Dreams of the Fragrant River

If you want to develop the comics industry in Hong Kong, you must have a well-known series of comics to support it, otherwise it will always be a small fight. (First release) The reason why Kang Jianfei bought the 82 Painting Club is because the "Bruce Bruce" series of comics has been selling well in Hong Kong for more than ten years, and some other comics of the painting club are also well-known.

As for the comics that acquired Shangguan Xiaobao's younger brother Shangguan Xiaowei, he wanted to diversify the comics from a single kung fu comic, because Shangguan Xiaowei is a rare horror cartoonist in Hong Kong, and he is also a very famous horror cartoonist.

For Kang Jianfei, who had a lot of money in his hand, it was very easy to enter the comics industry. He didn't even come forward himself. He bought Shangguan Xiaowei's comics club for only 300,000 yuan, and he also took all the copyrights of the comics club and several Comic talent.

The two comic clubs will move into the No. 3 administrative building of Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City in the next few days. The name of the comic club after the combination has not been decided yet, and everything is still under discussion and preparation.

Kang Jianfei not only wanted to make comics, but he also wanted to make cartoons.

Compared with the prosperous Hong Kong comics in the 1970s, Hong Kong's animation industry started not too late. In 1948, animation scenes appeared in movies. From the 1940s to the 1970s, animation in Hong Kong was only used to design logos for people, and to make animation shots for movies and TV dramas. The cartoons shown on TV were entirely imported.

It was not until 1976 that TVB and Radio Television Hong Kong set up an animation group to produce some animated titles and endings for TV dramas, as well as some animated short films.

After entering the 1980s, more and more advertisers used animation to advertise, and the animation industry in Hong Kong developed.

Even so, there are very few animation talents in Hong Kong, and most of them work in the TVB animation group, and the rest are specialized in animation advertisements. As for the cartoons currently playing on Phoenix TV. Sorry, most of them are imported from Japan and Taiwan, and some are purchased from the United States.

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Administration Building, No. 3, Tseung Kwan O Studios.

Shangguan Xiaowei instructed his apprentice to set up the office. He turned his head and said to Kang Jianfei, "If Mr. Kang wants to find animation talents, don't just stare at Hong Kong."

"Do you want to go to Japan?" Kang Jianfei asked.

Shangguan Xiaowei smiled and said, "How can I go to Japan to invite them. The labor force in Japan is too high. Now many animations in Japan are outsourced to animation studios in the mainland."

"Japanese animation is outsourced to an animation studio in mainland China?" Kang Jianfei asked in surprise. This was in the 1980s, and China was not the world's factory after 2000.

Seeing Kang Jianfei's puzzled face, Shangguan Xiaowei began to tell Kang Jianfei the situation in detail.

Chinese animation was originally very powerful. Osamu Tezuka, the father of Japanese comics, also embarked on the road of comics after watching the Chinese animation "Princess Iron Fan". In the following decades, Chinese comics have never fallen behind any country in terms of art.

On the other side of the world, the United States, due to the high wages of animators, has cooperated with low-wage countries to produce cartoons since 1965. The preferred partner at that time was Japan, which directly promoted the development and prosperity of the Japanese manga and animation industry.

After 20 years of development. Japan's animation industry has initially prospered, but at the same time it is also facing the problem of the American animation industry in the past - the salary of animation personnel is too high. As a result, Japanese animation companies began to cooperate with South Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China to outsource the basic production of animation.

The most powerful animation studio in mainland China is Shanghai/Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. In recent years, the country is calling on all people to earn foreign exchange. The American Film Studio happily took over the outsourcing business in Japan, and it was so happy to earn dollars, and it was not alert to the loss of animation talents.

How many animation staff companies are in the US Film Studio today?

The monthly salary of ordinary workers is dozens of yuan, and the salary of skilled masters is only more than 100 yuan. Over the past few years, senior animation talents have been poached by Japanese companies with high salaries (cabbage prices).

After a brief introduction to the situation. Shangguan Xiaowei smiled and said: "So, if you want to hire professional animation talents, you can go to the mainland and dig a lot from Shanghai/Shanghai Film Studio. As long as you help them solve the visa problem in Hong Kong, the monthly salary of 1,000 yuan can be Let them fight."

Kang Jianfei is still very keen on digging socialist corners. Anyway, he will be poached by the Japanese if he does not dig.

Kang Jianfei said: "Mr. Kwong, you are a professional in the field of animation. Would you like to help me go to the mainland? I will handle the affairs of the Chinese government."

Shangguan Xiaowei waved his hand and said, "I don't have much research on animation, I just draw comics."

Kang Jianfei said: "Anyway, the task of picking someone will trouble you, and I will send another person for the contact."

Shangguan Xiaowei nodded and said, "Okay, then I'll go to the mainland for a trip."

Shangguan Xiaobao's office has been set up. He pushed the door and came in and said to Kang Jianfei, "Mr. Kang, please give our comics a name first, and hang up the sign first."

