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In everyday life, there are all types of holes – big ones, little ones, round ones, and long ones. Pay close attention as you join this boy to observe what each hole reveals! – cover introduction

Along with this picture book’s curious title, What’s This Hole?, the keyhole and question mark illustrated on its cover suggest exploration and discovery. Smiling through the portal, the young protagonist probes and inspects his surroundings at every turn, sharing his close-up perspectives with the reader. Together, we witness ants ferrying biscuits to their colony, mice chewing on cheese, bats dangling upside-down in a cave, rain sloshing through a street grate, Mama feeding a piggy bank, and steam puffing from a kettle on full boil.

These otherwise random, prosaic moments are nonetheless remarkable for the child, and his enthusiasm is captured through Baba’s camera lens, which happens to be another “hole” identified in the story. The penultimate spread shows accumulated snapshots that are records of the child’s encounters, and the exuberant joy is evident as he revisits these memories and recounts the details, asking aloud what might have been in a particular hole. In this light, it becomes apparent that each of the prior spreads is a story unto itself, adding a new dimension to the reading experience.

The colorful and endearing illustrations are reminiscent of childhood drawings that center each young creator’s unique point of view, which is key in this picture book. While this work is literally about holes, its underlying theme deals with apertures and the ways in which individual focal points – factual or fantastical – shape narratives in storytelling. Readers might wonder, for instance: Who left out the cheese? Where did the mice come from? Did this really happen? Such playful questions may encourage conversations about what is possible and promote novel ways to engage with one’s environment.

Designed as a read-aloud and for emerging readers, this picture book’s text is simple and the recurring prompt: “Hey, what’s this hole?” is an invitation not only to examine the opening in question, but also to imagine to what or where it may lead. The intriguing final spread advances this spirit of inquiry and adventure by depicting numerous round holes and showing the child inside one of them, destination and surroundings unknown.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

At the end of August, I went to my weight training class as usual. My coach has three children, and his eldest daughter was starting grade three in two days. Being the mischievous auntie I am, I couldn’t help but tease his adorable kids; as they bounded into the room, I turned to the eldest and taunted, “well, have you finished your summer homework yet?” To my surprise, she threw me a look and responded coldly, “I finished it ages ago.”

What?! Wasn’t today the last day of summer? A time when the whole family should be scrambling, while mom and dad help the kids complete their assignments? I recall loathing summer homework as a kid, especially the daily journal. Who could remember what the weather was like for the past 59 days? The worst part was sitting at my desk, reliving the summer in my head; after all, what did I do that was possibly worth writing about in my journal?

The protagonist of Open Eyes, Open Mind! is not like me at all. When her new art teacher assigns the students to “get to know someone”, she is somewhat bemused, but is named “Angel” after all, so begins to work on this task right away. She comes home and asks for help from her mother, who is a senior strategist at work and has written countless business proposals. Her advice? “Make it up.”

Because her mom won’t come to the rescue, Angel turns (virtually) to her dad, who often works abroad. Over video, her dad is pleased to help, and offers his advice: “It’s best to find someone who’s interesting and has a strong sense of style. That would make your assignment easier! Your dad, for example, is a perfect choice. What do you think? Wanna get to know your dad?”

At this point, Angel begins to feel frustrated; what does it mean to “get to know someone”? Meeting their parents? Knowing their interests? A student who wears glasses raises their hand and asks: “Can you get to know someone you already know?” It is through this question that author Pam Pam Liu reveals the purpose of the art teacher’s assignment: “Everyone has many different sides. Through this experience you’ll get to know someone you already knew even better, and you might even learn something new!”

Pam Pam’s graphic novel is based on the sociological text Struggling to Raise Children: Globalization, Parental Anxiety and Unequal Childhoods by Distinguished Professor Lan Pei-Chia of Department of Sociology at National Taiwan University. Professor Lan visited nearly 60 households to conduct field interviews and observed different teaching environments to analyze the differences between the middle class and the working class, ultimately drawing certain conclusions about Taiwan’s educational models. The result was an important field report on the state of education in contemporary Taiwan.

