along the way? And what magical creatures would be waiting for her in the fridge? Who’s in the Fridge? combines the thrill of not knowing if you’ll be discovered and the anticipation of not knowing what’s waiting for you in the fridge, which creates a story that the reader can participate in wholeheartedly from start to finish.

Lian has always loved to draw and was inspired to study illustration by Gaston Klein who was her art teacher while she was on exchange at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. From there, she set foot on the path to creating picture books and has never looked back. When it comes to material for her illustrations, Lian likes to combine different themes and try a range of artistic mediums. She is an expert in zany humor and taps into the little details and fun of everyday life. While she was creating Who’s in the Fridge?, Lian held onto the childish innocence of her original concept and deliberately set up lots of scenes that young children could interact with so that they don’t just enjoy the story but also open each page and find it filled with fun surprises.

Paying Attention to the Humor in Everything

Who’s in the Fridge? tells the magical story of a little boy who sneaks out in the middle of the night to steal pudding but when he opens the fridge, he’s shocked to find that it contains a seal and a polar bear. The story begins by announcing one rule: you shouldn’t go to the fridge after 10 pm. However, the protagonist has already broken that rule on the title page by tiptoeing to open the kitchen door and starting the chain of events. The text uses different colors to distinguish between the characters which makes things clear on first glance and also lets the reader naturally immerse themselves in the plot and illustrations without being distracted by the narration.

At first glance, Who’s in the Fridge? is a happy, light-hearted story but it cleverly changes tone into a narrative about protecting the environment and caring for animals. The seal and polar bear eventually escape without a hitch but the happy ending also leaves the reader with a sense of suspense. We might ask young readers: why are the animals hiding in the fridge? Since the earth’s environment is becoming more extreme and the animals don’t have a home or enough to eat, where will they go when they leave the fridge? The author takes the fun, humorous story and ingeniously weaves this mindset of caring for living things in amongst the pages.

Spreading Laughter Across the World Through a Picture Book

Lian has created a vivid and hilarious story by combining a simple concept with freeform line drawings and snapshots that feel as though they’re brimming with rhythm. Although Who’s in the Fridge? is written by a Taiwanese author-illustrator, the subject matter isn’t hindered by national boundaries as most households across the world have a refrigerator and the story closely corresponds with children’s mindsets. Lian believes that the book can successfully cross language and cultural barriers to be a hit with readers around the world.

When I go to the zoo to sketch, my eyes and hands are focused on watching and drawing the animals, but my ears often pick up on the conversations of the tourists around me. Something I find interesting is that parents who are there with their children often ask, “how many animals are there?” and the child looks around and counts at the same time. Is that an animal hiding in a cave or climbing up a tree? Is that a tail swaying in the shadows or just some undergrowth that’s caught in the wind?

Once, I was sat in front of the flamingo area for a long time and heard several families play the “count the animals” game, but in the end no two families came up with the same number. Why? In reality, there might have been some animals hidden among the others, but in the world of storytelling I thought maybe it could be magic, so I imagined an animal who secretly darted in and out, sneaking up on the crowd and watching their every move. Wouldn’t that be a lot of fun? The tourists at the zoo are all so focused on the animals in the enclosures even though there’s actually an animal much closer to them on their side of the fence.

Although it would be faster and more convenient to take photos, I prefer to go to the zoo with my paintbrush to capture the scenes in front of me. Painting might not be as realistic as a photograph, but I feel it’s better at conveying the subjective way we perceive things. It’s that moment when we see an object and it stirs something within us that makes us want to paint. The pure happiness of that feeling reminds me of the joy I experienced as a child when I saw animals for the first time. For children, the rich diversity of the animal kingdom can spark all kinds of questions and curiosity. It can also stop children in their tracks and make them observe things with care, so in the story I had the child embark on a fantastical journey to discover the animal behind him.

There is a quote from The Little Prince which says: “It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” This line reminds me of how I selfishly hope that people never get tired of visiting the zoo and that it’s a place where they can keep discovering new things.

Creating picture books can be like running a marathon but I never felt lonely because even though the road was long, I had help from lots of people along the way. I’m grateful to my creative illustration teacher and mentor Liu Hsu-Kung for his guidance in the early days that helped my fragment of an idea gradually become a finished book. In 2020, my story was fortunate enough to receive a Picture Book Sprouting Award from the Kaohsiung Public Library, and with the help and support from the team I was able to work freely on it. At the same time, I would also like to thank my guidance professor on the Sprouting program, Shih Ching-ting, whose words I would often think of whenever I was struggling with a draft: “Don’t worry if your painting isn’t very good, just get it down on paper, and we can talk about it afterwards.” Those words gave me the confidence to keep trying. Finally, a special thank you to the editorial team at Yuan-Liou Publishing Co. Ltd. who ensured that the publication process went smoothly. I am grateful for their perseverance and professional input on the words and illustrations, as well as for their patience in our many conversations which helped ensure that readers would get to enjoy the best possible version of Secrets at the Zoo.

