The Coming of Age of Chinese Comics
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relationship between the comic strip and readers by enabling its readers to
read multiple levels of meaning.
40
Figure 2: the 40th episode of Mr. Wang in Shanghai Sketch 41 (Jan. 26, 1929).
In the special issue celebrating the publication of the
hundredth issue of Shanghai Sketch, Ye wrote an article
summarizing the personalities of Mr. Wang and Xiao Chen: Against
the backdrop of the “laudable and cursed Shanghai,”
Mr. Wang, just like all Shanghainese, lives in a
rented house about 30 chi wide (sankaijian). He is
a bored person in this world—living a leisure life,
thinking about all kinds of entertainment at all
times, occasionally thinking about doing some
decent business. But restrained by the whole
environment, he could not gain happiness but run
into snags and is foiled everywhere. Fortunately he
doesn’t have a very smart brain, so he seems that
doesn’t care much when he encounters troubles.
He will still act in his mistakenly clever manner to
make us laugh. (Ye, 1930: 3)