Ghosts Among Us in Taiwanese Comics

At the National Taiwan Museum of Comics (NTMC) in Taichung, a compound of Japanese-style wooden buildings and gardens, visitors encounter a striking mock paper house, made as an offering to the dead, in one corner of the main gallery.

Created by Yuzu, the artist behind Invitation of Yama, the structure shows the illustrator’s characteristic linework and brushwork. It also reimagines streetscapes from the comic’s worlds of the living and the dead, including a “Ghostly Haircuts” barbershop and a “dream delivery service,” in a delightfully macabre way.

A Ghost Festival night market run by comics creators

“What do our foreign friends often say they remember about Taiwan?” asks curator Jean Chen, who has researched Taiwanese comics for more than 20 years. Many, she says, tell her they love its night markets. The exhibition Ghost Festival Night Market is both a night market about comics and a night market about Taiwanese culture.

The main gallery turns food featured in five selected comics into night-market stalls. They include the “Italian-style bone noodle soup” that the protagonist of Guides to the World Below first encounters in the underworld, “soul-deliverance coffee” from the same title, and fishball soup from Grandma and Her Ghosts.

Chen began her career reporting on education and culture before becoming a curator. She notes that Grandma and Her Ghosts was nominated for Best Animation at the 1998 Golden Horse Awards; some believe it failed to win because it dealt with “weird forces and the supernatural.” Today, this distinctly Taiwanese tale of spirits and strange phenomena is known to many people around the world, and director Wang Shau-di was invited to attend screenings in Europe last year. The exhibition offers an early glimpse of the kan-á-sun (Taiwanese Hokkien for “great-grandchild”) role in the sequel Grandma and Her Ghosts 2: Baby Power, which is scheduled for release in 2027. The character represents the continuation of family traditions and affection across generations.

Each stall at the night market features special content tailored to the work it presents. At Heaven Restaurant, for example, the menu consists of uplifting lines handpicked by creator Ruan Guang-min; its “dishes” also include his explanation of why the series, originally planned for five volumes, ended after three. Meanwhile, on the soul-deliverance coffee cups for Guides to the World Below, readers can see the creators’ “HR evaluations” of every character.

Webtoon strips are presented as noodles.

Comic artist Lo and scriptwriter Chou give each of their characters an “HR evaluation” on the “soul-deliverance coffee” cups.

Female ghosts speak out and fight back

The curatorial team also created a special area devoted to the voices of female ghosts. “Why are female ghosts always vengeful? Why do most stories about female ghosts center on humiliated or wronged women?” Chen asks. Her answer: “Under the oppression of traditional patriarchal society, only in death—only by becoming ghosts—could women speak for themselves.”

The special area presents two comics about female ghosts: one drawn from a Qing-dynasty Tainan legend and the other set in 1936, during the era of Japanese rule. Both portray women denied a voice, whose fates are decided by their natal or marital families, and the resistance that emerges after they become ghosts.

Popularity is incense

Incense is a source of spiritual energy for deities and ghosts. In today’s online and publishing worlds, the admiration and support of “fans” similarly provide comics creators with a steady source of creative sustenance. Gallery 08 takes “Popularity Is Incense” as its theme, highlighting two popular works with large readerships.

The first is Teensy’s well-known novel series The Oracle Comes. It has expanded from prose fiction into comics, a television series, and games, demonstrating the cross-media potential of original Taiwanese intellectual property.

The second featured work in this exhibition space is Black Comedy, which online illustrator Aman has produced without interruption for 12 years. After beginning as a blog serial, it moved into print and onto the Webtoon platform; the tenth print volume was released during Ghost Month this year (2026).

The exhibition recreates a vintage DVD shop, where visitors can explore the creators’ career stories and behind-the-scenes glimpses of their work. The display traces the artists’ development while showing how fan support has sustained them along the way.

Curator Jean Chen says that the orientation of many contemporary Taiwanese comics is to tell stories rooted in the land of Taiwan.

Exhibition installer Roger Lee attached labels to clothing to convey the social stereotypes and restrictions faced by women in Taiwan during the Qing era and Japanese colonial period. 

 

The human stories behind ghosts

“Before they became ghosts, they were all people!” says Chen with a laugh, admitting that she has been terrified of ghosts since childhood. Her deeper study of folklore and comics led her to a realization: Behind every folk tale, she says, are human attachments, regrets, and unresolved emotions.

Chen Ching-kuan, director of the Preparatory Office of National Taiwan Museum of Comics, believes that the Ghost Festival Night Market experience offers a way to discover Taiwan’s folk traditions, history, and culture. Through reinterpretations by contemporary comics creators, age-old folk taboos cease to inspire fear and become part of an everyday world that offers comfort and conveys the warmth of local life.

Special Exhibition: Ghost Festival Night Market: The Taiwanese Lives of Ghosts in Comics

Dates: August 27, 2026–March 1, 2027

Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; closed Mondays

Venue: East Side Park, National Taiwan Museum of Comics, Galleries S, 07, and 08

Admission: Free

Visitors playing the pinball game follow clues like the sleuth in Agnostic Detective. Where will the ball land?

In a faux DVD shop display, a DVD for The Oracle Comes presents the creators’ career stories and behind-the-scenes glimpses of their work.