Chinese Name: 劉倩帆
Born: 1988
Place of Birth: Kaohsiung (Southern Taiwan)
Did You Know?
Liu Chien-fan is a full-time illustrator, comic artist, and animator who has produced animated music videos for hip-hop artist Chunyan (春豔)'s singles "Coco" and "Papa's Car," as well as drawing concert posters for American band Japanese Breakfast and Taiwanese band Vast & Hazy. In addition, she has worked with the weekly magazine "The Affairs" on a number of occasions, drawing covers and interior illustrations for special "The Anne Times" editions, and continues to publish comics independently.
Liu Chien-fan has loved painting ever since she was a child. During her early schooling, she had her first exposure to Japanese manga and began to imitate the drawings. After graduating from the Department of Commercial Design of Taichung University of Science and Technology, she took up work in a design company. She then left to study contemporary art at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts de Besançon in France. During her studies abroad, Liu was inspired by European zine-style comic magazines and influenced by German comic artists such as Aisha Franz, Josephin Ritschel, and Lasse Wandschneider, developing an interest in alternative comics. After living in France for three years, she moved to Scotland with her French husband.
Comics are her way of communicating with the world. Liu believes that through comics, her inner world can reach out and communicate with others at a deep level. She says that comics are the art of narrative, and a narrative is created by piecing together several single images. Comics, as a form, fall between literature and movies, she believes, and reading comics is like reading movies on paper. Her creative style is primarily characterized by pencil sketches. As a lover of pencil strokes, most of her creations are first drawn by hand in black and white, and then scanned into the computer for coloring. In recent years, she has also tried to use computer graphics in her creations, but still pursuing that hand-drawn look. The creative inspiration comes from the surroundings of daily life, focusing on the ordinary little stories of the little people and the helplessness in everyday life. Most of the works combine a bit of fantasy into their reality, offering another way of viewing the world.
In 2018, her work "Plongée" won second place in the Angoulême International Comics Festival—Digital Challenge, making Liu the first award winner from the Taiwan Pavilion in the seven years since the establishment of the Angoulême Comics Festival. "Plongée" describes the daily life of a girl who couldn't hear until she was fitted with an artificial ear and finally heard sound. A digital comic, "Plongée" combines moving GIFs and sound, allowing readers to experience the world transitioning from silence to sound along with the protagonist of the comic. That same year, her work "Mirror" also won the Silver Award in the New Talent category at the Festival International de Bande Bessinée de Lausanne.
Taking the opportunity offered by winning an award at the Angoulême Comic Festival in France, Liu decided to fully devote herself to the creation of comics. In November 2018, she co-founded "Bo_Ing Comix (波音漫畫誌)" with fellow comic artist Fang Ruei-yi (房瑞儀), aiming at the US market with works in both Chinese and English. Each issue includes a few short comics created around specific themes. In addition to the works of the two founders, other Taiwanese cartoonists, artists, and illustrators of different styles are also invited to join. The inaugural issue, "Island," included works by illustrator XUE, French-based cartoonists Chin Wei (覃偉) and Tseng Yao-ching (曾耀慶), and other artists, spanning a diversity of styles.
In 2020, Liu was once again selected for the Prize for Young Talent at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France, participating in the exhibition on behalf of the Taiwan Pavilion. In 2021, her comic works were collected in the Slovenian comic magazine "Stripburger," and in 2022, a solo comic anthology was published in Japan. In 2022, Liu and Fang participated in the New York Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's MoCCA Arts Fest, with both their individual works and "Bo_Ing Comix" on sale, all of which sold out. Liu Chien-fan's personal creation "Love is Plastic (愛是塑膠)" was also awarded Best of Show. The two also expressed their observations on American comics during this trip, noting how "we try to draw comics in different visual and experimental ways, and exert influence through social media. We also found that the standard of independent creators in Taiwan is actually comparable to that of their American counterparts."
(Photo courtesy of Liu Chien-fan)