Chapter 374 New Comics: Journey to the West

After listening to this, Zou Wenhuai immediately agreed and said, "I understand. Don't worry, Mr. Yang, I will fully cooperate with Changxing Culture Company."

"Well, that's fine, let's do it this way. Just focus on doing your own thing according to the plan." Yang Wendong said, "Only if you can continuously produce high-quality movies, my cultural industry can be successful. Otherwise, even if I control the cinemas in Asia, it will only be a capital."

Capital can help with cultural exports, but the prerequisite is that the culture must be of a certain level, just like Hollywood. From the 90s to 2010, the quality of Hollywood movies was indeed good, especially action blockbusters, which could be said to be a visual feast. Coupled with the push from the American empire behind the scenes, it has successfully occupied almost the entire global film market, and even half of the mainland's movies are American.

It wasn't until America started to do ZZ correctness and all kinds of characters that were hard to complain about appeared that Hollywood was completely done for.
Zou Wenhuai nodded and said, "Okay, I have also increased the income of film and television screenwriters, and recruited talents in this field throughout Hong Kong and trained them;

As for acting, I also arranged for people to find various martial arts masters and let them work together to conceive how to shoot a good action movie, striving to save money and achieve the best shooting effect. "

"Okay." Yang Wendong thought for a moment, and then said, "After TVB starts construction, they will also shoot martial arts TV series. At that time, you two can join forces to train talents together, and then make the best use of them to develop the entire industry."

He had negotiated with Jin Yong once before to purchase the copyright of his novels, and later had someone follow up and got them all. As for Gu Long's novels, the copyright had been purchased even earlier. Even the copyrights of some other Hong Kong martial arts novelists could be purchased as long as they were suitable.

All of this is done so that after TVB is established, we can create high-quality TV dramas with peace of mind.

After Zou Wenhuai left, Yang Wendong called Zhang Zhiyuan and Wu Hailin from Changxing Culture, one of whom was in charge of operations and the other was in charge of content.

"Is the animated film of Black Cat Sheriff ready?" Yang Wendong asked.

Zhang Zhiyuan replied: "Yes, it has been completely painted and made into negatives, but there are still some details to be fixed, but it will not affect the subsequent release plan."

"Hmm," Yang Wendong asked again, "Are the base paintings for this comic film all drawn by the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio?"

"Yes." Wu Hailin said, "We told them the content, and then they made all the comic base drawings in Shanghai. Finally, after we reviewed it, we made the negatives."

"So how about this cooperation? In terms of time and economic benefits?" Yang Wendong asked.

He also knew about this cooperation, but he had only reported it once before. For this kind of transaction that might only involve tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars, he would usually wait until things were almost done before asking about it.

Wu Hailin said: "In terms of speed, it is much faster than ours. After the communication and confirmation, the hundreds of painters in Shanghai finished the base painting in one month. If we did it, it would probably take half a year.

The same is true for the economy. Our labor costs are much higher. More importantly, it saves us a lot of manpower, so our people can focus on their own work and not miss the Chinese New Year release like the Calabash Brothers did last time.'

"Well, OK, then we will continue to cooperate with them in the future." Yang Wendong nodded and asked, "How is the sales of Changxing Comics now?"

Zhang Zhiyuan replied: “In recent months, our sales have increased significantly, whether in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia;

The main reason is that the two comics "Nezha's Brain" and "Erlang Shen Saves His Mother" have been launched. Even many adults are attracted to this kind of ancient mythological story.

Currently, weekly sales in Hong Kong are around 3.5, and weekly sales in Taiwan and Southeast Asia are around 19. It is estimated that it will soon reach more than 20.”

"Okay, I've also read this comic, it's pretty good." Yang Wendong smiled and said, "This shows that our people already have the ability to draw comics about ancient Chinese mythology."

The Yang family also has children, so naturally they would like to read comics. In the era before Ultraman was introduced to Hong Kong, which child would not like mythological characters?
Yang Wendong has also read the comics, and from his perspective as a time traveler, he thinks the quality is pretty good.

"Yes, now we have a lot of painters." Wu Hailin continued: "So Mr. Yang, I discussed with Mr. Zhang and want to continue painting classical mythology."

"So what stories do you want to draw?" Yang Wendong asked. There are so many stories in classical mythology. The Chinese civilization has a history of 5000 years, and the number of myths it has created is so huge that even modern people can hardly imagine it.

Wu Hailin said: "I plan to imitate the mainland a few years ago and draw a scene of havoc in heaven, from the birth of Sun Wukong to his suppression by Tathagata under the Five Finger Mountain."

"I agree with this." Yang Wendong nodded: "But why only draw the havoc in heaven and the later plots of Journey to the West? Why not draw them all together?"