We tend to forget a lot of things as we grow up. We forget how something sugary was often all it took to make us happy, or how overjoyed we felt when we found a four-leaf clover. Our eyes no longer have that pure way of looking at the world, instead we see things through a veil of maturity and the weight of everything we’ve seen. While children might have limited life experience, the clarity with which they see things and their observational approach to life mean that their eyes can shine with genuine excitement. For those of us adults who have long since lost that childlike innocence and forgotten to hold onto our old passions and aspirations, we envy their untainted happiness and yearn for that fearless simplicity. It reminds us to “live like a child” and how learning from that childhood innocence could lead us to different choices and life experiences.

Higo Wu and Chen Pei-Hsiu are two creators from very different fields who came together to collaborate on Still Young, Still New, a picture book that lets readers contemplate different points of view on a deeper level.

Wu’s words give us a sense of how we can view ourselves and others so that rather than just drawing blind comparisons, we know that the way we see the world and the way we face ourselves are far more important. Not being easily satisfied is human nature and perhaps that’s what urges us to strive towards progress, but we can’t ignore the significance of grasping the moment and cherishing every second of life. Even within the same job, different people achieve different results and a lot of it comes down to our behavior and the mindset we bring to the table. If we let ourselves hold onto a learning-based mentality filled with curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, then the person we are today can be even better than the person we were yesterday, and we’ll stay on the path to eternal youth rather than being shackled to the numbers on our identity cards.

Chen’s illustrations lead us into a virtual world that blends imagination with reality. The world she creates through her pictures captures different life stages and learning experiences, showing us common items from childhood and scenes from various phases of life, so that as we work our way through them, we rediscover the beautiful memories we’ve forgotten and each of us can reawaken our own inner child.

The journey of life has never been an easy topic in the same way that life itself isn’t easy. The book uses a method that imitates silk screen printing, a traditional Chinese folk art which uses one light and one dark color, here yellow is overlaid onto a specific shade of blue. The illustrator uses this blue in an intuitive way that makes large parts of the pictures seem slightly impenetrable, as though the reader is a child coming across something new for the first time, while the yellow lines and brush strokes help give a sense of liberation and hope. If Chen had only used blue then the scenes would all have been too dark and heavy, or if she had only used yellow then the images would have felt vague and superficial, but together I think she captures the feeling of what it’s like to be alive and learn through experience.

Life is packed with all kinds of highs and lows, it’s a journey filled with uncertainties but that’s also what makes it an adventure. It won’t be plain sailing, but the most important thing is to stay childlike at heart and hold onto our curiosity to explore new things. We need this kind of courage and ambition to allow ourselves to keep our childlike mindset as we face life’s various difficulties and challenges, giving ourselves the freedom to reflect on our setbacks and accept our own shortcomings so that we can appreciate the joy and importance of staying curious about the world.

A lot of stories begin with some kind of pursuit, whether it’s trying to find a lost manuscript, a missing person, or a lingering memory. If there’s any single place where the most numerous, meaningful, and profound pursuits are all collected, it’s undoubtedly a museum.

Page Tsou is an artist who frequently wins international awards and whose work has been selected five times for the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition. He is also a huge fan of museums. The mechanical factory in his hometown made him particularly fond of the precision and rationality behind machinery, and he believes that museums are similarly specialized, conscientious places. However, when he received an invitation from the National Taiwan Museum to create a picture book on the theme of Formosan clouded leopards, Tsou was faced with a stack of cryptic, stilted historical documents that gave him a huge headache.

“My works tend to be quite different from those of other illustrators, as I often branch out into different fields and draw on other art forms as well,” says Tsou. Living as a graphic designer, illustrator, curator, and even an interior designer, he’s extremely familiar with business language and knows exactly what the market likes, but picture books are different. He sees creating picture books as a kind of fate, so he only wants to work on projects that he finds interesting and feels strongly about.

“You can easily find information about Formosan clouded leopards on the internet. What I wanted to do was give the reader something that sparked their interest.”

Just as Tsou was getting worried, a member of staff at the museum introduced him to a painting of the leopard and uttered a sentence which touched him deeply. In that moment, Tsou immediately knew: “This is the story I want to draw.”