But perhaps Open Eyes, Open Mind! is not so much an adaptation, but a continuation of Professor Lan’s work. Breaking away from the structure of a sociological text, Pam Pam has decided to adopt a different perspective in her graphic novel, that of a child. Through the “get to know someone” homework assignment, our protagonist explores the lives of relatives and friends, revealing the different family structures and parenting styles around her.

It’s no easy feat to tell a story through the eyes of a child; how do kids communicate? How do they interact? Why does an annoying classmate suddenly become less annoying once you get to know their backstory? Pam Pam even draws from her personal experience of being invited to a friend’s house as a kid, and being asked to take out the trash.… In a setting that is at once grounded in reality, yet absurd, Angel gets to know her classmates, relatives, and mother in a new light, armed with her art class textbook.

Open Eyes, Open Mind! is Pam Pam’s fifth commercially-published work. From My Friend, Cancer to A Trip to the Asylum to Super Supermarket, behind the cute, round characters Pam Pam creates is always sharp social commentary. In My Friend, Cancer, she uses the experience of taking care of her mom who has cancer to explore the conflicted disposition that comes with being an eldest daughter. A Trip to the Asylum is set in a mental hospital, but asks us to think about who in the “real world” may be mad.  

Reading Pam Pam’s graphic novels often makes me think of the lyrics of “Deserts Chang”: “the deepest words must be said plainly”, “painful wounds must be touched gently”. Pam Pam interrogates Taiwan’s class dynamics, and the educational and familial structures of urban and rural areas, through the lens of a primary student’s homework assignment. What choices can parents make given their different social standings and the class gap between urban and rural areas? And how will their children interact with the world?

I particularly like how the story ends:

NOTE: Be warned: if you don’t want any spoilers, I suggest you leave this page, put this book in your shopping cart, check out, and finish reading the graphic novel in your own time.

We tag alongside Angel on her journey of getting to know someone, including her close friends, unfamiliar classmates, her cousin who lives in the countryside, and seemingly enviable classmates from other families. But in the end, Angel decides to get to know her own mother. This is an exceptional twist, and Pam Pam handles it deftly. Angel gets to really know her mother, and the dreams she had before she became a mother. Why does she sign Angel up for so many tutoring classes, packing her day-to-day life with activities?

Pam Pam has ingeniously turned the case studies of a sociological report into a 190-page graphic novel that looks beautiful, has a clear theme, and is well-paced. She captures the same ideas explored in Struggling to Raise Children without losing the allure of a graphic novel; perhaps this is her version of a “reader’s report”. I recommend readers peruse Struggling to Raise Children and Open Eyes, Open Mind! together, which is bound to result in a compelling, intriguing reading experience.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Comics as “the ninth art” in Francophone culture is a discourse repopularized by BD Louvre, a 2003 exhibition of comics at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The concept was subsequently introduced to Taiwan by Dala Publishing Company and became prevalent in discussions about Taiwan comics. The “ninth art” status is mostly mentioned to elevate Taiwan comics, which has long been awarded little respect, as epitomized by the controversy of The Legacy of Chen Uen: Art, Life and Philosophy exhibition in 2018. All ostensible reasoning aside, the challenge of whether Chen Uen’s work deserves to be exhibited beside the “national treasures” of the National Palace Museum is a poor veil for the prejudice that disregards comics as great works of art.

Still, to use this saying as a sort of polite comeback diminishes its full implications. To define comics as an art form is to admit it to the “palace of art” where they can be collected, displayed, and appreciated. More importantly, it liberates the creative freedom that comics can offer to its artists. Like other art disciplines, comics is a form that comes with infinite possibility and does not need to be limited by the genre tropes or the graphic and language conventions of commercial comics. Artists should be given creative license to explore and discover, and rather than gratify the reader, they should center their artistry and confront the reader’s expectations on an intellectual and emotional level – like graphic novels, which have become prominent in Taiwan these several years. While there are different definitions as to what a graphic novel is, the general consensus is that it is not strictly commercial and is a form that expands visual storytelling. For this reason, graphic novels are also seen as an avenue for Taiwan comics, once deeply influenced by Japanese manga, to assert itself.

