Color the World

Now 28 years old, Ahn (born Tu Tse-wei) graduated from Jin­wen University of Science and Technology with a degree in graphic design and communication and started work as a professional graphic designer. His love of drawing has stayed strong, and even after the busiest days he still finds time to pick up a pen and draw whatever the day has inspired in him.

Nettoyeur was the first comic piece that Ahn entered into a competition. It incorporated elements of his experience with drawing and graphic design, as well as cinematic methods, and turned out to be a popular contribution to the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Ahn says that he discovered his love of comics in junior high. While his classmates were copying the drawings of then-popular artists, Ahn was already using comics to record his life, drawing the girls he liked, the teacher nagging away in class, or whatever dramas came to mind.

Over time he’s worked with animation companies and graphic design companies. At first, his experimental style didn’t capture much attention in Taiwan, even as he participated in a variety of competitions and exhibitions. At one point early on he even considered giving up on comics entirely.

That is, until 2006, when he participated in the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival. His series Kiwi Country won second prize in the Story Design category. “Maybe I wasn’t appreciated in Taiwan,” he says, “but at least I could compete internationally.”

To boost his narrative abilities, Ahn began diligently studying how films are structured, making notes as he watched them, recording things like the timestamp for the climax, when twists happened, and so on, gradually keying into a formula.

“All films follow a timeline. There’s a discernable pattern to them,” he explains. “As long as you can hit the same rhythm, the story will naturally grab the audience.”

In addition to practicing his storytelling skills by studying films, Ahn began incorporating drawing and graphic design into his work, creating a unique personal style. It was this style that earned him a reputation in the European comic world, which places a premium on story and original concepts.

Nettoyeur was the first comic piece that Ahn entered into a competition. It incorporated elements of his experience with drawing and graphic design, as well as cinematic methods, and turned out to be a popular contribution to the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

This January, caressed by the cool Mediterranean breeze, the annual Angoulême International Comics Festival took place in France; the bustling festival is Europe’s oldest comic-focused event, and is one of the two biggest international comics events, alongside San Diego Comic-Con International.

In the Angoulême festival, the nominees for the Prize for Young Talent are considered the ones to watch. There are no restrictions on theme or content, giving the artists full freedom to demonstrate their creativity and critical thinking. The only restriction is that each entry can be no longer than three pages.

In Nettoyeur, Ahn depicts a street sweeper in a yellow raincoat silently collecting garbage from the streets under a pink sky. Walking across the black, garbage-covered earth, his eyes land on a black chimney which seems to be constantly crying for help.

The street sweeper asks, “Is there something I can help with?” The chimney responds, but unintelligibly. The street sweeper’s hands reach out and pull down the chimney, and from the hole spurts out a huge black tower of water, erupting into the sky. The “camera” zooms out, and we see that the street sweeper is in fact walking along the back of a whale, alongside which are dozens of other whales similarly covered in garbage and waiting for help.

Ahn’s outstanding framing and storytelling earned him nomination for the Prize for Young Talent. Later, in March, he was again successful at the Fumetto International Comix Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The theme of the Lucerne festival was “justice,” and Ahn’s entry depicted the rich–poor gap in Taiwan, telling the story of a fat child eating ice cream as he sits on a robot powered by innumerable laborers. The robot strides across half the globe, eventually reaching Santa’s home at the North Pole, where the child demands a present.

In The Gift, the fat child represents the rich and powerful, calling to mind associations with capitalism. By cutting to the heart of the idea of “justice,” Ahn’s work earned him the Young Talent award. The judges said it was both playful and profound, and set an example for aspiring young artists.

Even after busy days at work, Ahn still finds time to draw whatever in the day has inspired him, further building his creative skills. Ahn’s The Gift (left) earned him a New Talent award at the Fumetto ­International Comix Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Ahn’s works eschew bright colors, focusing instead on muted tones, with colors only highlighting key areas to draw attention to important parts of the story, like the pink sky in Nettoyeur and the spoon in the hand of the fat child in The Gift, the latter representing being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth. Through his deft use of color, Ahn gives readers an even stronger sense of the core of the story.

Ahn also often plays cinematographer in his comics. The final frame of Nettoyeur, for example, calls to mind the final shot of Men in Black, similarly hinting at how small mankind’s place in the universe really is.

By employing a philosophy grounded in everyday life, Ahn has been able not only to maintain his creative drive and inspiration, but also to forge a name for himself in the narrative- and creativity-focused European comics world.

Nettoyeur was the first comic piece that Ahn entered into a competition. It incorporated elements of his experience with drawing and graphic design, as well as cinematic methods, and turned out to be a popular contribution to the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

“You can actually make your own inspiration,” says Ahn, “but it won’t come looking for you if you just spend all day cooped up inside.” A lover of surfing and picnics, he tries to keep in touch with nature and thus stay curious. By doing this, he creates opportunities for surprises and ways to watch the interesting little details of life unfold.

For picnics, Ahn makes his own food; rice balls, sushi, salad, and sandwiches are his specialties. As for destinations, he prefers urban green areas, not too far from pedestrian areas or roads, where he can easily observe the passersby.

This love of nature naturally led to a concern with environmental issues.

For his work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ahn used a series of comic frames rather than the standard poster format, and built on the stylistic foundation of Nettoyeur, hoping to attract audiences through the story. Dressing the street sweeper the way they are ­commonly seen on Taiwanese streets and swapping the garbage for yellow ducks, he creates something closer to the everyday lives of Taiwanese.

“Using the same unusual pink twilight sky serves as a warning light, highlighting that the islands of garbage are actually whales suffering as they float in the ocean.

Overall, it’s a frank depiction of a future world we don’t want to confront,” explains Ahn.

Environmental pollution and climate change are realities that many of us aren’t willing to acknowledge. For his part, having seen how the Earth is crying out, Ahn almost always walks or cycles wherever he needs to go, and for his drawings, he uses recycled or scratch paper.

Muted colors are a hallmark of Ahn’s work, providing a seeming contrast with the love of nature, picnics, and surfing that inspires him. Shown here is his work The Little Universe.

But forthright storytelling won’t necessarily be warmly received by the audience. Over the past few years, Ahn has held several solo exhibitions in Taiwan, including The Dream Under the Bed, which was also collected as a book. However, his works and style didn’t attract wide attention, which made him consider giving up his dream of drawing.

His success at the Angoulême International Comics Festival gave him a second wind, boosting his confidence and helping him get back to his old love of the art form.

Shih ­Cheng-ting, a storybook artist who worked with Ahn on the UNFCCC project, and has been a judge at many Taiwanese drawing competitions, believes that it is Ahn’s ambition, of a level rarely seen in young artists, that has driven his success.

“The only thing I’ve really done right is just doing something I enjoy,” Ahn laughs. No matter how “stupid” others might think the dream of being an artist is, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

Even after busy days at work, Ahn still finds time to draw whatever in the day has inspired him, further building his creative skills. Ahn’s The Gift (left) earned him a New Talent award at the Fumetto ­International Comix Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland.