The ‘funnies’ in today’s newspapers adopt a wide variety of approaches and address a wide variety of themes. Satirical comics are a favourite format, with the more popular strips even published as comic books. In fact, comics taking a satirical look at post-war Hong Kong society have been around since the 1940s and 1950s, and many of the characters from that era are still fondly remembered by the people of Hong Kong. One prominent example is Louie Yu Tin’s creation Woo Lung Wong: with content that criticised corruption and society’s ills in scenes that portrayed the daily life of common people, it proved a massive hit with readers.

Now, more than half a century later, we have an opportunity to revisit Louie’s creations thanks in no small part to his family. After the artist’s death in 2008, they very generously donated to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum more than 80 items related to Louie’s work, including manuscripts of his comics and novels as well as other publications and film materials. The collection provides an excellent source of reference that gives us an insight into the social satire genre that enjoyed such popularity in the middle of the last century. We would like to thank Louie’s family for allowing us to showcase a selection from this invaluable collection in this exhibition.

Hong Kong Heritage Museum