Sleeping Brain, published by Tōkhiu Books, is one of the most compelling new Taiwan comic and graphic novel titles that exhibits the qualities of “art”. Tōkhiu Books was founded by renowned Taiwan comic critic Wu Ping-Lu, who studied comic art and publishing in France and Belgium and is also an advocate for graphic novels in Taiwan. The release of Sleeping Brain was one she spared no expenses for. The design of the book, the selection of paper and printing – they were all of the highest quality. The book is like a fine art catalog, exquisite to touch and showing complete disregard to market practice or people’s expectations of how comics are to be published.

Sleeping Brain is also unique for its story and storytelling. Gong Wei-Hua, a second-generation immigrant entomologist from China, and Aramura Kiichi, a freelance Japanese photographer, venture into Taiwan’s woodlands in search of butterflies. They meet in a chance encounter deep in the mountains of Yilan. Kung wants to catch butterflies and turn them into specimens for his collection, while Aramura wants to take photos of the butterflies with his camera. Both characters have the rare Papilio maraho butterfly as their ultimate goal, despite their different motivations. They come across a mysterious girl who cannot speak but keeps a large collection of endangered butterflies among trees. In this dreamlike wilderness, the trio encounter phantoms from their past in the scintillating light and darkness of the present. Their entanglement in a series of pursuits and complications arising from the butterflies becomes what is ultimately an allegory of the White Terror in Taiwan.

KUCHiXO uses a highly imagistic approach for this book, which is rife with symbols and signs. The story is drawn in color pencil with a childlike sketching style to resemble illustrations for fairytale books. Changes in the color tone convey alterations in time and space, while colorful silhouettes depict the flight of the mysterious butterflies. It may seem like Sleeping Brain was made with a sense of freehand nonchalance, but every aspect of the book is meticulously designed, from its colors and illustrations to its storyboard and shading, and all of these aspects deserve attention and study. With how the story progresses, Sleeping Brains may read like a fantastical fairytale of an incredible journey in search of butterflies, but it is in fact an unflinching contemplation on Taiwan’s history. The characters and the butterflies are symbols of us living on this island with our complicated past, our embroiled present, and our unpredictable future.

Sleeping Brain may not be the easiest read with layers of symbolism that call for associative thought and interpretation. However, the book’s refusal to offer that unthinking “thrill” of commercial comics is what gives readers room to feel the story emotionally and reflect on it from an analytical point of view. These qualities are what make Sleeping Brain so impressive as it demonstrates what comics can achieve as works of art.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Comics may be sequences of still images, but this has not stopped artists from using the form to make titles about music, for which there is already a considerable list – like the widely popular Japanese manga Nodame Cantabile on classical music; NANA, about a rock band; and BLUE GIANT, whose protagonist is a jazz musician. Taiwan has also been releasing comics about music in recent years, including DEMO and BLA BLA SONG. Among them, Island Rhapsody has to be one of the most intricately conceived titles. Different from the works mentioned, it is a two-volume collection of short comics by ten artists, each working with a different style. The short pieces do not have multiple growth arcs for its main characters or complicated plot twists, nor do they divulge knowledge about music and its instruments. They are inspired by songs, but rather than being mere visual adaptations, they get to the heart of the tracks, reaching through the cracks of time and space to explore different narratives.

Island Rhapsody is configured after the travel program Listen! Taiwan Is Singing hosted by popular musician Chen Ming-Chang, who likes to travel and sing. In the show, Chen went around Taiwan to experience its regional cultures, and together with his friends, he would play his signature yueqin or guitar while they sang famous tunes from the places they visited. Ten of those songs were later selected for this collection. Each short comic comes with a QR code that links to the actual track, as well as printed lyrics and an introductory text and commentary by music critic Hung Fang-Yi.

Appreciators of the collection may worry about its specificity to Taiwan, that despite all these materials providing context, other readers may still find this to be a barrier. Or, alternatively, that readers may not be able to accept this sort of “adaptation” or “translation” because of their musical taste. But even if one skips all the commentary and goes straight to the comics, one can still get pleasure out of it.

