CHEN UEN

Renowned for his unique illustrations merging traditional Chinese brushstroke, watercolor painting, and modern comic-book style, legendary comics artist and novelist Chen Uen was born on December 27, 1958 in Daxi, Taoyuan County, Taiwan. A graduate of Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School, Mr. Chen worked as an interior designer before his first comic series, Warrior Panther , was published in China Times Weekly in 1983. Encouraged by positive reviews, he went on to publish Fighting Against God , The Armor General , and the series based on the “Biog- raphies of the Retainer-Assassins” in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, Legends of Assassins .

In addition to the impact on comic-book culture in Taiwan, these early works were also success- ful and influential in Hong Kong. In 1989 Mr. Chen’s collaboration as illustrator with author Ma Li produced the innovative and hugely successful wuxia graphic novel Abi Sword , which was published in the magazine Sunday Comics (and has since been translated into English).

Shortly after, Chen was invited by the Japanese company Kodansha to publish in their popular comic magazine Morning. In 1990 installments of The Heroes of Eastern Zhou began appearing in Morning, causing a sensation. For this work, Chen Uen was honored with the Japanese Cartoonists Association Excellence Award in 1991, becoming the first non-Japanese artist to receive this award.

Chen Uen continued to garner rave reviews from Japanese news media, including Asahi Shim- bun, and achieved widespread popularity across the nation. Following The Heroes of Eastern Zhou several other major works were published in Japan, including Magical Super Asia, Wan- Suei: The Box of Destiny , and Qin Shihuang: The First Emperor. In Japan, in addition to his pub- lishing career, Chen was invited by the electronic gaming company Game Arts to serve as artis- tic designer for a PlayStation game named after him. The game, Chen Uen’s Three Kingdoms , was released in 2001.

Around the year 2000, Chen Uen shifted his focus back to the Chinese-language market, col- laborating with the Hong Kong publishing powerhouse Jade Dynasty Group to produce the series Manga Thunderbolt, based on characters from Taiwan’s Pili Puppet drama TV series . He provided the illustrations for his final comic work, a series by Hong Kong author Ma Wing- shing , The Storm Riders: Untouchable . Chen then went on to play a lead role in the artistic development of China’s internet-based gaming industry, with projects including San Guo Online, Moon Online , and God of Destiny In 2012, he led 20 Taiwanese comics artists to France’s Angouleme International Comics Festival.

Chen Uen passed away on March 26, 2017, at the age of 58. In 2018, he was the first comics artist ever to be featured in an exhibition at Taiwan’s National Palace Museum. Taiwan’s Dala Publishing Company in 2018 released a commemorative anthology of his life and art, Hero Alone: Inside Chen Uen’s World , and is in the process of publishing new editions of the artist’s complete comic works.