Popular Culture Review Vol. 24, No. 2, Summer 2013 | Page 65

The Coming of Age of Chinese Comics 61 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)