Hong Kong’s Avenue of Comic Stars

Minding its own business on the eastern side of Kowloon Park is Hong Kong’s Avenue of Comic Stars – a parade of statues of iconic figures from the local comics scene, winningly presented along with plaques detailing their backstories, their creators’ biographies, and QR codes where the interested passer-by can find out more. It is palpably more fun and informative than the much more famous Avenue of [Movie] Stars on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, which is much less forgiving of anyone who needs reminding who people are.

So there’s characters I immediately recognize, like Ma Wing-shing’s Cloud (from the story usually referred to today by the title of its film adaptation, Storm Riders), along with one’s I don’t, like James Khoo’s Dragonlord, and ones I really should, like the slightly cartoony version of Bruce Lee as drawn by the comics artist Vincent Kwong.

The statues range from the hyper-real anime-influenced heroes of many a game tie-in, to the more cartoonish local figures like Wang Xiao Hu from Tiger & Dragon Heroes, and the buck-toothed spinster Sau Nga Chun. A long mural nearby includes a slew of other artists’ work, including Wong shui-pan’s comics adaptation of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, complete with a cartoon Chow Yun-fat, and Mark Tin-kit’s Tao Zero.

The entire installation is a fantastic introduction to the world of Cantonese comics, although I was not quite superheroic enough to withstand the June sunshine for long enough to take it all in. I’ll be going back when there are more clouds over Cloud.

Jonathan Clements is the author of A Brief History of China.