"Draw it all together?" Wu Hailin was a little surprised, then said: "Mr. Yang, the entire plot of Journey to the West is very long."

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Longer? Isn't that better? I just hope it's longer, so that our comics can have one more serialized comic in the long run;
Moreover, this is a long comic with a plot, which is much better than Black Cat Sheriff. "

Changxing Comic Weekly has launched several comics, namely "Calabash Brothers", "Black Cat Sheriff", "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King", and "Splitting the Mountain to Save the Mother".
Among them, "Calabash Brothers" has ended, "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King" is already being serialized, and "Splitting the Mountain to Save Mother" will be released after Nezha ends. However, these are all short stories, which usually end in a few months. Only "Black Cat Sheriff" is a long-term type that can be compiled indefinitely, just like Conan in the previous life.

The advantage of such an animation is that it can have many episodes, but the disadvantage is that there is no connection between the previous and the next story, so it doesn't matter how many episodes you watch in between, you can skip around, which leads to poor user stickiness. But there is really no way, nothing can be perfect.

Although the length of a long story like Journey to the West cannot be compared to that of Conan, it will take two to three years to complete if it is written seriously. This will at least keep stable customers for a period of time. Of course, the quality must be good.
Zhang Zhiyuan also nodded and said: "Mr. Yang is right. In our current situation, we are lacking a long-term and exciting story comic. Journey to the West is a story that almost all Chinese people know, but not many people have actually read it. It is too long and the ancient Chinese is too tiring to read.

If we make the whole story into a comic book and make the content more interesting and lighthearted, it will definitely have a huge market, and even Chinese people in Taiwan and Southeast Asia will like it very much.”

"Not only in Southeast Asia, I think even Japan and South Korea will like it very much." Yang Wendong added: "The Four Great Classics are also very famous in Japan. It is said that the Japanese like Romance of the Three Kingdoms very much. Journey to the West should not be bad either."

In the original history, in 1978, the first TV series of Journey to the West was filmed by Japan, which was very popular. Later, the anime "Dragon Ball" which quoted the setting of Journey to the West was born and became popular all over the world.

Now that I am in Hong Kong, I have some conditions in my hands, whether it is comics, TV series or filming teams, so I have to make the content related to "Journey to the West" first, whether it is animation, comics or future TV series, etc.
"Yes, I heard that during World War II, Japanese officers were obsessed with the Three Kingdoms." Zhang Zhiyuan paused and said, "Maybe we can draw animations of other famous works in the future."

"The other three are not suitable for comics. Comics are for children anyway. Normal children are only interested in Journey to the West." Yang Wendong shook his head and asked, "Old Wu, do you have confidence in drawing Journey to the West?"

Wu Hailin smiled and said, "No problem, as long as someone here has time, it's definitely not a problem."

"Okay, if you need to recruit more people, just do it directly." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Lao Zhang, go talk to Zheng Zhijie and ask them to prepare some houses for Changxing Culture Company, so that when you go to Southeast Asia to recruit people in the future, you can directly arrange accommodation.

Basic facilities such as food should also be provided, so that people can directly go to Carrefour to buy some cheap supplies, which will reduce the cost of living for foreigners coming to Hong Kong, and it will also be convenient to attract these people to Hong Kong. "

As for technical talents, Changxing Group can still cultivate them internally; but it is not the same with art, which really depends on talent. Without talent, 10 years of training will not be as good as some people who are born with the talent but have not received any training.

Hong Kong has a population of just over 300 million, which inevitably leads to a shortage of people who can paint.

"Okay." Zhang Zhiyuan nodded and agreed.

Yang Wendong continued: "Then, on the one hand, you should compile the plot first, remember to simplify it, not too complicated, and tend to be a children's book;
The second thing is to draw the appearance of the main characters as quickly as possible. Although the domestic version of "Havoc in Heaven" is also good, I am still not satisfied with the appearance. It needs to be more exciting. "

Unfortunately, he couldn't draw comics, otherwise it would be much easier to just draw the appearance of the animated characters from the 90s in his previous life;
It’s not that they have to be exactly the same, but at least they have to have a strong sense of character.

"Yes, Mr. Yang." Zhang Zhiyuan and Wu Hailin both agreed.

Yang Wendong added: "Well, okay, remember, this comic is also going to be made into an animation, or a movie, so you have to consider it when making the comic."

Now that I am about to own a TV station, I will naturally prepare to put the "Journey to the West" animation on TV. As long as the quality is not bad, it will definitely be a hit, and it can also achieve cultural output of the TV industry.
PS: Please give me a monthly ticket
(End of this chapter)

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