Exploring Hong Kong Manhua: A Century of Comics and Visual Culture

H ong Kong has for decades been Asia’s cauldron of creativity, putting its own unique spin on visual cultures as diverse as classical Chinese literati painting, Japanese manga and American comics. The intermingling of influences in the city saw the birth of a new movement that revitalised the storytelling traditions of the Chinese diaspora. Offering hope, nostalgia, and plenty of action, manhua is an unmistakable part of the cultural identity of Hongkongers around the world today.

Manhua (漫畫) is the Chinese term for “comics,” in all its many forms ranging from cartoons, caricatures, satire, comics, graphic novels to lianhuantu (連環畫) (palm-sized picture books). They take their cues from a plethora of sources: eleventh-century literati paintings, colourful Ming and Qing dynasty nian hua (年畫) woodblock prints celebrating the lunar new year, as well as satirical Qing dynasty drawings. The introduction of Western lithographic printing around the end of the nineteenth century transformed them into the modern Chinese cartoons we know today. The China Punch, based on the British journal The Punch, officially introduced Hong Kong to the satirical cartoon genre in 1867, albeit with a distinctly colonialist flavour. Political cartoonists satirising the Qing dynasty found refuge in the territory from 1895 onwards, and the genre flourished as a means of popular expression.

Several years later, in 1899, Hong Kong saw the first publication of a cartoon drawn by a Chinese person: The Situation in the Far East by Tse Tsan-tai. The Australian-born Chinese patriot and future co-founder of Hong Kong’s oldest English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, depicted the encroachment of foreign powers on China: Russia, a lumbering bear from the north; the UK, a bulldog with its tail wrapped around Shandong; a French frog grasping at Hainan and Sichuan; an American bald eagle approaching from the Philippines; and Japan, a sinister rising sun watching on.

Manhua soon received recognition as a distinctive art form and entered general vernacular after the Chinese artist and writer Feng Zikai published his first collection of cartoons, Zikai Manhua, in 1925. The onset of the Second World War propelled many Chinese cartoonists southwards towards Hong Kong, swelling the local industry’s ranks with some of the best manhua artists in the business, notably from Shanghai and Guangzhou where the Chinese cartoon market had been particularly developed.

Hong Kong’s postwar renaissance, coupled with a baby boom, saw a surge of manhua production in the 1950s. Translated American comics – from Disney’s Mickey Mouse to Warner Bros.’ Bugs Bunny – flooded the market, and local cartoonists responded by instigating a child-friendly visual language that blended Chinese subject matter with Western styles.

As the 1960s dawned, so did bestsellers such as Old Master Q (老夫子), Hong Kong’s longest-running manhua series that is still published today. With his traditional three-buttoned ma kua and a half melon cap, Old Master Q (also known as Mr. Funnybone in the movie adaptation) has become an enduring signifier of Hong Kong visual culture. Old Master Q, usually serialised in four- or six-grid comics based on traditional Chinese idioms, captured the affections of Hongkongers with his “Lion Rock spirit” and derring-do in the trickiest of situations, from a doctor moonlighting as a hairdresser in order to make ends meet (Two Jobs,1968) to conducting a cacophonic orchestra of Chinese and Western musicians (Newfashioned Band, 1968). In the guise of a teacher, scientist, farmer or even a wuxia martial artist, and accompanied by his band of merry men – loyal Big Potato, bookish Mr Chin, gold-digging Miss Chan, and miserly Old Chiu – Old Master Q met hardships and tricky cultural dilemmas head-on with pragmatism and unfailing good humour.

“He would laugh like hell when he was drawing,” recalled Joseph Wong, son of Old Master Q’s original creator, Alfonso Wong (1923-2017). Born in Tianjin, Wong moved to Hong Kong in 1956, and began drawing comic strips for various local newspapers under different aliases. Old Master Q first appeared in 1962 and was serialised under his son Joseph’s name. Some 18,000 comics later, Wong formally handed over the reins to son, who has continued creating Old Master Q comics since 1995. As life in Hong Kong evolved, so did the entanglements of Old Master Q: wealth inequality, crime, language barriers, modern art, and public safety announcements. With spare, elegant lines, they conjured up resonating images encapsulating the collective memory of Hong Kong and the Chinese diaspora worldwide.

