Wong Chiu Tat

Wong Chiu Tat (黃照達) is an artist whose comics are published daily by one of Hong Kong's larger newspapers, Ming Pao. His strip, called Zi Zi Za Za (translated literally) which I would translate as meaning White Noise, are typically four to six panels and comment on current social and political events. His work is a great representation of humor revealing truth; many of his strips critically analyze the Hong Kong government. Chiu Tat also recently published a book called Lonely Planet where the protagonist is a fired designer. Besides working as a professional artist, he lectures on comic and alternative art at Baptist University Hong Kong.


The blog he runs features a series of work called Hello World that consists of full pages of comics following a small boy called Wong Yut. Here, as in his strips for Ming Pao, the thoughts and reactions of the characters in the comic reflect current affairs ironically and with a grin.


My Chinese reading capability is good enough to make sense of the gist of things, but a lot of the more specific jokes and references pass me by. I enjoy the graphic style of his work without even reading the text though. It's similar to Chris Ware's work, perhaps most known for Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Chiu Tat's clean graphic sensibility stands out in a newspaper and is calling Hong Kong's attention to design by making it relevant to what people care about.