With the mention of Asian comics, most would instantly think of the Japanese tradition of manga—but not of much else. Thailand certainly doesn’t come to mind as a hotbed of creativity in the medium, but, like other Asian countries, it has developed a rich and unique comics tradition over the twentieth century, one that, despite the adversities, is still alive, and currently taking new, exciting directions. 

However, the Thai comics tradition is just as little known at home as it is abroad. That’s something Bangkok-based Belgian scholar Nicolas Verstappen has been trying to change. Since moving to Thailand in 2014, he studied, cataloged, and even recovered lost parts of Thai comics history.

In 2021, Verstappen published The Art of Thai Comics, the most comprehensive book to date on the topic, in which he organizes his findings in chronological order, discussing the life and examining the works of fifty prominent Thai comics artists. The book also gives you a clear exposition of the political and social background that affected their production and includes a wonderful assortment of visual references, mostly taken from Verstappen’s personal archives.

Verstappen’s native Belgium has a longstanding comics tradition, ranked among the world’s most respected, largely thanks to young globetrotting reporter Tintin. “Comics in Belgium are considered the ninth art, and reading them is a tradition passed through generations, from grandfather to father to son,” he says. He himself grew up “obsessed with comics,” as he puts it, and, by his teen years, he was very familiar with most American and Japanese titles, including Buddha by Tezuka Osamu.

To take his enthusiasm further, since there was no comics department in Belgian universities, Verstappen studied art history, focusing on medieval and contemporary art, followed by a master’s in cinema studies, including film history and scriptwriting. It was his way of finding an academic path related to comics, even if loosely. Everything was complemented by an extensive side curriculum of personal studies.

Coincidentally, the same day he presented his master’s thesis, he was offered a job at his favorite comic bookshop in Brussels, Multi BD. “I worked there for fifteen years with access to comics from all around the world, from underground to mainstream, and in almost all existing formats,” he recalls. Simultaneously, Verstappen began to interview his favorite artists from Belgium and abroad and make zines out of his conversations. He also started to research deeply how psychic trauma is shown through comics.

Even with all that, his first contact with Thai comics was when he visited Bangkok for the first time, still as a tourist, and caught sight of a cheap one Baht comic in a 7-Eleven. Years later, already living in the city and working as a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University, Verstappen was entrusted with the seemingly straightforward task of writing a report on a subject hardly covered until then: the origins of Thai comics. “It was like opening pandora’s box,” he says. “Suddenly, I started to dig and discover that approximately seventy to eighty years of Thai comics had just been forgotten, almost completely lost.”

Verstappen’s report evolved into a broader research project. He was invited by publishing house River Books to write a book on Thai comics altogether. “It took about six years to complete. There was always more to dig. I would work for a few months on one artist and then discover another artist, and then, two months later, another artist. It took me five years to reach a point of feeling confident that I had a good overview of the history of Thai comics,” Verstappen says. 

The Art of Thai Comics is more than a book about comics. It’s a book on the history of Thai society reflected in comics art. Throughout its 287 pages and in the works they feature, readers are given insight into the relations, struggles, changes, and setbacks that marked Thai society across all sectors over the past 120 years. “The history of Thai comics is the history of ups and downs,” Verstappen says. Arguably, the same could be said about the history of Thailand.

Royal Beginnings

Based on his findings, Verstappen relates the origins of Thai comics to members of Siamese nobility who traveled to Europe and were exposed to satirical art in the early 20th century. He mentions, in particular, King Vajiravudh, or Rama VI, who was educated in England and took an interest in political cartooning there. 

Interestingly, back in Siam, Vajiravudh drew caricatures for the pages of royal gazettes and promoted drawing competitions among artists. “This is something I’ve seen nowhere else; the king was an artist himself and created cartoons,” Verstappen says, adding that this led to the first generation of political and editorial cartoonists in Siam in the 1920s.

It backfired though: the same cartoonists used their work to criticize the absolute monarchy of the time in the local press. Their ideas and objections were, for the first time, accessible to those who could not read and had a significant impact on general discontent, leading to the 1932 revolution, which inaugurated the now-established constitutional monarchy.

Historical Findings & a Uniquely Thai Genre

Ironically, press censorship was only intensified in the following decade. In the 1930s, a shorter satirical format gave way to longer-form, sometimes serialized comics. More visually sophisticated and realistic, these were primarily adaptations of epic Thai poems and folktales, but also stories that reflected the diverse spectrum of ethnicities and cultures that existed in the Kingdom. They also sowed a modern European lifestyle that began to penetrate Bangkok.

The misogynistic and racist tendencies of the time are evident in such comics, especially when viewed a century later. For instance, in some of them, we can clearly recognize the unbecoming place of women in society and the bigotry that took place against Chinese immigrants.

Since Verstappen began working on the book, one name represented a mystery: Jamnong Rodari. He was held as an influential comics artist by everyone Verstappen spoke to about his project, but an artist whose work had virtually disappeared. “I had been researching for five years, and everybody was talking about his comics from 1932, but I had never seen any images. There was nothing available by Rodari in any collection, not one single surviving page,” Verstappen says.