The first volume starts with “If I Open My Heart’s Door” by Sen, told through the eyes of a female protagonist as she revisits the streets and her old home in her hometown. Like a metaphorical door to the heart, the story draws readers into its imaginary world. In a somewhat similar vein, the second volume finishes with GGDOG’s “Salt Ponds – The Home of the Black-faced Spoonbills”, which has the protagonist waking up in the summer heat of his room at the end. Although the “salt zone” of his dreams is reduced to a small, mundane complaint of daily life, there is a sense of lingering aftertaste savored by both the protagonist and the readers. Inexplicably, as if in a reverie, the beginning and the end of the collection connect despite showing vastly different artistic portrayals.

Four of the ten comics are influenced by science fiction, while the other six take place in real life. As the stories intermingle, reality and fantasy become indistinguishable. If one were to insist upon a central theme, each story features a main character exploring their sense of belonging, whether permanent or temporary, to the places they reside as well as their careers and lives, which leads them to action or contemplation.

Each of the stories exhibits the unique visual languages of their artists. Ding Pao-Yen uses short, urgent strokes and gray tones to portray a desolate city besieged by rain, while Tseng Yao-Ching adapts the regional festivity of the song “Miss So-Lan Wants to Get Married” into a modern-day vignette on the subtleties of human relationships. ROCKAT sets his story in the year 2040, when the traditional Lukang becomes a famous tourist spot under a Chinese Federation. Zuo Hsuan’s story of a young foley artist trying to find meaning in his career is heartwarming and inspiring, while Lo Ning depicts scenes from the countryside and opera performances in the rain to express the nostalgia of visiting one’s hometown. Cao Chian visualizes the physical and psychological struggles suffered by Beitou hostesses with thick, dark lines, while Peter Mann’s comic about the strife of women pursuing success is told as a lighthearted tale of parents and children working together. Mu Ke Ke narrates the meeting and separation of childhood friends, showing how loneliness comes to all regardless of age.

In an interview, Alan Lee, editor-in-chief of the comics department of Gaea Books, said, “It would be too boring if these comics were complete adaptations of the lyrics, readers can just listen to the songs. The artists should also get to show their creativity, they’re not here to only illustrate the lyrics.” With this direction, the artists commissioned for this project only had to consider the number of spreads they were given and were otherwise given the freedom to work on their comics. Judging from their striking contributions, this approach has allowed them to come up with different narratives as well as ways to enliven the reading and listening experience – appreciators of the collection may come across pleasant surprises as they go through the songs and the comics.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Ebi is a Taiwanese comic artist who specializes in romantic comedy and has also created a line of stickers on the social media app Line featuring her cutesy cartoon alter-ego. She is perhaps best known for her romantic comic trilogy centered around an old apartment complex called “Sunshine Manor”. The cast of characters that inhabit the fictive world of Ebi’s Sunshine Manor all seem to encounter adversity – a beautiful college girl strives to succeed in life but is harmed by her own boyfriend, an enthusiastic young girl is teased for being short and chubby, a male comic artist is haunted by introversion and solitude – but ultimately, under the steady hand of Ebi’s prose, they all grow to find their own form of happiness.   

By introducing elements of folk religion into the familiar romance trope of the “quarrelsome lovers”, My Forty-Nine Days with the Chenghuang presents a breakthrough in Ebi’s oeuvre. Scenes are set not just in the modern world, but also in the netherworld and in a past life of the protagonist, creating a much more complex and fantastical mise-en-scène than in Ebi’s previous works.

The “Chenghuang” mentioned in the title is the Mandarin term for a god that protects over a city and, in this comic, refers to the male protagonist, Chang Liu-Sheng. In Taiwanese culture, Chenghuang temples serve as something like the city halls of the spirit-world, but due to the fact that Chenghuangs are in charge of punishing evil-doers, escorting the dead into the afterlife and exorcising demons, they often evince a stern and severe disposition. Subordinates that appear alongside the Chenghuang are often rendered with ferocious expressions meant to intimidate and deter evil ghosts and demons, and throughout Chenghuang Temples, aphorisms cautioning against evildoing line the sides of doorways. Given the severe and solemn atmosphere that these temples evoke, it would be highly unlikely for the average person to associate them with romance. Yet, in a move that will surely surprise and inspire curiosity in her readers, Ebi has chosen a Chenghuang as the protagonist in her latest romance.

