Under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture, the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science of STUST held 2020 Comic Stars Achievement Exhibition on October 30. The exhibition of the achievements of this manga industry talent cultivation plan was successfully concluded at the Taipei Shinkong Mitsukoshi Station and Taichung City Office. Prof. He-Tian Yeh, Dean of the College of Digital Design at STUST, and his team invited Director Wei-Shu Lin of the Bureau of Culture of Tainan City Government, Director Shian-Ji Liu of Service Office of Tainan City Council, Special Assistant Shin-Guao Yuan of Legislator Ting-Fei Chen and many other honorable guests to attend the meeting. The exhibition showed that a manga talent cultivation boom is sweeping across Taiwan.

[Participants in the 2020 Comic Stars Achievement Exhibition—Diffusion]

In order to cultivate domestic comic talents, the Ministry of Culture launched the "Manga Industry Talent Cultivation Project" in 2013. In 2015, 2016, 2019 and this year, it was organized by the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science of STUST. From hundreds of applicants, students who have a background in comics or potential were selected for cultivation.

[The Chief Secretary of the STUST (left) and Rui-Yu Lin (right), who won the Bronze Medal of Shennong Street Theme Competition with her work “Shennong Anecdotes."]

The host of this exhibition Prof. Zhi-Cheng Sun, also the chairman of the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science of STUST, said that this year's exhibition was much more diverse than previous years. In addition to exhibiting the final works of 156 comic star students, there are more than 130 works created by 24 students in the Anguran comic workshop. In addition, this manga star theme contest took "Shennong Street" and "Plague" as the themes. Students must develop ideas based on these two themes and create lively and interesting comic stories that fited the theme and would be shown in the regular display at Shennong Street.

[Prof. Si-Jing Wu (left) from the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science at STUST presented a certificate of appreciation to Miss Mu-di Xu (right), a teacher from the Southern Basic Class.]

The Comic Stars student training course is a cross-campus one. In order to enable more people who are willing to learn about comics to receive professional training opportunities, classes offered this year not only include a comics advanced class, but also a basic class. Like the course previous year, the course content covers comic screenwriters, but also With text creation, copyright courses, comic character creation, human skeleton and actions, basic perspective and background, comic strips, online popularity management, image shaping and media charm, etc. This year it also covers courses, updated and added IP character shaping, story collection and thoughts, storyboard explanation and techniques, spatial composition storyboard operation. All these were led by Director Shiao-Di Wang, who also personally gave guidance to drama performance classes and other courses to strengthen students' understanding of body movements. The content of the courses emphasized cross-domain, diversified, and integrated courses to enhance the overall strength of the students, which were also personally directed by Director Shiao-Di Wang.

[Chairman Zhi-Cheng Sun (left) of the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science at STUST presented a certificate of appreciation to Miss Shiao-Jun, a teacher of Southern Advanced Class (right).]

In terms of publishing practice courses, in order to strengthen creators’ skills for entering the comics industry, STUST invited various publishing houses, professional cartoonists, editors, copyright law experts, screenwriters and other heavyweight teachers, including Ming-Shuan Yeh—the winner of the 10th Golden Comic Award, HOM, and other previous Golden Comic Award winners, together with such powerful illustrators as Krenz, Chi-You, and nearly 60 powerful teachers.

[Ming-Tsai Lai (left), Vice President of STUST presented the Bronze Medal of "Plague Themed Competition” to Ji-Wei Liu (right), who won the prize with her work Fire Scale."]

President Deng-Maw Lu of STUST stated that the Department of Multimedia and Computer Science of STUST had undertaken the Manga Industry Talent Cultivation Program for four consecutive years; more than 500 manga talents have been cultivated and 354 works have been created. Outstanding students continue to create, publish, or compete at home and abroad; all of them have had brilliant performances. Among them, Gene, who is now a teacher of the Comic Stars Program, was once a student of Manga Fanxing and later promoted. With her work "Guardian of Scarecrow," she won the biggest prize of Kyoto International Manga Awards this year. At the same time, she won the Excellence Award (Champion) in the illustration section with her work "Road to Celebration." Manga Comic Stars launched the first "Qianjin Angulan Manga Workshop" this year, hoping to promote Taiwanese comic creators to the international stage. Just like the theme “Diffusion” this time, comic creators will spread Taiwanese comics to every corner of the world and continue to bring out their glow and heat.

[Ming-Tsai Lai, Academic Vice President of STUST, was delivering a speech.]

[STUST held the 2020 Comic Stars Achievement Exhibition—Diffusion, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture's cartoon industry talent cultivation plan. Academic Vice President Ming-Tsai Lai of STUST (fourth from right), Director Lin Weixu of the Bureau of Culture of Tainan City Government (fourth from left), Chief Secretary of STUST Zhi-Liang Zhu (third from left), Dean He-Tian Yeh of the College of Digital Design (third from right), Chairman Zhi-Cheng Sun (second from left), Deputy Director Shian-Fei Huang (second from right) of National Taiwan Museum of History, Cartoonist Hui-Jun Tsai (first from left), and Cartoonist Mu-Di Hsu (first from right)]

[Wei-Shu Lin, Secretary of the Bureau of Culture, Tainan City Government, (left)) and Ji-Zhen Lin (right), who who won the Bronze Award of the Shennong Street Theme Competition with her work “Shennong Girl."]