“Then, a miracle happened,” he says. He received a call that someone had found a national treasure while cleaning an old attic: a box containing 1700 pages of 1930s comics including the lost works of Rodari. “It was an invaluable discovery. It changed history because everyone believed that Hem Vejakorn was the first to draw realistic cartoons, but Rodari did that before.” However, the discovery meant a lot more work for him. Since it all happened rather late, as he was about to finish the book, he had to revise the entire structure and connect the pieces once again.

Considering how easy it is for thin newspaper pages to deteriorate in the Thai climate, especially the humid monsoon months, it was remarkable to find Rodari’s work still kept in good condition. Adding to the mystery and allure of the find, the newspaper pages with the comics had been, at some point, amended with other pieces of paper glued to their backs. These pieces contained notes in English about other literary works. Who took them and who kept those Rodari specimens in the first place is still a mystery.

By the late 1930s, something truly unique to Thailand appeared in the medium. Prayoon Chanyawongse, considered the “king of Thai comics,” established the cartoon likay, a genre that places the reader inside the comics as if they were watching a performance of improvised theater. Likay is a uniquely Thai theater practice in which the audience takes part in the play’s direction, guiding the actors to improvise skits. “You can interrupt the play whenever you want,” Verstappen explains. “What’s amazing is that there is the space and freedom to make political commentaries during the play. Most of the stories were folktales, but you could add some references to modern times. It’s really a free form, and Prayoon was the one to use that and transfer it into comics.” 

Cartoon likay is a dynamic, layered genre. Through the comics panels, the reader is taken into a play that switches from the setting of the theater to another embedded folk narrative, a device that emulates the actual likay experience. In a classical likay theater performance, the actors play with tones and the availability of homophones in the Thai language to make political commentaries. Likewise, Chanyawongse used this aspect to play with words and critique the abuse of power of the government of his time. These scathing critiques made him famous nationwide.

“Everyone saw these comics in the newspapers. They were sold in the villages; someone would buy a copy and pass it around. The higher classes would also read them, including a group of really defiant journalists and artists in Bangkok. Prayoon was the top star of his time,” Verstappen says. Chanyawongse’s work continued to be widely appreciated across society in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Thai tradition of comics at large also gained traction in those decades. “By the early 1960s, comics were everywhere, and everybody read them; children and adults. They become a part of daily life in Thailand,” Verstappen says.

Rise of Middle Class, War, and Horror

In the late 1960s and 1970s, there was an economic boom that boosted the growth of the middle classes. Those who had just climbed the social ladder were in search of a new identity that, above all, would differentiate them from the lower classes. It was a very aspirational mentality, which led them to move away from reading comics. “There was a misconception that comics were easy to read, which is not true. Parents and teachers would say it was not like seeing a classic painting or reading classic literature, poetry, and so on. They would prefer highbrow culture, the type of art and culture seen in the court as if it would help them elevate in society,” Verstappen says.

The distancing of the middle classes from comics art was also defined by the rise of a new genre that swarmed the Thai market like nothing before: horror and gore. These short stories came in cheaply produced and in a small format for the meager price of one Baht—and they were sold by the millions.

The 1970s were feverish times. First, there was an intense rural migration to the cities, especially Bangkok. Not graced by the economic boom, migrant workers faced the most undignified conditions in the capital, living and working precariously and with pitiful wages. At the same time, as the Vietnam war happened next door with all its horrors, Thailand was a place of “rest and recreation” for deployed American soldiers, which meant a rise in prostitution and drug use. The decade was also marked by anti-communist persecution, traumatic and bloody uprisings, and a military coup.

“The explosion in horror comics was a way to deal with all the violence that was happening. These topics were also taboo. You could not talk about the massacres. The killers were not arrested; they were amnestied,” Verstappen says. He adds that these horror stories were first read by most Thais, but then, with the middle classes distancing themselves from comics, and specifically from this type of violent, superstitious stories, they’ve become prevalent among the lower classes, including alienated low-wage workers and prostitutes.

“What’s interesting is that all these stories finish with some form of karmic justice, meaning that if someone does something wrong, they’ll get punished by the ghosts. Justice is always supernatural, but it’s still justice. For the readers, I think it felt like they would never get it in the real world, but they could feel better in thinking that there will be karmic justice in the future,” Verstappen says.

Japanese Manga and the Collapse of Thai Comics

In the late 1960s, the first manga was translated to Thai, starting a wave that would seriously disrupt the local comics market. Everything started with collaborations between Thai and Japanese publishers. Mangas were not only translated but they were also flipped: from right to left, as it’s common in Japan, to left to right, as people read in Thailand. Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, even wrote a personal letter to Thai readers introducing his comics Jungle Emperor Leo and thanking his collaborators in the country. By the 1970s, a proper manga craze was established in Thailand—a fierce competition that didn’t please local comic artists. 