In many East Asian belief systems, the netherworld is thought to have an administrative system not unlike the bureaucratic organizations that govern the world of the living – the Chenghuang is just one small cog in the vast machinery of this system. Indeed, Chang Liu-Sheng, the Chenghuang depicted in My Forty-Nine days with the Chenghuang, is a fairly low-ranking official serving under the Grand Lord Chengchuang. (If we were to liken the Grand Lord Chenghuang to a city mayor, a Chenghuang would be more like a village ward.) Classical Chinese literature abounds with legends of the netherworld – Pu Song-ling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, for instance, satirized the corruption and injustice of Qing Dynasty bureaucracy with a collection of stories detailing the negligence of netherworld officials. Yet, compared with Pu’s depiction of netherworld bureaucracy, Ebi’s seems even truer to life: Teams led by different Chenghuangs compete and bicker and Old Lady Meng whose heady potion helps the departed forget the memories of their past life gets updated as a young stunner who seems to be engaging in extracurricular activities with the Grand Lord Chenghuang. Against this backdrop, it is not such a surprise, then, that the female protagonist Chen Chih-Yao’s love story begins with her mistaken entry into the netherworld.   

Like many other tales of quarrelsome lovers, Chen Chih-Yao and Chang Liu-Sheng’s relationship is born out of conflict: When Chih-Yao finds herself inexplicably cast into the netherworld and realizes her time among the living is not yet up, she gets in an argument with Liu-Sheng’s subordinates “Heipai Wuchang”[1] who had mistakenly taken her in. Liu-Sheng is suspended after protecting his subordinates and, in a fit of anger, casts a spell on Chih-Yao that allows her to see ghosts in the world of the living. From a reader’s perspective with the benefit of hindsight, Liu-Sheng seems almost like a schoolboy who picks on the girl he has a secret crush on – it might have all just been a ploy to get closer to Chih-Yao. When Liu-Sheng returns to the world of the living, he finds an excuse to become the Chen’s houseguest and ensuing hauntings of the Chen’s home become the kindling that fuels Chih-Yao and Liu-Sheng’s budding romance.

Yet, is marriage truly the ultimate expression of a loving relationship? In the opening scene of the comic in which Chih-Yao’s grandmother arranges a meeting for her with a prospective suitor, her total disinterest in marriage is already on full display. Knowing her grandmother is well-intentioned, she stops short of rejecting the whole arrangement outright and instead opts to scare away her potential suitor by arriving late, dirtying her clothes and deliberately making herself look less attractive. Halfway through the comic, we learn that Chih-Yao’s parents got a divorce, a traumatic memory that sheds a deeper light on Chih-Yao’s reluctance to participate in arranged meetings. In an interesting turn of events, as Chih-Yao’s relationship with Liu-Sheng evolves, she begins arranging meetings with suitors for her grandmother and even lends support to her friend who is going through a crisis in his marriage. Perhaps, Chen Chih-Yao’s indifference towards marriage is not entirely a product of deep-seeded fear, but rather a symptom of the importance she places on not acting in ways she’ll later regret. That is, marriage is one way that people can be happy together, but it is not the ultimate goal.

Like many other love stories between the living and the dead, the conclusion to My Forty-Nine Days with the Chenghuang will inevitably leave readers feeling despondent. Ultimately, Liu-Sheng must return to his post as Chenghuang in the netherworld, just as Chih-Yao must eventually choke back Old Lady Meng’s heady brew to wipe her mind clean of any memory of the great beyond. In the final scenes, Liu-Sheng’s new outlook towards his past-life memories presages a possible change of fate: He had always remained in the netherworld serving as a Chenghuang due to his distaste for the brutality of the world of the living and his unwillingness to forget the kind deeds of benefactors in his past life, but what new life will await him now that he no longer despises the land of the living and prepares to drink Lady Meng’s brew and reincarnate?

