Where are picture books widely circulated?

Picture books, also known as comics, comic books, comic books, doll books, picture books and so on. It is an ancient traditional art of Han nationality, which was finally formed after the popularization of printing in Song Dynasty. Telling stories and portraying characters with continuous pictures is a reading material suitable for all ages, with a wide range of topics and diverse contents. With the changes of the times, comic books have entered every field of life, and extended to the scrolls of literati paintings, murals of temples, folk floral New Year pictures, wood carvings and brick carvings in buildings, and so on.

The earliest comic book is the story painting of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha. Until the late Qing Dynasty, with the appearance of lithographs, the art of comic books became mature. At the end of the 20th century, influenced by talking movies, comics "spoke" on the screen. After 1930s, comic books flourished, and famous artists such as Zhu Runzhai and Zhou appeared. It is said that during the Republic of China, the names of comic books in the north and the south were different; In the south, it is called doll book, bodhisattva book and yaya book; In the north, it is called a picture book. Later, it was gradually unified and renamed comics.

In the early days of the founding of New China, comic book art developed greatly. Because of the popularity of comics, our country regards comics as an important way of educating people. During this period, comic books enriched people's cultural life. Comic books are not only an important extracurricular reading for teenagers, but also an important part of many adults' cultural entertainment. At this time, most comic books were about land reform, patriotism, increasing production, resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, publicizing the Constitution, marriage law and other national events. Some classic books, historical stories and folk stories are also welcomed by readers because of their high quality, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin.

The golden age of comic books was in the fifties and sixties. During this period, colorful comic strips emerged one after another, and the comic strip circle was called "Four Famous Paintings in Denmark" (Shen Manyun, Zhao Hongben, Qian Xiaodai and Chen Guangyi), "Four Small Famous Paintings in Denmark" (Zhao Sandao, Bi Ruhua, Yan Meihua and Xu Hongda) and "Looking South at Liu Bei" (Gu Bingxin and Liu Jiyou). Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon by Zhao Hongben and Qian Xiaodai is elegant, exquisite and lifelike. Wang Shuhui's The West Chamber is meaningful, elegant and vivid. Liu Danzhai's Qu Yuan is simple, dignified and vigorous. Wang Hongli's fifteen passes is full of reality and fantasy; Ding Binzeng and Han Heping's Flying Tigers are magnificent and fascinating. Yang Yilin's Song of Youth is different and unique. The deaf-mute painter Yi Jin's How Steel was Tempered is vivid and inspiring. He Youzhi's long comic book Great Changes in Rural Areas of Western Hunan is known as "an epoch-making work in the history of comic books in China".