Memories of Jademan

Back in the late eighties and early nineties I owned a large collection of manhua published by Jademan Comics, who relaunched as Jade Dynasty after a three year hiatus. Jademan was my intro to chinese comics, so they hold a special place in my heart. I later sold my collection on eBay but I still miss them.

I owned Jademan titles like Blood Sword, Blood Sword Dynasty, Drunken Fist, Force of Buddha's Palm, Iron Marshal, Jademan Collection (only #1), and Oriental Heroes,. They went out of business when their owner was put in prison for forgery, later the successor company Jade Dynasty continued some of the original titles. Both schools of Jade kicked much ass while they were around.

If you've actually held a manhua title in your hands, you know from experience that neither manga nor manhwa come anywhere close to the crazy over the top action, and beautiful intricate linework that you see in young heroes manhua. Ma Wing-shing was the primary artist on Blood Sword (Chinese Hero), and he was the guy back then, not that the man still isn't a bad motherfucker now. That dude can easily outdraw most western artists. (yes that was a deliberate guy, man, dude)

Yes he does look an awful lot like Spider-Man. No I cannot tell you why he is infringing on Marvel Comics' copyright. Blame Tony Wong, he drew the damned thing.

Tony also wrote and drew Drunken Fist which was without a doubt the worst Jademan title. It also fittingly had the shortest publication run outside of the three issue Jademan Collection.

Readers of Iron Marshal were subjected to the horrific Chinese to English translations of Henry Wright. So I basically just gave up on following any semblance of a plot, looked at the pretty pictures, and tried to crib Lee Chi Ching's art style.

Wong Yuk-long aka Tony Wong Yuk-Long, the primary artist on Oriental Heroes was actually able to cross over to the western market. Tony drew the Batman: Hong Kong one-shot, which was written by the great Doug Moench. 

I have an interesting question for you DC Comics readers, whatever happened to Benny Lo the Night-Dragon? Is he even in continuity as the "Batman of Hong Kong", has he met the Great Ten, was he killed by them? I bet that if DC had hired Tony to draw the Great Ten mini-series we would have seen a full ten issue commitment from DC Editorial.

Tony Wong Yuk-Long was also a decent Hong Kong actor, and the founder and owner of Jademan Comics (Jademan Holdings Ltd.). In 1997 he was sent to prison for forgery, two years later he was released and launched Jade Dynasty publishing.

Joe McCulloch of the Savage Critic blog did an awesome writeup of Jademan Comics here. Johnny Kaos on Live Journal has a great post here where he writes about awful manhua translation work, and comic book veteran Mike Baron's work on the Jademan books, see that post here. In The Basement Tapes #9 by Joe Casey and Matt Fraction over at Comic Book Resources, Joe and Matt also mention Mike Baron's Jademan Comics translations, this is the link. There's a great little article by Terry Hooper of Comic Bits Online entitled Manhua, Manhwa, & Manga, which also touches on Jademan Comics.

Did you know that Indian manga styled comics were called Inga? I did not know that. I just thought they were called Indian Comics, you know because they tend to be more western than eastern in nature, form, and format. The More You Know.

Don't freestyle much but I write em like such.



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