As for the novel’s conclusion, most readers were quite satisfied with how Ebi chose to bring the story to a close. Whether or not the protagonists ultimately do forget each other, characters like Heipai Wuchang, who turned into cute little dogs, the ravishing Lady Meng prancing along with her parasol, and the stylish Chenghuangs who managed to pull off ancient ceremonial robes and modern tailored suits with the same panache, will certainly live on in the memory of readers. This vibrant cast of characters has injected our conventional understanding of the underworld with new color and perspective.

(This article is originally published at Readmoo)

Take a team of intrepid adventurers, multiply by BL romance, add monsters both vicious and cute… it sounds like a formula for manga success. But what if that reliability brings its own risks. Perhaps the reader has just finished a similar work and will find the formula formulaic? Or maybe expectations continually ratchet up, meaning every story has to be bigger and better than the last?

Formulas for success are helpful, but come with their own problems. Particularly so now, when genres are constantly subverted and mashed-up and the “guaranteed bestseller” formula of last century is now little more than a distant legend. So how to move on? One route is disruptive innovation. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, for example, switches up the point of view, defying the reader’s “natural” expectations. Another option is to stick to what you know, but know it better. Rather than churn out another formulaic tale, identify the essence of the formula, the variables that attract readers, and put those back at the heart of the story.

Gene’s The Shimmering Summoner takes the latter approach, and with great success.

The story’s protagonist, Robin, is a summoner. Magic runs in his family: his father is a skilled mage. Robin, though, is a magical weakling. He tries to conjure up warriors and monsters, but gets only random useless objects. But he is not the type to let a lack of ability stand in the way of ambition and still dreams of becoming a supernova-level summoner and defeating a Demonic Dragon. But with his skills lagging so far behind his hopes, Robin spends most of his time boasting of achievements yet to come, while sponging off Bao, his loyal childhood friend. Bao, by the way, is a boy who loves to wear dresses.

By a remarkable coincidence (or perhaps, given his failure rate, a statistical inevitability), Robin one day summons up Kai, a boy prince. Kai tricks Robin into visiting the Demonic Dragon’s castle and Robin, too proud to admit incompetence, fights the beast alongside Kai. It’s a one-sided fight, until Robin discovers his true powers. The dragon is defeated and Robin wins his supernova-level stripes. Victory reconciles Robin with his father and leads to a spark between him and Kai, who is now revealed to be no boy prince but a full-grown man prince.

Robin’s new status brings a steady flow of up-and-coming challengers. To escape, Robin teams up with Kai and Bao and the trio sets off on a quest. During their travels Kai’s secret and Bao’s past come to light, while romance blossoms between Robin and Kai. Ultimately, the three face their final challenge.

Gene’s characterizations reacquaint the reader with the essence of heroic manga: growing, moving past self-doubt, and finding yourself. True heroes don’t perform great feats, they self-affirm and self-accept. Those who accompany the heroes, meanwhile, lend more than skills with sword or staff. They provide friendship and support.

The Shimmering Summoner features rich world-building, vivid characters, a fun and flowing story, but not one ounce of filler. Visually, there is plenty of detail with no loss of pace, easy switching between action and internal drama, and a range of terrifying monsters and cute little creatures. All this creates the charm of The Shimmering Summoner – an impressive achievement made to appear easy.

Developing that ability has taken years. Gene is not professionally trained, but has built up over a decade of experience since she started producing self-published works in high school. She drew webtoons for Comico before beginning the hand-to-mouth existence of a young creative, publishing serials and entering competitions. In 2019, she took the Bronze Prize for manga in Japan’s MCPO Awards. In 2020 she walked away from the Kyoto International Manga Anime Awards with the Grand Prize in both the manga and illustration categories.

Perhaps Gene too has been on her own adventure and the dazzling The Shimmering Summoner is, like those prizes were, steps on that journey? We’re sure to be seeing more extraordinary tales from this supernova-level artist.