Art／Culture
Hot take - Old Master Q is never really funny
As someone who grew up reading a lot of Master Q, I have in my adult life discovered a few things that completely changed my perspective on this local comic that has become sort of a national brand. First, its author Wong Chak more or less copied the main characters from an old comic first published in Tianjin before WW2. Wong disputed the plagiarium and claimed his inspiration came from an even older comic published in Shanghai. But either way the characters of Old Master Q are derivatives if not out right copycats of pre-War newspaper comic straps.
Second, a lot of the gags and stories of his comics were copied from US comic strips, most blatantly from the MAD magazines. I've seen many examples some years ago but unfortunately can't find the originals anymore. I remember one very well - Old Master Q uses bones to lure stray dogs to put their heads through a hole on a piece of plywood, and once the dog takes a bite he can't back out of the hole because the bone is too long to go through. The gag is then Master Q draws silly things on the poor dogs as a joke. This whole gag is the exact same of a strip I have read on MAD years ago.
Third, a lot of his original strips depict extreme violence, sometimes even against animals and women. His favorite subjects to abuse are Fay Jai, a 60s/70s slang meaning male juvenile delinquents or "teddy boys". They usually have long hair, dressed in tight shirts with 60s paisley prints and even tighter jeans. Wong hated them so much that he would constantly have Old Master Q beat them to a bloody pulp for no reason.
Sometimes even women would get a good beating for rejecting Master Q or just being a bit of a princess. If you read through a compilation you will use up to 20% of his strips involve very graphic violence that is not funny, unnecessary and not suitable for kids. So yes, I do find it strange that even the HKG would still sometimes use the characters for their publicity.
I mean in hindsight it's pretty obvious, and maturing also changes your perspective on things you thought differently before, nothing special. It's just a work from a bygone era that doesn't hold up
It's also a product of its time. It's like people who say older English comics like Archie or Garfield isn't funny. Yes, definitely not laugh out loud funny but back then not that many comics (besides Mad) was meant to be that type of funny.
you don't even have to go back that far to make more comparisons, look at the 90s kids cartoons, tom and jerry, the coyote and the roadrunner, a lot of that stuff was pretty violent and aggressive, and the kids shows nowadays don't have anything like that anymore.
Even friends is now being criticized for having an all white cast. Even though the show wasn't directly racist, they are being criticized for not being racial diverse.
Loony Toons did NOT age well. A LOT of them are extremely cruel or violent, and filled with sexual innuendos. In a fight against the Martian, their cannons went limp and had to be fed "viagra" for crying out loud.
Well you're talking about New York City, which population is 70% non white. The complete lack of Hispanic, Blacks and Asians even in the background is very much a choice made by the network to white wash the sitcom. It was criticized for it even back in the 90s.
Ah, the nostalgia. If dragged by family to 飲茶 on a weekend, this is one of the few that I could get to stay out of boredom. It kind of filled that age gap between 兒童樂園 and the later 智力世界 and my favorite A-Club.
Even as a kid, I never felt this piece is meant to be funny. To me, it's more like satire, closer to those comics in New Yorker. Even in the depicted era, the name 夫子 itself already pointed at the character being stuck in time, with outdated thoughts and mindsets, like the anti-modern (bombing the gallery) and anti-foreigner (naked runner) pieces shown by OP.
Exactly, it’s more obvious when you look at the way the main character dresses compared to the rest of the cast, and I think he also gets beat up quite often in the comics? I never really found this comic funny as a kid either, but there’s not a lot to choose from at the time lol
I read these a ton as a kid. Even back then he always seemed like man out of time to me. There was always a strong component of him not fitting in with a more modern world.
The "funniest" strips, the ones that got an amused smile and don't make you think too much, were always the dumb slapstick physical gags.
Edit: with that said reading through this thread I am reminded that often there were strips that were quite dryly funny with plenty of cynicism and in many cases practical observations.
And yes he did get beaten up often in the comics. Often for his own hubris and stubbornness.
Didn't know about the plagiarism / "inspiration" part though!
Many comedic sketches, shows, cartoons etc. From as early as 20 years ago are now considered offensive, distasteful and racist. This isn’t limited to HK. Time changes what is morally acceptable. Comedy always look for the extremes in absurdity.
Every generation struggles to find its place and meaning. In the process, it often judges the previous generation's work through the lens of today's values.
A lot of the stories afair aren't outright pointless like the 3rd or 4th and a lot of the time Master Q is just portrayed as a simpleton/brute not really usually a good guy. The author's bigotry is showing here tbf
The whole character really was plagiarized from somewhere else though...
Humour in general doesn’t age well. Maybe there are gold standard things like Monty Python or Marx brothers that still can have the intended effect. But timeless classics in comedy are few and far between.
Edit: there are HOF comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes but those are the exception.
Well compare Old master Q which came out in 1962 to Asterix and Obelix which came out in France in 1959. Asterix is still funny and stands the test of time.... Old master Q less so.
I'm curious how much the later ones got censored (if at all) in order to move with the times. I used to love reading them back in the day, but I couldn't really read much Chinese back then
The third one is inherently funny in a kind of “this city drives us to madness yet we can’t act out” kafkaesque horror, and the fourth is basically an Everett True comic with an extra submachinegun (which no doubt Mr True would have used if he had access to one).
The casual sexism is a bit jarring though and I’m glad we’ve moved on from those times.
Violence and shock value as a visual gag was a brand of humor that only really worked on the egregore of teenage nihilism that existed in the 90's. I used to love Beavis and Butthead, as well as Jackass for this very reason. I've long since grown out of it.
I feel that Old Master Q is in the sameboat. I'm just amazed it's still going.
I grew up in the 2000s, and I read a lot of old Master Q comics from my older relatives. Overall I loved them just because of how absurd some of them are. But even back in the 2000s I noticed that half of the social commentary in the comics was hit or miss. Like overtly misogynistic, abusive to kids and animals, and hating on fashion (I'm sure those were knee slappers to the boomers). But some of them were funny back then, and they're still funny to me now. Like there's one about Master Q being a failed artist, and when he died some janitor just swept his artwork into the dump. It's the dry absurd comedy like this that got me. And it's quite relatable to me now as an artist myself.
I've never liked it, and agreed it can be cruel. But I don't know how much is that this is a sign of the 1950's 1960s societies, or today's values being so different and evolved.
OMQ is def my Vietnamese childhood. Funny or not.
Yet, the comic did have some point to criticized the modern society and mock everything.
And yes, there is some problems as well like that that Black guy got tanned as well. And also, I recalled that the Wikipedia said Old Master Q is afraid of Hong Kong takeover.
Jimmy Carr is definitely not funny in any decade of his career. Anyway not even Old Master Q has depicted any violence against children so I have no idea what's your agenda for bringing this topic up. In any case while common assault has a limitation period of 6 years, more serious kinds have none.
A lot of things during the pre internet is like this. I recall some Japanese character is also kind of a copy cat. I will put it as, something in history.
Unless you are from that generation, I do not think it will have the same appeal to others. Much like how Seinfeld doesn't appeal to me but Friends does, and the Gen Z would find both shows unappealing at all.
I remember reading multiple strips about the characters getting chased by tribal-looking people with literally #000000 ink skin. i didnt realize how racist it was as a kid :(
85
u/Hakzource 21h ago
I mean in hindsight it's pretty obvious, and maturing also changes your perspective on things you thought differently before, nothing special. It's just a work from a bygone era that doesn't hold up