"Little-Man's book" : a Glimpse at a Type of Chinese Comic Books
Content:
This is a unique type of comic book from China. It grew in
the 1920s', flourished in the second-half of the last century, went out of the
market in the 1990s, and somehow re-ignites people's interest today. The book's
formal name in Chinese is "lian huan hua" (
),
literally meaning "continuous pictures." Knowing
very little about comic books in its traditional sense, I am not sure if it is the
right term to use here. I
feel the format fits neither into the comic book nor into the picture book
neatly, though I will use the term throughout this paper. Any comment about that is welcome.
Nicknamed "little-man's books," a comic book typically measures about 13x9 cm (5.1x3.5 inch), easy for children to hold. Larger or smaller sized ones are available, too. On every page there's one picture. The text, which tells the story, appears at the bottom of the page, or in the right area.
 |
[The text says: The girl's name was la Esmeralda. She was a Gypsy, pretty and radiant. Her vivacious, dazzling dance riveted the spectators.] |
-One page of a Chinese comic book: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
You would rarely see dialog "balloons" in the pictures - the small size could be part of the reason. In this sense, the "little-man's book" might be closer to a picture book. The pictures are usually black-and-white, contributing to the low price of comic books. There aren't many color books. A huge variety of drawing styles exist. A small portion of the books are movie or opera spin-offs, consisting of selected frames from the movies or photos taken from an opera performance. Comic books vary in size. A language story about the origin of an Chinese idiom can be 14 pages only. One volume of a set of comic books based on lengthy works may measure above 100 pages. Books around 100 pages are quite common.
All pictures are from http://www.cartoonwin.com