Hong Kong comics after the mid-1990s

This study examines the development of Hong Kong comics after the mid-1990s through focusing on a major format of comics publication in Hong Kong: "slim-volume" (bozhuang) comics. The objective of this study is to problematize the neglect of recent Hong Kong comics by scholars, commentators, and industry insiders. A common narrative in industry and media discourses is that while Hong Kong comics enjoyed a golden period of commercial success and artistic innovation in the 1980s, it declined since the mid-1990s (Avenue of Comic Stars, 2015; Li, 2015: 338-476; Yu, 2014). According to scholarly and intellectual discourses, Hong Kong comics produced before the mid-1900s deserve critical attention because they defined a distinctively local comic style and commanded a large audience (Shi and Ng, 2005), but Hong Kong comics produced after the mid-1990s are viewed in a more pessimistic and/or negative lens (Lam, 2009; Wong, 2002). In social and public discourses beginning from the mid-1990s, Hong Kong comics (and not comics imported from elsewhere) came to be portrayed as a vulgar and socially dangerous pop cultural genre (Ngai and Yuen, 2003; Hong Kong Social Workers Association, 1975).