At first glance, the simple lines and shading of Fang Xiaonao‘s comics make them look like any classic Japanese manga. Only a few pages in does it become apparent that they’re all about young women’s experiences, and that they have an exceptionally light and delicate touch. Many of the stories are lifted straight from real life and set down in manga form.
After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy with a degree in animation, Fang went on to Kyoto Seika University to continue studying manga, and today she’s a full-time comic artist in Tianjin, with three published books to her name.
一眼看方小孬的漫画，用色和线条都很简单，像极了从小看的日漫，但几页翻过去，才惊觉这其中塞进了许多女生的小心思，非常细腻温馨。这些场景，很多都是从生活里撷取而来，方小孬用漫画的形式记录着。
毕业于北京电影学院动画艺术专业的她，又赴京都精华大学继续研究漫画绘本，如今已是一个出了三本书的专职漫画家，定居天津。
“I’m a pretty emotional person, and I’ll often be moved by some little thing I notice in my daily life,” Fang says. “For example, when taking the subway to see a friend off at the train station, my imagination will start going into overdrive at the idea of ‘seeing off someone close to me.'” Some of the stories in the comics are directly modeled on these experiences, and looking back over them brings a smile of recognition to her lips. “Putting them on paper, to a certain extent, means storing up the memories.”
“我是个比较多愁善感的人，经常会被生活上观察到的一些细微的小细节触动。”小孬说，“比如坐地铁送闺蜜去火车站，就会因为‘送重要的人去火车站’这个事件而脑洞大开，展开想象。”而有些直接以生活为原型的故事创作的漫画，每每回看，就一定是会心一笑的。“幸好画下来，算是某种程度上的记忆储存了吧。”她说。
Fang’s recent manga series I Don’t Want You to Know is full of young women’s experiences of yearning and unspoken love. “This one is different from my previous books, which were sort of bland,” she says when asked about her intentions. “It’s more a book for helping readers think about love’s different forms.”
As she candidly admits, she’s gone through a lot in the past three years. “I reached the biggest crossroads I’ve ever encountered on my journey,” she says. Her previous works, such as Apartment for Three, had sweet, feel-good subject matter. “Back then my life was very innocent, or very simplistic, and every day I was showered in love. That book doesn’t have an edge. It’s bland—it can’t be considered my best work,” she says.
小孬最近新出版的漫画系列叫《才不要让你知道》，充满着女生关于心动、暗恋和爱情的种种小情绪。问及这本书的创作初衷，小孬说：“这是一本区别于前面温吞的作品，更多是去帮助读者思考爱的形式的作品。”
过去的三年里，她坦言经历了很多事情，“在人生道路上来了个前所未有的大劈叉。”之前的作品，比如《三味合租屋》，是很温柔很温馨的题材。“那时的自己生活也是很单纯，或者说很单一，每天都被满满的爱包裹着。作品没有锋芒，很温吞。所以不能称得上是‘代表作’。”她说。
“Then two years ago, I went through some emotional distress. As a form of therapy, and to console myself, I drew some comics and published them in a magazine geared toward girls,” Fang says. Out of the blue, she received messages from women saying that her comics helped them finally get over their heartbreak. “I was really moved, and I thought, if my comics can offer love and hope to more women, then my work will have meaning.”
And that’s how I Don’t Want You to Know was born.
“直到前年，我经历了感情上的挫折。那段时间为了自愈，画了一些鼓励自己的漫画作品发表在面向青少年女生的杂志上。”没想到的是，小孬竟然收到了一些女孩子的私信，表示这些漫画治愈了在失恋中踌躇不前的她们。“我很受感动。想到如果自己的漫画能带给更多女孩子爱与希望，那我的创作就是有意义的。”
所以《才不要让你知道》诞生了。
Now that she’s completed this book, she can look back on her previous self and appreciate that, even though she never planned on exploring these topics, she’s grown in the process. “I hope that this book can give girls a sense of how beautiful love is, as well as how fickle. If they’re aware of the fickleness, they can protect themselves while giving themselves over to love,” she says.
Now Fang knows what direction she wants to take her art in: serious manga for women. Far from the popular “harem” genre, with its clichéd stories of women vying with one another for a man’s attention, Fang wants to create thoughtful works that address contemporary gender relations and explore how women can find emotional fulfillment in a male-dominated society.
I Don’t Want You to Know is now available on JD.com and in select bookstores across China.
等创作告一段落，再回过头看看之前一段时间的自己，方小孬觉得虽然姿态很被动，但换个角度来看，亦是一种成长。“我希望能通过这本书，让女孩子们体会到爱情的美好以及无常，在知道“无常”的前提下，保护好自己，再去投入爱情。”
现在的小孬，已然明确了想创作的方向：比较严肃的成年女性漫画。区别于内地网路上的“后宫漫画”，小孬更想认真地去讨论现在生活中的两性关系，以及女性处在这个男权社会体系下，怎样去成全自己的情感。
《才不要你知道》现已于京东和其他渠道发售。
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Contributor: Chen Yuan
English Translation: Allen Young