“Although the Formosan clouded leopard hasn’t been found, it still lives on in paintings.”

The Formosan clouded leopard, which belonged to the same big-cat family as tigers and lions, was Taiwan’s largest and most ferocious wild animal but it typically stayed hidden in the forest, and its image as a brave, mysterious animal has made it a sacred symbol in some indigenous cultures.

A staff member at the museum showed Tsou a scientific illustration of the leopard by Robert Swinhoe, a British diplomat who was stationed in Taiwan during the nineteenth century. Swinhoe was a naturalist as well as a diplomat, and during his tenure he discovered and recorded a large number of local Taiwanese species. He longed to find a Formosan clouded leopard but it continued to elude him, so he had no choice but to entrust someone to draw this illustration according to the fur he collected.

More than a hundred years later, an employee at a technology company called Chiang Po-jen happened to see an adventive leopard at the zoo and joined the ranks of those who were actively looking for the animal in the wild. Even with the help of his modern technology, humans still haven’t been able to see the leopards with their own eyes.

The two men might have been from different eras, but it was the same pursuit and the same failure. However, in Tsou’s eyes none of it was in vain. Instead, it created a dramatic “needle in a haystack” search that spanned multiple time periods which added a romantic sense of destiny to the serious subject matter. Tsou took the Formosan clouded leopard as the main basis of the book and then used the two failed pursuits as parallel stories, which was how he managed to pull an emotional core out of the cold historical data.

Although the Formosan clouded leopard hasn’t revealed itself in real life or in the picture book, Tsou transformed the sense of regret into hope by using an absent protagonist to create space for imagination and bring a stagnant period of history to life, sparking the reader’s curiosity and getting them to contemplate it in a way that may even spur them into action.

Tsou’s Rationality for Planting Easter Eggs  

In addition to his unique perspectives, the main thing that makes international brands like Gucci, Disney, Michelin Guides, etc. line up to work with Tsou is his meticulous and undeniably exquisite illustration style.

In this book, the game of hide and seek doesn’t just relate to the concept of finding the leopard but is also part of the reading process itself. From the black and white photos of the restored museum exhibits and the feathers of the bird specimens inside, to the design of the locks on the windows and the structure of the buildings and vehicles, his paintings are almost like precision scanners where every detail is so realistic that you feel like you’re in the scene, while the nostalgic tones and brushstrokes add an enchanting sense of mystery.

“I like to include Easter Eggs in my work where I hide messages in the picture that can be understood without being explained,” says Tsou.

It is hard for readers to look at his books and illustrations only once. He uses so many details to build such vivid worlds in each of his illustrations that readers keep coming back to the same images again and again because they want to play detective by comparing the different pages and worlds to try and decipher the hidden clues in the pictures.

Tsou was in constant contact with the team at the museum during the revision process to ensure that the information in the book was still accurate when he changed certain details for plot purposes. For example, it would actually be impossible to have a transmission tower on the mountain where the camera is installed, but it was important for visual flow to have these man-made constructions gradually appear in the lush mountain forests. Meticulous design like this allows the reader to discover the real reason that the leopard disappeared for themselves without explicitly stating it: mankind.

Using Hide-and-Seek to Convey a Larger Message

Although the book tells the story of a species losing its habitat due to human exploitation, Tsou didn’t want it to be too on the nose. Instead, he chose a game that people of all ages and nationalities could understand so the story’s universal message could be conveyed in a way that children could genuinely enjoy.

“It’s a local issue, but really it’s a global problem,” says Tsou.

The moment when the staff member at the museum told him that the leopard “lives on in paintings” was a creative spark for Tsou. In turn, Tsou might not have expected that his picture book would come to play the same role as the original scientific illustration: that by using a paint brush to capture the legend and elegance of the Formosan clouded leopard, he has inspired people to keep searching. 

Maybe one day, this endless game of hide-and-seek will eventually end in a surprising grand finale. After all, what could be more haunting than unfinished business?

The concept for Super Supermarket started coming together over a year ago. During the pandemic, Pam Pam was living alone and seldom went out. She was fixated on daily news reports on the rising numbers of confirmed cases. During this time, she also began having a recurring dream about visiting a department store or other store with a group of strangers. In her dream she followed the strangers around as they shopped, had a meal, and enjoyed themselves. Pam Pam didn’t normally enjoy shopping, but it seemed that her mind was using the dream to continue engaging in experiences that weren’t available during the pandemic.