Old Master Q had arrived amid an industry-wide existential challenge, with the rampant distribution of unauthorised Japanese manga and Taiwanese comics that offered more content for the same price. In response, Hong Kong manhua upped its dimensions to five by seven inches (still the most common size for the medium today) as well as expanding the number of pages. But the short-term success of this strategy was not enough to counter the threat of television, which began broadcasting to Hong Kong households in 1967.

In response, Hong Kong manhua pivoted towards kung fu, riding on the coattails of martial arts mania fuelled by Bruce Lee’s box office domination of the early 1970s. This new genre promised both gripping storytelling and graphic violence, influenced by American action comics and Japanese manga. Bestselling comics such as Little Vagabond (1968) and Little Rascals (1970) by Tony Wong portrayed life in Hong Kong’s public housing projects and their criminal underbelly, with rough justice meted out by a band of youthful protagonists. Its dubious depictions of Hong Kong life alarmed the Hong Kong government, who quickly enacted an Indecent Publications Law in 1975 targeting such publications. Little Rascals (which literally translates to “Little Gangsters”) was soon renamed the more ambiguous Oriental Heroes, whilst its heroes were relocated to Japan. Violence was more veiled, and plotlines became more blatantly fictionalised. This law was later amended when violent “three-part stories” set in Hong Kong such as Teddy Boy, Portland Street and Red Light District (all 1992) gained traction in the early 1990s, restricting these publications to adult readers and requiring publishers to seal them in a wrapper with a warning label.

The 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a multiplicity of genres and perspectives proliferate in Hong Kong. Japanese anime sensations Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon aired consecutively in Hong Kong in 1989 and 1992, their hand-drawn storylines about individuals destined for a greater purpose tapping into the mood of a generation yearning for escapism and personal and societal transformation as the final years of the Cold War drew to a close and global power structure reconfigured. Their vibrant and surreal colouring, emotive characters, and heartfelt explorations of fantasy, sci-fi, romance and horror seized the hearts and minds of adults and children around the world. With the advent of Japanese anime fever, comic art was no longer on the fringes of mainstream culture, but firmly at its centre.

Lee Chi Ching became the first Hong Kong manhua artist to break into the Japanese market with his epic 14-volume work, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1991-1999). His work mythologised legendary Chinese heroes such Guan Yu, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, whilst also endowing them with humanity – a quizzical glance, indignant surprise, a clenched jaw in the midst of a bloody battle. Using black ink and simple colour washes of mauve, blush or cerulean, Lee brought these characters to life in a way that was simultaneously epic and personal.

Lee’s distinctive ink wash style famously became the aesthetic face of the wuxia (literally “martial hero”) novels of Louis Cha, the superstar writer better known by his pen name of Jin Yong. Lee created artwork for Cha’s saga trilogy The Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳, 1957); The Return of the Condor Heroes (神鵰俠侶, 1959); and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (倚天屠龍記, 1961) and other serialised novels such as Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1963) and The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (1967). Showcasing an incomparable ability to translate Chinese historical themes and cultural virtues of chivalry and humanity into stirring cinematic visions of the ancient land of his forefathers, Lee’s work rightfully earned Hong Kong manhua a place on the global stage, and he was awarded the inaugural Japan International Manga Award in 2007.

The runaway success in 2024 of the Hong Kong blockbuster film Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In focused attention on Andy Seto’s manhua adaptation of Yuyi’s 2010 novel City of Darkness. One of Hong Kong’s great contemporary comic artists, Seto conjured up the cramped, gangster-ridden world of 1980s Kowloon Walled City over 32 issues in 2010 and 100 issues in the 2011 sequel. Fascination with the now-demolished enclave of Kowloon Walled City reached fever-pitch with Seto’s work. His meticulous style became synonymous with this modern vision of good and evil, played out in painstaking motion-line strokes and shiny, airbrushed muscles. Portraying the lives of the marginalised and the lawless, striding through narrow streets crowded in by vertiginous buildings or slouched on folded metal chairs inside bamboo theatres, Seto channels the nostalgic mood of Hongkongers in search of identity, purpose and belonging at a time of rapid urbanisation and shifting cultural values. Seto was honoured with the Bronze Prize at the 2014 Japan International Manga Award.

As Hong Kong manhua continues its ascent in the global consciousness, its quietly enduring messages of resilience and mutual aid amidst adversity continue to find a broader audience of fans around the world. Our Bygone Days, a show of more than 100 works by Hong Kong’s pioneering manhua artists including original comic cover drawings and strips, animation cels, and unique art pieces created exclusively for this selling exhibition, will be on view at Sotheby’s Maison until 10 January 2026.