MANGAAKS Vol.2 – THE BAD PEN Part 2

Author’s bio:
Lai Tat Tat Wing has been very fond of comics writing since he was a kid. When he was at school, he would distribute photocopies of his works to his classmates and friends. Over the past 20 or so years, he has been experimenting the form of comics. Lai Tat Tat Wing’s comics are widely distributed in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Latvia, and France. Examples of his works are Picking Up A Pig Tale, Woody Woody Wood, The Magic Flute, A Parading Zoo in Taiwan, Far From Frustration, Poisoning the Chicken Soup, Stand Behind the Island Line, Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, East Wing West Wing, 2600 Years Ago, My Dog Can Draw, Horror Horror Woody’s Cube, The Pork Chops Inferno, The Meatballs Inferno, The Cupcakes Inferno and the more recent work Three Senses of Youth 1234. The Pork Chop Inferno received the Silver Award at the Japan International Manga Award in 2019. Lai Tat Tat Wing has also involved himself in theatre production and casted in a number of plays, e.g. children musical called The Magic Flute Playground, and The Pork Chops Inferno Theatre.

Book description:
MANGAAKS is a short comics project curated by zbfghk. There are no restrictions on the subject matter and techniques of expression, and it only depends on the concept provided by comics artists. By combining and playing with the unique texture of physical prints, it brings readers a different reading experience.

The comics and magazines we read in the past, like the newsstand comics, traditional thin volume Hong Kong comics, the Seal Collection, the thick Japanese comics magazines Shonen JUMP, the first generation of EX-am, etc., have become important nutrients to our growth. Teens at that time often went to newsstands to buy comics, and then ran back home to read them immediately, or brought them back to school to pass them round secretly in the classroom. These are also our precious memories.

In an era when the selling of local and foreign second-hand books and CDs were still popular, in order to distinguish between ‘completely new products’ and ‘second-hand products’, the second-hand products would be ‘appropriately’ damaged by the sellers for identification.

Lai Tat Tat Wing turned the above experiences and memories into the second part of THE BAD PEN. During his creation process, he set the background of the story back to the 1970s or earlier, and secretly added romantic elements which was unique to that generation. He tried to imitate the style of old comic books and magazines, including colouring the originals in black and orange, cutting one corner of the physical book off, post hand-finishing, etc. Although the 24 pages do not consist of dialogue, with the mysterious postcard related to the story, it includes a lot of information, which can cleverly stick to the theme of ‘comics’.