On Making a Monumental Anthology: Interview with OlgaZ
GAME, a 2018 anthology published by Wild Things Press, is a tremendous accomplishment. At 260 pages, it’s the largest anthology of Chinese comics published since SC5 in 2012. But it’s not the heft of the book that makes it so impressive: The work contributed by the 24 cartoonists who appear in the book is truly outstanding, ranging from crafted, tightly plotted stories to sprawling, experimental works. Even for those of us following the indie comics community in China, there were some surprising works by lesser known cartoonists, and the overall production quality makes this volume a delight to own.
Wild Things Press, the publisher/bookstore that put out GAME, closed its doors shortly before the book was finished. Its lead architect, OlgaZ now runs a new publisher, O.Q. I spoke to OlgaZ about the process behind GAME and the closing of Wild Things Press.
ROM: There is such a huge range of styles in this anthology, from traditional comics to abstract comics, to Xiang Yata’s comic, which is literally a game the author plays, a comic made out of connect-the-dots drawings. How do you feel about the outcome, and the synergy of these works together?
OlgaZ: In my mind, this book is an incremental work. It’s not the most outstanding anthology of comics put out in China, but this was the best book that we could make at this moment. We are devoted to spreading independent comics and introducing people to the diversity of work out there, so we gave the cartoonists a lot of room to work in. We were also very grateful that some of the more seasoned cartoonists undertook bold experiments for this book. One example is Xiang Yata, who sacrificed the identifiable markers of her work to try something new.
ROM: What makes a good comic?
OlgaZ: We have recently been discussing what the most important aspect of independent comics is, and we ultimately came to the conclusion that it is the literary nature (wenxuexing) of the work. We chose this word as a standard that is more inclusive than just the narrative (xushixing) of a work. Once a comic establishes a robust language of expression, it can use this language to create a story, characters, a mood, or all of the above. Comics is a multimedia art, so strictly confining it to a vehicle for narrative narrows the medium and negates the power of experimental work.
Read the full interview here.
