Liang Zhu

Author: Ruhua Hua / Ding Yunsheng (Text)
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-05-01
Features: "The Butterfly Lovers" and "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl," "Meng Jiangnu," and "The Legend of the White Snake" have long been known as the Four Great Folk Legends of China, holding a prominent position in folk culture and attracting the attention of folk culture and folklore scholars both at home and abroad. Regarding this "The Butterfly Lovers" comic book, the text accompanying the illustrations in the drafts is entirely in traditional Chinese characters, suggesting that it was drawn before the 1949 liberation. The text descriptions outside the illustrations, however, are in simplified Chinese and use phrases like "classist drawbacks," which, from the contextual analysis, appear to be added after the liberation. Compared to another comic book in this series, "The Three Laughs," "The Butterfly Lovers" comic book is slightly inferior in artistic level. Although both comic books excel in fine-line ink painting and both draw on the excellent tradition of woodblock illustrations from ancient Chinese novels, in modern China where Western painting and Japanese cartoon art are wildly popular, preserving the popular and folk essence of traditional Chinese comic books is highly meaningful. From this perspective, organizing and publishing these old comic books still holds certain value.