Well-known Japanese online art-sharing platform Pixiv, in collaboration with Taiwan's Gaea Books, launched "Artists in Taiwan (台灣插畫．漫畫家藝術精選)," a book that is described as the most extensive catalogue on Taiwanese manga artists in the history of Taiwan.
"Artists in Taiwan" presents 200 pages of fully colored illustrations, animations, comics and other such original works of art. The book also provides information including Pixiv, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts of each manga artist.
A well-known art creation platform, Pixiv allows users to submit their own works, which include illustrations, comics, and novels. Many Taiwanese illustrators would submit their works and interact with readers through Pixiv. According to statistics, the number of Pixiv users has topped 60 million, of which 2 million of them use traditional Chinese characters.
"Artists in Taiwan" was produced under the supervision of Pixiv, adopting the Japanese book formatting style. Pixiv points out that while planning for this book, the inspiration was drawn from Pixiv's concept of "creating a place that makes creative activities more interesting." Taiwan was chosen as the overseas starting point in its overarching effort to collaborate with publishers and creators from all over the world.
Pixiv hopes that through the collection of illustrations presented in the book, creators from all over the world will be able to transcend geographical and linguistic boundaries in the promotion of their works, further fostering cross-cultural exchange.
Lee Ya-lun (李亞倫), comics department editor-in-chief of Gaea Books, indicated that the book features the artworks and biographies of 83 Taiwanese manga artists. Notable mentions include Loiza Chen, who designed the book cover for the 20th anniversary edition of Harry Potter published in Taiwan; popular YouTuber Canking (空罐王); VOFAN, who illustrated for the "Monogatari series (物語系列)" by Japanese manga author Nisio Isin (西尾維新); Gao Yan (高妍), who collaborated with Haruki Murakami; and Kiya (張季雅) among others.
The cover for this book was produced by VOFAN, an artist who is adept at bringing out lighting contrast in his illustrations. In the book, VOFAN and another manga artist Say HANa laid out their creative work experiences, their back-stories while collaborating, and practical tips for new artists.
Pixiv, Gaea Books and Eslite Xinyi bookstore in Taipei will also be holding a special exhibition titled "Artists in Taiwan" from March 2 to 14. This will be the first time Pixiv holds an exhibition overseas. "Artists in Taiwan" will be available in major book retailers from March 9.
Photo courtesy of Gaea Books.