To make things worse, what started as licit collaborations quickly descended into widespread piracy. Japanese mangas were translated and copied in cheap bootleg issues without regard to copyrights, and their selling price was even lower than any Thai production. “In ten years, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the Thai market was destroyed, and all major cartoonists just retired because they could not compete with the piracy of Japanese mangas,” Verstappen says.

The year 1995 brought relief. There was a new copyright agreement between Thailand and Japan that fought back against piracy. That raised manga prices and established a fairer scenario for competition. Still, by that time, the new generation of Thai artists was heavily influenced by what they saw in mangas and reproduced the style in their comics. By the early 2000s, Thai manga-style stories had taken over the mainstream scene.

The Indie Generation

Even if the local production of manga-styled comics incorporated traces of Thai culture and folklore, many Thai artists didn’t see themselves in what was created in the mainstream. Hence, an independent scene appeared in the late 1990s with works that varied in both style and narrative but that exuded a sense of cultural hybridism. They mixed global cultures and identities while reflecting modern metropolitan life in Thailand.

It was around the same time, following the 1997 Asian Financial crisis, that a culture of DIY fanzines flourished. They were sold by their creators in markets and alternative festivals, from music to art, catering to a much smaller, although trendier, audience. 

The indie scene defined Thai comics throughout the 2000s. But then another blow. The Covid-19 pandemic hit with an extended halt in festivals, book fairs, and gatherings of any sort. Even Thai schools and universities, the breeding ground of many indie artists, turned online. Money people were willing to spend on entertainment was sharply lower because of the economic crisis that descended upon Thailand with the pandemic. As a result, Verstappen notes that quite a few Thai cartoonists turned to NFTs as an easier way to keep afloat and earn a living.

Still, the scene is resilient, and what does not kill you makes you stronger. That’s certainly true regarding the current socio-political turmoil Thailand is going through and the effects on local art. “More and more young Thai artists are making small publications like zines, and even documentary comics related to the issues they face. They talk about many topics, from women and LGBTQ+ rights to challenging rape culture,” Verstappen says. He also remarks that the surging wave of comics is notably more politically motivated than when he started his research six years ago.

Verstappen believes that self-publishing and the small press scene will make a strong comeback. “After two years of lockdown, when everything was online and dematerialized, the young generation feels the need to go back to print and sell their own books. They want to use any print techniques to create objects, books, something they can hold,” he says.

A need to go back to physical, tactile forms of entertainment would hopefully spike a renewed interest in the art of comics outside the more underground scenes, not just in Thailand, but globally. In the age of online streaming, Verstappen believes comics hold inherent qualities that are good for the brain. “Recent studies have shown that reading comics is actually more challenging than reading text only. We have to figure out how text and image work together and how all the other images work together. This is a demanding process to our brains,” he says. He’s also an enthusiast of the capacity comics have to challenge the status quo through exciting and visually engaging narratives. 

Ultimately, the combination of drawing and text opens up endless possibilities for self-expression and social critiques, from autobiographical stories to documentaries. Broadening the horizons even further, Verstappen refutes the idea that artists need to stick to a format, like always drawing inside panels, for instance. The notion of what defines comics is broader, more abstract, and virtually impossible to pinpoint. To him, it’s not about panels or even a narrative sequence. It’s more about a “visual solidarity,” as he puts it, that happens within the work and between the depictions, one that conveys a message on its own and unites all pages non-linearly.

The pages of The Art of Thai Comics are connected linearly, though. The book is organized in chronological order in chapters divided by time periods, featuring the fifty artists whose works he analyzes. Furthering his homage, he included their sketched portraits and, when available, also their trademark signatures. To make the evolution of Thai comics more apparent to the reader, Verstappen included two graphical timelines; one illustration loop on the inside cover, and another with the portraits of the artists as content pages. All illustrations are by designer Peeraphat Kittisuwat, whose work already revolved around looping narratives.

The extensive historical background the book provides made the writing process all the more complex and lengthy. “I wanted to give context to everything. Every time there was a page with references, like politics, royalty, or the likay theater, I needed to explain everything to the readers,” Verstappen says. Initially, he wrote the book in English with an international audience in mind. But it quickly became clear that a translation to Thai was needed—another complex task that took six months to accomplish.

The translation became absolutely necessary to Verstappen as his work progressed. Realizing that the path for new Thai comics artists was challenging, with little support, resources, and visibility, he felt the need to connect them to the rich tradition of comics that had been almost completely forgotten. “In the past, there were masters with incredibly high-level work. They created unique things no one was doing in the United States, Europe, or Japan. They impacted society and their governments. I wanted to give young Thai artists a sense of legacy and show them that, even if they might feel alone now, they are part of something bigger,” Verstappen says.

The Art of Thai Comics is now available for purchase on Amazon.

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Contributors: Tomas Pinheiro
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Images Courtesy of Nicolas Verstappen, Family of Juk Biewsakul, River Books Illustration, Thai Watana Panich, Mongkol Wong-Udom, Prayoon Chanyawongse Foundation, Thaweeporn ‘Thong’ Janekoonthongkambai, Vibulkij Publishing, and Suttichart Sarapaiwanich