Kang Jianfei has always been too lazy to think about naming things. He said with a wicked taste: "Why don't we call it the Dark Horse Comics Company, a dark horse in the comics industry."

In another time and space, Dark Horse Comics (dark_) is the third largest comic company in the United States after and Marvel. This company will not be established until next year, but unfortunately the name has been squatted by Kang Jianfei. I don't know if the name will be repeated by then.

The Shangguan brothers don’t pay much attention to the company’s name. For example, Shangguan Xiaowei’s comics club is directly called Xiaowei Comics Publishing House. They are only interested in the company’s design.

After confirming the name of the comic company, Shangguan Xiaobao said, "Mr. Kang, it's better for the company to run a doll newspaper (comic newspaper)."

Kang Jianfei nodded and said, "I will pick out the company's general manager as soon as possible, and then we will discuss how to manage the company."

Shangguan Xiaowei said: "But the development direction must be determined first. I think the most important thing is to make a comic that sells more than "Chinese Hero"."

"Chinese Hero" is the most popular comic in Hong Kong today. After it was released as a separate volume in 1982, the highest sales volume reached 200,000 copies. Today, the biweekly sales of "Chinese Hero" has remained around 150,000 copies.

As mentioned earlier, the sales volume of the latest issue of "Heroes of China" is more than 40,000. That is because Huang Yulang has issued a revised version of "Heroes of China" since last year in order to make money. The content of the revised version is all repeated, but the pictures and materials are more exquisite, and some unreasonable plots have been modified. It is completely sold to loyal fans for collection. Even so, it can sell more than 40,000 copies per issue.

As for the two comics "Dragon Tiger Gate" and "Bruce Bruce", the sales volume should be around 50,000 under normal circumstances. It's a pity that Huang Yulang has been busy with the company's listing recently, and he has been pouring water into the comics due to lack of energy, and "Bruce Bruce" has been interrupted for five issues due to copyright issues, resulting in a significant reduction in the sales of both comics.

If Kang Jianfei's dark horse comic company wants to grab the comics market, the most important thing is to beat the sales of "Chinese Heroes".

Shangguan Xiaowei is so active in dealing with "Heroes of China" because its author Ma Rongcheng is his apprentice. At the beginning, Shangguan Xiaowei worked in the "Good News" of his brother Shangguan Xiaobao, and he taught Ma Rongcheng, who also worked in "Good News", and was Ma Rongcheng's actual mentor. As for his brother Shangguan Xiaobao, it was only Ma Rongcheng's name. Master.

Now Ma Rongcheng's "Chinese Hero" is popular in Hong Kong, but the Shangguan brothers hate it so much that they regard Ma Rongcheng as a traitor to the "Shangguan family".

The strategy Kang Jianfei came up with was to use "Bruce Bruce" against "Dragon Tiger Gate" on the frontal battlefield, and "Missionary Journey" against "Chinese Hero". In addition, it is to use Shangguan Xiaowei's thriller magazine to open up the second battlefield, and then discover new cartoonists to create life and fairy tale cartoons, and "McDull" can be produced in advance.

If the comics of "The Misty Journey" can't take on this important task, then Kang Jianfei has other ways. Now that Niu Lao is working on Shangguan Xiaobao, it is not too difficult to draw a little bit of "Young and Dangerous" series.

Of course, Kang Jianfei also has his own stunt, that is, he can even use it to design sub-shots... violent comics.

Kang Jianfei took out a piece of white paper from Shangguan Xiaowei's desk, and began to paint with a pen. A few strokes are enough to make a character.

In less than three minutes, Kang Jianfei handed out the storm comics he had just drawn and said, "In the future, our doll newspaper will use one page for each issue of the violent comics, and openly solicit contributions, anyone can use the violent comics to describe their own affairs. , so that you can cultivate a large number of die-hard fans of the doll newspaper."

Kang Jianfei draws a total of six violent comics:

The first frame is a stickman with an exaggerated smiling face and a big head~www.wuxiaspot.com~ humming a song la la la la.

The character in the second frame is of the same shape, but with a few eyelashes and hair drawn. It is obviously a woman. She said, "Wang Nima, you are such an interesting person."

In the third frame, King Nima laughed exaggeratedly.

The broken coriander smile of the fourth female: "However, a girl likes the person who makes her laugh, but she loves the person who makes her cry."

The fifth king, Nima, curator-style crying and laughing: "Uh..."

The figure in the sixth grid is finally not a stickman body. Wang Nyima seriously pressed the woman to spank, and the woman was crying with a completely deformed face.

"This thing is called a violent manga?" Shangguan Xiaobao is a very conservative cartoonist. At first glance, Kang Jianfei's violent manga is completely unacceptable, but the more I read it, the more interesting it becomes, and I can't help but want to laugh.

Shangguan Xiaowei was also amazed at Kang Jianfei's comics. He smiled and said, "I don't know what the effect is when drawing horror comics in this style."