The remaking of revolutionary literature: a comic series on peasant uprising in the post-revolutionary era

Abstract

This paper focuses on Li Zicheng, a serial long comic story in China’s 1980s. The work was released between the post-Mao and pre-89 eras in the history of the Socialist China, a period known for the increasing liberalization of its society. Meanwhile, it was derived from a renowned socialist literary work of the 1960s, which uses the theme of ancient peasant wars as a metaphor for modern communist revolution and catering to the prevailing ideology of the time. Focusing on visuality, this study concludes through visual grammar analysis that the revolutionary narrative is implicitly diminished in the comics’ narrative space. This finding reveals a microcosm of the way in which literary artists in the early years of reform and opening up received and adapted the revolutionary cultural heritage of the Mao era. With this conclusion the paper attempts to offer an innovative way of interpreting the inheritance and transformation of Chinese socialist culture in the post-revolutionary transition era.

Keywords

• Li Zicheng
• Lianhuanhua
• revolutionary narrative
• peasant uprising
• traditional literature
• visual adaptation