An hour with Lau Kwong-shing

A rather shy character, he nevertheless very kindly sat down for an interview with Alliance Française de Hong Kong, conducted in our Jordan library, in the frame of the French “Year of Comics” #BD2020.
Among other topics, he told us about discovering European independent comics at Angoulême in 2017, and how it deeply influenced his later work.

As we are about to wrap up our interview with Lau Kwong-shing, the young artist takes out of his bag a few booklets with colorful covers: some of his earliest published work. Entitled The World after 2400, it is a very well executed series in the purest Japanese shônen fashion, yet miles away from Lau’s current style – which mostly uses pencil and often breaks out from the usual comic book frames. Indeed, as he explains himself: “I was born in Hong Kong, but from the age of 2 to 18 years old I grew up in Japan. I was mostly influenced by Japanese culture, and I kept reading Japanese manga for most of my youth.”

If he could name but one of his major influences back then, it would be Eiichirô Oda, the author of the best-selling series One Piece. Lau admits that he had very little knowledge of European comics: “I only had heard of a comic called Tintin, but I didn’t read it.” As he explains, the Hong Kong popular comics scene is dominated by Japanese manga, and, to a lesser extent, American super-heroes comics: “I thought the whole world of comics was like that, and I didn't really imagine anything beyond.”

 The World after 2400, by Lau Kwong-shing © Ani-Wave bi-weekly

But in 2017, Lau Kwong-shing was invited to Angoulême Festival alongside seven other Hong Kong artists. Their works were presented in an exhibition called “The Pitch of Tension: Hong Kong Comics Power.” Lau found his experience there mind-blowing and inspiring: “I saw plenty of comics which were really independent and unique. It was an eye-opening experience as there were many things that I had not seen in my whole life. (…) I was like a kid in a playground!”

Away from the rather standardized techniques of Japanese manga, he discovered with amazement artworks using a wide variety of materials: “Japanese manga artists tend to use the same tools: ink and g-pen, and also draw screentones (many small dots) to form a shadow. The way they produce comics is very similar. However, for French comics, I could see the use of a wide variety of techniques: pencil, watercolor, or… you name it! It just depends on the choice of the artist. I was inspired by how artists are confident with their own medium. They keep doing it their own way and are not restricted by the industry or anything else.”

This is how Lau Kwong-Shing decided to use mostly pencil to draw, a tool he felt much more comfortable with. “I didn’t really enjoy using ink. It feels rigid when I draw. I felt that this medium did not really fit my personality. When I went to France, I saw that I could actually choose a medium that I like to use. I came back to Hong Kong and started exploring new techniques, like watercolor, color pencil, and also digital drawing…” Eventually it was the texture, as well as the organic feeling of a pencil touching paper that appealed to him the most.

At the festival, Lau Kwong-shing could also explore new ways of telling stories, which encouraged him to pursue similarly experimental endeavors. Indeed, while browsing through indie comics at Angoulême, he became acquainted with the work of American comic book artist Chris Ware, who often uses speech bubbles containing drawings instead of text, complex diagrams, and other visual means of storytelling. For him it was like discovering brand new graphic “languages.” Among his sources of inspiration in this matter, he also mentions Here by American illustrator Richard McGuire and Hallali by French artist Claire Malary, where two stories are told in parallel, each with a specific technique: ink for the first one and watercolor for the second. Last but not least, Angoulême strengthened Lau’s interest for comic book as a physical object, with properties nonexistent in digital media. He became more concerned by the choice of paper, ink, and format for the printing of his work.