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Xu Mao-song (also known as Xu Song-shan at the early stage), has been specialized in long edition serial cartoon creation for 50 years now. The works he created were countless.
In recent years, he has become a Buddhism painting master. He published nearly 100 sets of warrior cartoons in 1960s, which was a resounding success. He was born in Qian Tou Villlage, Kaohsiung in 1937. After he graduated from the middle school, he worked at the Agriculture Association. In 1958, he was recommended by his brother, comic artist Xu Hua Liang to work in Yi Sheng Book Store, which started his career as a comic artist. When he was interviewed by the reporter from the CNA, he expressed his view that the discontinuation of cartoon talents had become a problem in Taiwan, which worried comic artists of the older generation.
" It was when I was in the army that I have started practicing to draw cartoons. It was hard in the army. I often drew some figures to contribute to publication in the army. It was truly not easy that I was able to publish the Legend of Deification after I retired from the army.”, Xu Mao-song said.
In the 1960s, Xu Mao Song combined the essence of puppetry and the popular theme of the movies and created his warrior cartoons, which were very novel and outstanding at that time. But his warrior cartoons were too resounding to be acceptable by the government. The government issued the order of Cartoon Counseling Review and started to impose audit on the cartoons. That was the disaster for local cartoons. But Xu Mao-song did not give up. He even set up his own studio and took up the role of director for Yi Sheng Book Store. This was considered to be the peak period in Xu Mao-song’s life.
After the 1970s, Xu Mao-song left the publishing house and retreated from the cartoon circle and devoted himself to religion research. He published many paintings on religion. Encouraged by the famous asphalt painter, Qiu Xi-qin, he devoted himself in the pure arts and painted Buddha with cinnaba. A few painting exhibition were held. He became a great master in painting Buddha.
Xu Mao-song was very worried about current local cartoon industry which according to him, was almost in the worst in history. He was most concerned about not having the creation room for the young comic artists. “Besides, cartoon teaching is not sound and efficient in Taiwan, which has made it impossible for Taiwan to foster comic artists with local characteristics. In the end, the comic artists in Taiwan will just follow the Japanese style and we will fall in the vicious circle”, Xu Mao-song said.
“In the past, the government would control publication of cartoons through the NICT. The government would invite some of the comic artists to produce excellent cartoons which are good for us both physically and spiritually. But now the government has stopped doing this in the past two years. I think the government is not paying enough attention to the development of cartoon in Taiwan. This will be the bottleneck of development of local cartoon. ”
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