Narratives from mainstream media were another source of inspiration for the story. For Pam Pam, the situation of the pandemic brought to mind scenes from zombie movies. Since she was a child, Pam Pam had fantasized about hiding out in a supermarket in the event of a zombie attack. She saw the supermarket as a symbol of safety, a doomsday refuge where one needn’t worry about having sufficient food and water. Additionally, since the primary activity in a supermarket is shopping, the meaning symbolically extends to include the comfort provided by retail therapy. In a time of when everything is uncertain, material consumption can help bolster our sense of self. We may not be able to decide our fate, but at least we can decide which brands we want to purchase.

Super Supermarket is a story of the future based in the abstract extension of our current reality. Throughout the pandemic Pam Pam listened with interest to the stories of her friends who were raising children. Many talked about their children pointing at picture books and asking why no one was wearing masks. Pam Pam couldn’t help but wonder if there would come a day when our current movies, books, and plays would no longer serve to reflect our reality simply because no one in them was wearing masks. She imagined her life if she had given birth to a child a year or two before the pandemic. Would she still tell her child about Santa Claus? What would be the point if there were no other children around to share the experience with? To share in a common belief? To share in the anticipation?

In keeping with Pam Pam’s unique approach to storytelling, Super Supermarket touches on a range of other issues: broken promises, mental illness, and emotional blackmail. The main female character relies on emotional blackmail to get what she wants, but the results always fall short of her desires. Her mood swings, excessive sleeping, and impulsive behavior all hint at latent bipolar disorder. Pam Pam suggests to her readers that they watch for signs of the character’s alternation between manic and depressive episodes. Rest assured that many of these issues will continue to appear in Pam Pam’s future works.

Speaking about Pam Pam’s approach to graphic novels, Huang Pei-Shan, editor-in-chief at Slowork Publishing, says, “For Pam Pam, the plot is just a framework. Once it is in place, she naturally fills it up with the things in life that interest her. It could be her own experiences, or her view of human nature.”

After receiving a proposal from Slowork, Pam Pam took one year to complete Super Supermarket. Pam Pam reflects that if it weren’t for the pandemic, she never would have created a graphic novel like this one. “I can’t draw things that are entirely made-up, or that I haven’t experienced for myself, so I’m always immersing myself in movies and novels. I want to try out all of the ways of storytelling offered by various media.”

Towards the end of the book talk, a reader asks whether the dark humor of the graphic novel was an intentional additional. Pam Pam answers that she loves joking around with her friends, so she is indeed conscious of her desire that readers will enjoy her books. However, she never tries to shoehorn a joke into a story just for the sake of a laugh.

Everyone reads comic books. Even if you stopped reading them after reaching adulthood you’ll have to admit, pretty much anyone who grew up in Taiwan has their personal history of comic book fandom. Which makes one wonder: how much of our attitude towards life, our personal style and tastes, even our core values, do we owe to the influence of the comic books we read growing up? It wouldn’t be going too far to suggest, at least for some of us, that comic book were some of the major influences on our spiritual and moral development.

LGBTQ comics have a long history in Taiwan. Sub-genres for gay oriented fan-comics, boys love, otokonoko, and gender transformations have tended towards the bottom of the leader boards on comic book websites, but they have always maintained a dedicated following, and the fans of these sub-genres represent a sizeable subculture. The sinuous lines of nude forms and heightened aesthetics of attraction in these comics helped create a common vision of imaginary desire for the gay community. You could even argue that LGBTQ comics are bolder, more radical, and more open than most other expressions of LGBTQ culture, including literature and film.

Rainbow Apartment is a collection of six stories by young Taiwanese comic book artists. The stories are spatially structured around an apartment building, the sort of seven-story building we see all over Taipei, perhaps showing its age a bit, located in Yonghe or on Shida Road or some other convenient location where the rents are a bit cheaper and where young workers tend to congregate. Populating this easily imagined space with LGBTQ content brings out a vivid and fresh perspective on the daily lives in the LGBTQ community. Set in 2024, five years after Taiwan’s legalization of same-sex marriage, the stories envision a world in a which space has been made for those with nonconforming gender identities and sexual orientations – whether in the city itself, online, in a coffee shop, or on a cell phone that enables connection to a virtual world. The world of 2024 appears ready to embrace all the colors of the spectrum. The struggles and glory of the past are now history, and a new era is about to unfold.

“Apartment of the Future”, the ground floor of the collection, is the time machine that transports us to 2024, and deposits us in front of the Rainbow Apartments. On the surface, the world doesn’t appear much different, but a new story is about to begin. As we follow the stairs upward, like an invisible visitor from the past, we steal glimpses of six floors of human life.

