Alfonso Wong (王家禧), known for his Chinese-language comic books Old Master Q (老夫子), died in California on Sunday of multiple organ failure. He was 93.
OMQ ZMedia Ltd (老夫子哈媒體) founder Wong Chak (王澤), who is Wong’s son, announced his death in the US.
Alfonso Wong used the pen name Wong Chak to publish the Old Master Q comic books.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
“My life was like a comic book, so I tried to let Old Master Q, which is me, do funny things to entertain readers,” Alfonso Wong said.
Wong Chak, a retired architecture professor from Shih Chien University, continued his father’s comic book legacy by taking over his creative work in 1995.
He said that his father was a artist who was filled with vitality and imagination.
“The Old Master Q that he created is an illustration of everyday life and a wild imagination,” Wong Chak said in a statement published by OMQ ZMedia.
To distinguish between Wong and his son, readers often addressed Alfonso Wong as “Wong Chak Senior” or “Wong Chak the cartoonist.” Wong Chak was often called “Wong Chak Junior” or “Wong Chak the architect.”
Born in Tianjin, China, in 1925, Alfonso Wong relocated to Hong Kong in 1956. Prior to publishing Old Master Q, he used different pen names in newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong while working as an illustrator for a church publication.
OMQ ZMedia said the Old Master Q comic book series was loved by readers of different generations because each character is distinctive.
“Alfonso Wong drew inspiration from his years as a student studying Western art at Fu Jen Catholic University when it was still in Beijing. He was interested in swimming, diving, figure skating and hunting. Because of this he was able to portray these characteristics in his characters when they were playing sports or fishing or sculpting,” the company said.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Alfonso Wong’s comics took a critical, yet humorous view on the changes facing Hong Kong, including the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997.
The company said that Alfonso Wong was ambidextrous because of his training as a drummer. When he moved to California, he developed an interest in fishing and pottery, the company said.
Despite the popularity of Old Master Q spanning five decades, critics in China have accused Alfonso Wong of plagiarizing the work of Chinese comic book artist Peng Ti (朋弟), who they said first created characters like Old Master Q and Big Sweet Potato (大番薯) in his comic books.
According to Chinese critics, Ti’s comic books were popular between 1937 and 1943.
He published his first comic titled Old White Potato in 1938.
However, the artist was forced to abandon drawing in the 1950s after being labeled a right-winger by the Chinese Communist Party.
Critics say that Alfonso Wong must have read Ti’s comic books and claimed the characters as his own.
While Alfonso Wong was extremely popular, critics said that Ti was poor and sick until he died alone.
OMQ ZMedia have denied all allegations questioning the originality of Alfonso Wong’s work.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS