Snow White 39 times
"Middle school was the time that I read the most comic books. At that time any new book immediately found its way into the classroom. In particular, I was often moved or frightened by Tezuka's depictions of human nature. I read his book An introduction to Drawing Comics seven or eight times."
Hu takes for example the main character Black Jack in the comic book of the same name. On the surface, the character is a chilling, secretive doctor who spends his time alone and only thinks of money, but he is in fact a dedicated, cool character with concern for others. His mystifying medical techniques not only cure the body but also the mind. For example, in order to help a boy.who lost his arm, he specially designed a prosthetic limb with a speaker inside. The girl who cared for him could then communicate with him through his "speaking" arm and gradually help him overcome his psychological complex.
In middle school Hu had two like-minded classmates. The three of them made an agreement to become cartoonists, and they even formed a pact. Using a jackknife (because then they didn't have any fancy artist's knives), they cut their fingers and signed an oath in blood. "I still remember how serious I was then when I told the others that, according to An introduction to Drawing Comics we would need tools, and that I had already saved up fifteen NT dollars. [He laughs.] But I had no idea where to buy supplies or what they cost!"
"Another crazy thing I did in middle school was to see the Disney feature Snow White 39 times (and that's not counting the number of times I've seen it since then). Back then, the Chunghsin Department Store where the film was being played did not clear the theater after each show, so I could hang around. My record was seeing the movie seven times in one day. My Mom came to the theater and had them put an announcement on the screen looking for me, but I hid and wouldn't come out. In the end my mother bought a ticket and came in to search every seat for me. She gave me a lesson right in front of everybody."
How could he see one movie so many times? Hu explains that he mainly wanted to scrutinize the techniques. He offers two examples. When Snow White faints after eating the poison apple given to her by her stepmother, the little animals, including fawns, rabbits, birds, and so on, all hurry to notify the Seven Dwarfs on the mountain. Each animal has different movements, paths, and expressions, and each time Hu watched the film he focused on a different animal. For the scene when the animals reach the place where the Dwarfs work, Hu mentally divided the screen into four squares, devoting his attention to a different quarter each time. In this scene, because the personalities of the Seven Dwarfs all differ, each has a unique reaction to being disturbed.
From illustration to comic strips
When he was studying in the Fuhsing Commercial and Industrial High School, he began collecting laser disks in order to study the editing and rhythm of films. He started reading widely in various publications. Comic strips became just one source of learning for him, and he stopped buying comic books. "This is because if you only study comics, in the end the only thing you'll be able to draw is a little girl with a Tezuka-style wide-eyed baby face pulling along a kitten that looks just like Little Din Don. You wouldn't be able to come up with your own style. Moreover, it's very easy to lose your creative sense." At the same time, he learned through his assignments at school what kind of work was acceptable and what would have to be redone. Through this he gradually developed his own style.
At that time Hu got the inspiration to become an illustrator. It' s not that he forgot his childhood commitment to comic strips, it's just that it lay as a deeply-planted seed. On the other hand, if after graduating he hadn't seen the trial issue of Huanle Comic Magazine (created by Cheng Wen and Tseng Cheng-chung in 1981), which spurred him to send in a submission, perhaps Hu would still be doing illustrations at World Geography Magazine.
He used his own home as the blueprint for the setting of his first work "Changing Shifts." The story begins with a routine morning for an office worker. But all kinds of little things happen. For example, there is half-eaten bread on the counter, he cannot find the jacket that he wants to wear, and he can't figure out where he put his motorcycle keys. These little incidents begin to generate an eerie atmosphere. After the main character gets on a crowded city bus and reaches his company, he sees his motorcycle parked at the front door, and the mood builds to a peak. His co-workers in the office, his clients, and the roadside noodle vendor all have the same reaction when they see him: "Didn't you just come by?" He calls up his girlfriend to make a date for that evening to discuss his strange day. But before he even has a chance to say anything, his girlfriend's question "Didn't we just agree to meet at eight?" sends him home in a panic to get to the bottom of the mystery. When he opens his door, another "he" is sitting at the table, and his double says darkly, "I've been waiting for you a long time; it's time to change shifts."
From self to society
The next thing he did was Black and White Club. Most of this was completed while he was doing his compulsory military service. At that time he was cut off from contact with the outside world. So Hu made himself the main actor. Using his rich imagination and different aspects of his character, he roamed through various spaces and times. He could go shopping, to the movies, or to the disco, but he had to get home before his parents (he had no freedom). He could fall in love, but his girlfriend mysteriously broke up with him. It was only when he saw her boarding a flying saucer that he knew she was an alien (the gulf between two people).
As you can observe from his later work "The Masque Club," which appeared in the magazine Sunday Comics, Hu's focus was still on his own life and experiences in growing up, including dreamy longings, secret love, friendship, oaths, and so on. He wanted to explore "how to truthfully and appropriately deal with people." It was only after he began working with a US comic book publisher in 1992 that his style and subject matter began to significantly change.
"In order to come up with something new, I decided to live in the States for a year to observe life and culture there. For example, in depicting buildings, since Americans are normally taller than Chinese, the doors are higher, so the ratio of the doors to the hallways has to be adjusted. And my style of depicting people has inclined toward the American style. In terms of contents, I take more from social issues, and use science fiction forms to exaggerate the more absurd aspects of a capitalist consumer society."
In the new world he has created, there are 23 hours of advertising each day on TV, and people buy as soon as the ads prompt them to do so. The result of the rampant use of credit cards is that even the roadside vendors take plastic. It is an era without police, when everyone must look out for himself or herself, and people consume "security products" insuring them against crime. "I'd like to order one robbery and two auto thefts." It's as common and easy as buying fast food.
When Hu gets an idea, he often just sits in a chair and lets his imagination run free constructing a story. He came up with a story even as he was being interviewed!
When he tells a story, it seems as if everything appears one frame at a time, like a comic strip. Perhaps at the end of the interview, "Kid Jerry" himself will immediately grab the nearest piece of paper (maybe the newspaper, maybe the name card just given to him) and scribble down this tale; it's his way of remembering creative ideas.
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(courtesy of China Times Culture Enterprise)
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Kid Jerry is one of the few local comic strip artists to penetrate the U S and European markets.
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