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Lite picture books for adults
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Young adults are devouring picture books with simple stories, minimal words and plentiful illustrations. Young women love them but are they “mental garbage?” Qu Zhi reads up.
Illustrated books are not for children anymore. Heavily illustrated story books for young adults are increasingly popular, especially for young women who like romances.
This is the age of the lite picture book — simple stories in few words, even captions, and lots of pictures that tell the story and evoke moods.
“When it comes to books, I always prefer those with illustrations, no matter what genre,” says Sheng Hong, an 18-year-old student. “They make stories more vivid and easy to read.”
She even tackled the classic “A Dream of Red Mansions,” just because of the illustrations.
Sheng is the target audience, the key demographic that illustrators, writers and publishers appeal to. The philosophy for this latest in fast-food culture is fewer words and more images.
These picture books target China’s 1980s generation.
“Like it or not, picture books are the trend,” Zhang Xuesong, deputy editor-in-chief of Insight Media, tells Shanghai Daily.
At this year’s Shanghai Book Fair in mid-August, illustrated books were extremely popular.
Illustrator Du Mimi launched “A Collection of Dreams,” her computer drawings of life dreams that friends and strangers shared with her and that she encountered on the Internet. Each has a short caption.
Illustrator Ke Jian launched his picture book, “A Collection of Saying Good Night.” He writes a short text.
The large crowd that turned out surprised authors and publishers. Book-signing was extended until 9pm.
Hu Zhengbang, 20, stood in line with a stack of picture books he had not read. He just wanted them signed.
Another popular illustrated book for the 1980s-generation is “Ali’s Dream Castle” by Xu Han, about a little red fox that wears white trousers and has fanciful dreams.
The book in Chinese sold more than 300,000 copies in 2009 when it was published; it has reprinted every year since. It is also out in English.
“It’s (“Dream Castle”) a super-bestseller,” Zhang tells Shanghai Daily. The little red fox Ali is so popular that even people who don’t know the story see it as emoticons on social networks including Wechat and QQ.
Much of the picture book phenomenon was triggered by noted Taiwanese illustrator and writer Jimmy Liao, says Zheng Yi, from the Central Radio & TV University Press Co Ltd.
In 1999, Liao’s heavily illustrated picture book, “A Chance of Sunshine,” was voted one of the year’s most influential books by Taiwanese bookstore chain Kingstone. It was also a hit on the mainland.
It’s about a young man and woman who see each other in their neighborhood every day. Despite their interest in one another, they do not take the risk of reaching out and speaking as they pass each other.
“The picture book has turned the traditional ways of reading upside down while it makes reading more relaxing and fits the tempo of modern lives,” Liao said in an early interview. “And I believe good picture books can pass from generation to generation.”
Liao’s work is considered excellent, but many of the books by imitators are not. “Jimmy Liao gives hope to many illustrators,” says Du the illustrator. Last year she quit her job as an artist at an advertising company to become a freelance illustrator. The pay isn’t much, “but I’m happy and it’s satisfying,” she says.
“Writers can be very stubborn and don’t care what an illustrator thinks,” Du says. “Even though my pictures work for his writings, I am not a robot to merely follow the author’s directions,” she says.
The problem of communicating with some authors is her biggest difficulty.
For Liao, Du and other illustrators, words are more like an aside.
“This is the time of ‘reading images’,” Zheng says.
“At first illustration was just used as an explanation, then for artistic contrast, but today illustrations and writings are complementary,” Du says.
Even “A Brief History of Time” (1988) by British physicist Stephen Hawking is heavily illustrated, as is a 2003 edition of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” with illustrations by Peter Kuper.
E-books, on the other hand, are not yet heavily illustrated.
“When it comes to illustrations, customers are more willing to buy paper books,” Zhang says. “A good picture book helps the reader appreciate visual and inner beauty.”
As writers and illustrators flock to the picture book market, quality inevitably declines.
Since 2002, Hu Xiaojiang has been a freelance illustrator but he no longer wants to “waste” his time and energy on picture books. He cites the low quality of the content, as well as low pay. Now he illustrates for magazines.
“Illustrations should be like movies for the writing, with creativity and deep thoughts,” he says. “They should be regarded as another stream of content.”
He calls standard picture books these days “mental garbage.”
Readers tend to like a relatively homogenous type of picture books — warm and sentimental in tone, dreamy and uplifting or slightly sad, Zhang observes
“Most of our readers are female who let these feelings and emotions overflow quickly,” he says in frustration.
“I know this (content) is a problem. But the group of 20- to 25-year-old women is the biggest target and potential market for picture books,” says Zheng, from Central Radio & TV University Press. “You have to serve your master well.”
Xie Peng, a well-known caricaturist, says editors should give more creative freedom to the art editors of books.
“The writing can be bad as fast-food culture, nevertheless, it can be redeemed by a responsible and thoughtful illustrator,” Taiwanese illustrator Liao once said.
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