Related stories

2006 'Arts from Our Land' Competition China's Int'l Arts and Entertainment Group Founded Labyrinths Comics and Contemporary Visual Arts 'Meet in Beijing' Arts Festival The 16th Macao Arts Festival 2005

Absolute Kids

There are all kinds of kids: some are born naughty, and some are trained to win every competition. Some have problems with their parents; some are educated to live as pretentious aristocrats. Absolute Kids, a new comic book by Zhu Deyong, targets children who don’t want to grow up and adults who want to return to their childhoods. In the book’s preface Zhu urges people to “become a kid again every day,” if only to “experience the incredibility of life again.”

Zhu Deyong, the best known cartoonist in Taiwan, has sold more than seven million copies of comic works in Taiwan and on the Chinese mainland during the past 20 years. All his works involve humorous drawings of city lives and loves. His most popular series include: Family Warfare （双响炮）, which examines the inevitable fight between man and women; Pink Ladies（粉红女郎）, which explore the pursuits and puzzles of love from a women’s point of view; The Hipster（醋溜族）, which shows the cool attitudes of today's young, single adults. Each of his works is a great hit in the book market, and many have been adapted for TV or the stage.

Zhu Deyong is respected in both cultural and pop-cultural circles, since his works are not only entertaining, but also philosophically sharp. In Absolute Kid, he vividly depicts the lives of children, making comparisons with the absurdity of the adult world. “All adults are competitive,” he points out. “If they cannot win themselves, they pass the pressure to their kids.”

What is like being an absolute kid?

“If a kid has an opportunity to make a wish with a magic lantern," he writes, “A fat kid would ask for more candy. A playful kid would ask for more toys. A good kid would ask to be number one. An absolute kid, however, would ask for ten more lanterns.”

Absolute Kids（《绝对小孩》）

By Zhu Deyong（朱德庸）

Shanghai Arts Publishing House (上海文艺出版社)  November 2007, 28 yuan