A hero to the rescue

Alan Wan Siu-lun has good reason to smile: after some lean years for the comics industry, this one is set to be the best in a long time.

Wan, as director of the Hong Kong Comics and Animation Federation, has been instrumental in helping to get a lot of this year's happenings off the ground: the Hong Kong Avenue of Comics Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui has been running all year; mid-July saw the opening of Comix Home Base, a centre dedicated to comics and animation, in an historic building in Wan Chai; the annual Animation-Comic-Game (Ani-Com & Games) fair is under way now; and in November Hong Kong will host the International Comic Artist Conference.

"The government is calling this the year of comics," Wan says.

The industry hasn't always enjoyed the government's support and Wan is grateful - and somewhat amused - by the turnaround. "In the 1980s and 1990s, we made lots of money and we didn't need anyone's help. We were proud of our business because we were very successful, but the government didn't support us. Now we are working closely with the government and they really support us, but our business is downtrending," he says.

Wan knows the business inside out: in 1976, as a 14-year-old comic book fan, he knocked on the door of one of Hong Kong's best-known comic artists, Tony Wong Yuk-long, and asked for a job. Wong told him he was too young and sent him away, but Wan was determined. He got a summer job with another artist and a few months later was back in Wong's office. This time Wong decided to give him a chance.

That was the start of a more than 35-year working relationship: Wan began as one of five assistants working for Wong in his home-cum-studio in North Point. Wong encouraged him to quit school, promising him an extra HK$100 on top of his HK$300 monthly salary.

Those were the golden years for the industry, but things changed at the end of the 1990s when the internet started offering plenty of cheap entertainment options.