Note: To avoid redundancy, this page should not be credited to all issues published by publishers from Hong Kong (which are listed below) but specifically to all comic material that was uniquely first published in Hong Kong, translated or otherwise. For an editable and easily organizable list of comics published in Hong Kong, click here.

Definition

While it is the smallest of the three main regions population-wise, the Hong Kong comic publishing industry is contiguously the oldest of the Chinese regions. This page does not cover the unique and separate industries from Taiwan or the mainland though all three regions are sometimes lumped together as Chinese Manhua.

History

Though there were earlier precursors, the Hong Kong comic market really took off in the mid-1950's (when it was still British Hong Kong) with popular manhua including Cái Shū. For generational reasons, this coincided roughly with a boom in the nearby Japanese manga industry of the time. Manhua of this time period were published in a strip format that resulted in collections that were formatted most closely to those used in the American industry for certain newspaper strips. However, manhua are produced in color which distinguishes them from both newspaper strips and from manga. This approach and later trends reflects more of a mix of American and Japanese comics with the emphasis still on a singular author like manga but the formats more similar to the American industry.

Hong Kong manhua came to be known for its distinct focus on martial arts and one of the major works in that sphere that is still ongoing today began in the late 1960's as Xiǎo Liúmáng. The series has gone through several name changes as well as a significant publisher change, these changes were usually related to legal issues.

Many comic-publishing countries have at least one or even quite a few comic publications that reach many hundreds or over one thousand issues, due mostly to the weekly format and overall longevity of the industry. However Hong Kong is relatively unique in that unlike Japan where anthologies are the norm for publications or most European industries where anthologies are the rare works to surpass 1000 issues, Hong Kong manhua can reach those numbers with American-style single issues and more consistent singular authors over long periods of time.

Hong Kong manhua are often licensed or begin with a distinct author but can later swap that author out for another, this has led to some of the most internationally-known comics from the region being works based on Japanese video games where it was seemingly more common for Japanese video game companies to license comics abroad than in Japan itself (where manga are generally creator-owned). During the first American manga boom in the late 80's, select Hong Kong manhua were right there at the door with Jademan publishing some of its own works in English and distributing them abroad (due to the region still being British Hong Kong at the time, it was presumambly easier to have local English translations, though these issues have become relatively obscure in ensuing decades). These early English-language manhua included Drunken Fist, The Force of Buddha's Palm, Oriental Heroes and The Blood Sword. Notably while the works they were translating had been ongoing sometimes for decades, they started with the more contemporary material and simply started the English numbering from 1 when the local editions were numbered much higher.

Notable Creators and Series

Perhaps the most famous creator in Hong Kong manhua is Tony Wong who started out as a popular author in the 60's but went on to found one of the biggest publishers throuh which he created multiple popular titles and eventually took on more of an editor role. One of the more popular works published through Tony Wong but not created by him was Zhōnghuá Yīngxióng which received limited official English translations contemporarily to its publication in Hong Kong. Chen Mou created one of the longer popular modern works that is simultaneously published in Taiwan (Huǒ Fèng Liáoyuán).

Translation Industry

Compared to the Taiwanese industry, which is generally the most likely to publish official translations in a Chinese language, the Hong Kong industry is explicitly more known for its own original material but it does also publish official translations of various international works including Japanese manga. Besides the distribution, differences between the Hong Kong or Taiwanese translations can be the difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. There are various popular works however that can be published in two relatively similar editions through international divisions of the same publisher (such as Tong Li's Hong Kong division separate from the original Taiwan publisher).

List of Publishers

• 玉皇朝
• 文化傳信
• 天下出版
• 天行社出版有限公司
• 東立出版集團
• 新雅
• 新疆青少年出版社
• 海洋創作有限公司
• 壹本創作