“Colorful”, on the second floor, uses a soft multi-hued palette to tell the typical “boy meets boy” story: a muscular young man is working as a nude model for drawing classes at an art institute when he catches the eye of the institute’s director. But first they must navigate a tiny barrier that stands between them – the HIV virus. In the world of the 2020s, however, HIV is not the end of love and sex for the infected. Graced by the sensuous lines of the male body, this seductive HIV love story ultimately comes through with a clean bill of health.

After feasting our eyes on the male form on the second floor, we make our way to the third floor, “If You Are…”. The visual style of this comic adaptation of the Hikaru Lee short story “One Hundred Years, One Hundred Meetings” leaves visual space for the text passages to do their work. Having never had a lover, young, single urbanite Wen is feeling like an old maid before her time. We see her swiping away on a dating app in nearly every corner of her slightly messy apartment, hoping to find simple love in the simplest way possible. While many of us are accustomed to thinking of Taipei as a city with no particular aesthetic appeal, as we follow Wen’s searching gaze on her movements through the city, the beauty of urban life takes shape. While the source material deals with the love between two women, one living, one deceased, this adaptation interprets the barrier that separates the living and the dead as a metaphor for the psychological barriers that prevent two people from drawing closer.

The story of the fourth floor, “Playmate”, also deals with lesbian subject matter. Drawn in pencil, the free and sturdy lines have a strong tactile feel. This tale of two women coming together highlights the subtle interactions they share. Washes of pink watercolor create a uniformly feminine space; an amusement park, nail polish, cosmetics, a vegetarian restaurant, and scenes of intimate contact are all done in deep rosy tones.

On the fifth floor, “Trust”, the palette shifts from dusky rose to a more softly feminine pink. The apartment is simply furnished and cramped, but livable enough when done up with a few touches of personal style. The sense of space created by the comic is familiar – the typical metropolitan apartment. For the two attractive urbanites who live there, it is a world all their own, a refuge in which to cultivate their love for each other – that is until a crisis strikes. In truth, it is a crisis so small as to be almost laughable, but it’s enough to reveal the anger, jealously, and mutual suspicion that so often accompanies love, as well as the sweetness and intimacy that holds the two together.

Climbing to the sixth floor we enter “I Had a Good Dream Tonight”, a world of black lines and shades of gray, visually reminiscent of a classic black and white movie. Only the main character’s lustrous head of black hair stands out from the dull gray background tones. In the spirit of realist cinema, we follow her through the routines of the day. Only after we see her taking medications and using the men’s restroom do we realize she is a trans woman in the process of transitioning. While many images of trans women in the media are of hyper-sexualized drag queens, focusing on glamour, makeup, and fashion, “I Had a Good Dream Tonight” is an honest and unadorned portrait touched by a dull anguish that even the advances of 2024 cannot completely erase.

Finally, we arrive on the seventh floor, the highest floor of the building. In Taiwan, the top floors of buildings are often cheaply constructed additions that can be rented at lower cost. Thus, they are often inhabited by students on a budget. Here, with the story “Darling Knight”, we are greeted by full-color images in vigorous, youthful tones. The story is set within the milieu of gay youth culture: workouts at the gym, part-time jobs, pride parades, classes, and social media. Two roommates nurse a budding attraction for each other through good-natured teasing, horsing around, and daily life interactions. Drawn with a touch of prototypical comic book flair, this is a story about dawning self-knowledge and the need to live as one truly is. Throw in a few references to boys love comics, fetishization of the male body, and some humor in the form of a boys-love-obsessed ex-girlfriend, and you have all of the elements needed for a dependable, bread-and-butter LGBTQ comic.

The climb from the first floor to the seventh has taken us on a journey through this many-hued structure of images from the near future, delivering an introspective and thoughtful take on the LGBTQ community in contemporary Taiwan. Media representations of LGBTQ culture have evolved over multiple decades of recent history. While works of literature, theater, film, and television all speak to the creative energy of the community, comic books are perhaps one of the freshest, most enjoyable, and most effective mediums at its disposal. The six comics collected here can be appreciated on the basis of their stories, art, and the issues each addresses. But taken as a whole, this collection’s most affecting attribute is its pervasive sense of familiarity and intimacy. The LGBTQ comics of the past have been sexy, funny, dramatic, satirical… but Rainbow Apartment is probably the first complete LGBTQ comic compilation, and the first that does so much to help normalize LGBTQ lifestyles.

There are so many comic books in this world, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to create. Just thinking about all of the labor and effort required is enough to make one tired. Let us all appreciate the work that went into this magnificent collection, while also looking forward to the work of the future comic creators who will keep telling these important stories. May their beautiful words and images continue to put the pride and dignity of the LBGTQ community on display.