The Birth of “the New Thai Comics”: Cultural Hybridity as the Result of Socio-economic conditions and International Relations

Abstract

This paper examines the formation of the “New Thai comics” considering Thai socio-economic and international relations contexts from 1960 - 1990. The formation of the new Thai comics began when Thai comic artists started to open up to new influences from Japanese manga comic styles. Due to the limitation of printing technology at the time, translating manga from Japanese to Thai was not straightforward. Graphics were not only copied but must be redrawn partly. The redrawing process demanded Thai creators to learn manga drawing skills which led to the stylistic adoption. Young Thai creators, who were also the readers of translated manga, were recruited by the publishers through participating in translated manga magazines’ drawing contests. Later translated manga publishers began to publish comics created and submitted by Thai readers. Finally, the publishers started the new Thai comic magazines in the early 1990s. The emergence of translated manga and its following influence in the development of new Thai comics are not surprising phenomena once examining within the Thai socio-economic and international relations context. The manga was only one of many Japanese products ubiquitous in the Thai market. The emergence of translated manga and the formation of the new Thai comics happened concomitantly with huge Japanese investment in the Thai economy. Japanese manga was able to win the favor of the Thai youth by appearing on many media platforms and products surrounding their everyday life. This led to stylistic adoption and cultural hybridization.