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Trends and Buzz
Putting ads on adult webcomics on Chinese blogsPosted by Joel Martinsen, June 9, 2006 1:13 PM
![]() High-heeled, collared erhu player from Demidov's webcomic Comics in China are generally for kids and teens and generally appear in print. However, comics have appeared online, and others are targeted at adults. Some, like Cai Feng's "Love Sketchbook" series, are both. The webcomic phenomenon is just getting off the ground. An artist going by the name of Demidov writes a webcomic on a Sohu blog, whose bondage and fetish-related contents are particularly interesting in light of the blog industry's decency standards. According to the Shanghai weekly The Bund, Demidov's comic is the most popular web comic at present by a fairly large margin. The Bund interviewed Demidov about cartooning, selling advertising, and his adult subject matter. Ya Xiaonuan: Children can't understand my comicsby Wang Xiaoguang / The BundIn February of this year, Beijinger Ya Xiaonuan posted his first journal entry on his blog, "Warm Cliffs, Cold Chains" [title taken from Mao Zedong's poem, "Long March"]. This entry differed from the standard blog format of text or photos - it was a drawing, of a girl wearing a long dress. This girl now wears World Cup-themed uniforms that show her legs. During the four months from winter to early summer, the blog has attracted 140,000 hits; what has attracted so many viewers is Ya Xiaonuan's continually updated comic strips (reportedly these short pieces will be connected into a complete story). In addition to Ya Xiaonuan, who goes by the pseudonym Demidov, there are other amateur cartoonists who have started serializing their works on blogs, but he is unquestionably the most successful to date. In China, comics were once considered, along with animated films, to be "things that only kids watch," something that was felt to be a problem by lots of people who enjoy animation. Now, Ya Xiaonuan's works, which are probably only understandable to adults, might serve as an annotation to this statement. Aside from regular serialization, Ya Xiaonuan has begun to sell illustrated ads on his site; an ad is in the form of a fixed-size panel in the midst of the comic. Though small, this can be said to be an innovation. This paper conducted an interview with this popular figure in cartooning circles. The Bund: At first, how did you come to think of serializing comics on a blog? The Bund: About how much time does it take to update your blog? The Bund: Have you studied cartooning formally? Or did you pick it up as a hobby? The Bund: Are you drawing these pieces to make money? The Bund: Sex and adult themes occupy a large proportion of the contents of your comics. Is this what you mean by satisfying your readers? The Bund: What happens if children see your comics? The Bund: This is perhaps the division between erotica and adult themes. The remote-control vibrator, high heels, and such - are you normally interested in those things? In regards to "satisfying the readers," Demidov estimates that his readership is 98% interested in sex, 1.9% interested in other things, and just 0.1% interested in the life of the artist. He puts the current composition of his comic at 60% sex, 40% other. He says that the internal life of the author is synonmous with sex, and hence makes up 60% of the comic. Links and Sources
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