Artist Research

Wong Yuk-long was the king of comic books in Hong Kong in the 1970s and 1980s. He was born in 1950,discovered instead with comics at the age of 6 and published his first comics at the age of 11. At 15 he started working for a comic company and set up a comics company named “Jade Dynasty” at 29. His masterpiece”Dragon And Tiger Gate” has been popular for more than 30 years and has set a historical record of long serial comics in Hong Kong. His comic bring him a lot of income every year. He wasn’t always as successful as it is. He has gone through many hardship before then. He motto is”To become a successful cartoonist you need 3 indispensable qualities: talent, enthusiasm and perseverance.”

Wong Yuk-long comes from a poor background, At 6 years old his family had to move to Hong Kong to seek better living conditions. He had to drop out of school to support his family. But never the less, he was able to publish his cartoons at a young age. His work was not published until he was 11 years old. Then, at the age of 13, he enlisted for time comics daily as a part-time apprentice painter, but soon he lost his job because of the depression in the comic book industry. After he losing his job, Despite loosing his job during the depression, he didn’t give up his passion for cartoons and decided to start his own company instead. However, due to the economic downturn in Hong Kong at that time, people were not very interested of comics. Therefore, Wong Yuk-long perseverance kept him going, he continued to publish comic books even after 3 failures in a row. After three failures in starting a business, everyone thought that Wong Yuk-long would give up the comics industry completely. However, Wong Yuk-long did not give up comics. He persisted and his opportunity came.

In 1969, Hong Kong’s economy began to better. People become rich, which also made the comic market better. But at that time Japanese comic books were the mainstream in Hong Kong, however Wong Yuk-long did not give up. He founded a new comic company and created his masterpiece “Dragon And Tiger Gate” in the same year. The content of the book is three young heroes helping the lower class citizens fight against the underworld. Because the public order in Hong Kong was not very well at that time, So Wong Yuk-long wanted to create a cartoon heroes dealing with bad people, in order to inspire the people. He also added a lot of Kung Fu elements into it. As soon as the comic was launched, it immediately aroused people’s strong resonance. The circulation of the first issue was as high as 7000 copies, setting a new record for the circulation of comic books in Hong Kong and made Hong Kong’s local comics occupy more than 70% of the Hong Kong market.

After the success, The fate made a joke with Wong Yuk-long. In 1990,Wong Yuk-long was sentenced to prison for maked false accounts, and most of his company’s shares changed hands. Wong Yuk-long’s “cartoon Empire” was died. After the great success, he is facing great setbacks, which is hard for everyone, but it does not change Wong Yuk-long, who still likes comics. So a year later, Huang Yulang was released from prison. He called his former colleagues back to start his own comics business and set up a new company. Wong Yuk-long himself produced a cartoon “Legend of Emperors” after he was released from prison. In his book, he wrote, “I have never tried to make a cartoon so seriously. This time I devote myself to the future and my artistic life. But the most important thing is to let my readers in the past 20 years see my real works again!”

It is Wong Yuk-long’s insistence on the comics that has created his title as the king of Hong Kong Comics .Even now, Wong Yuk-long was 70 years old, he still in the front line of comics. Now he is committed to the cartoon market in Chinese mainland. He thinks that the adaptation of comic to animated films or TV series can better promote comics. The first time I knew him was through an animation adapted from his comics.I think the style and plot of this cartoon is very interesting, so I read more his comics. After reading his comics, I feel that the actions in the cartoon are very cool and the characters are very realistic. But the most profound still is his motto “to become a successful cartoonist you need 3 independent qualities: talent, enthusiasm and persistence.”This has always inspired me, and I will also stick to my career!!!

Video

Works Cited

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/wong_yuk-long.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Yuk-long

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