For every large corporation headquartered in Hong Kong there must be hundreds of small businesses plying their trades, selling their wares and generally contributing, often largely unknown, to the fabric of our community. As we discovered high above the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, there are some rather clever folks at work all around us and we were lucky enough to come face to face with one of the more colourful ones.

Tucked away in a not so quiet corner of TST we met an effusive American by the name of Dale Crain, a man who specializes in the restoration of old comic books so that they can be collected into very upscale hardcover collections. The humble comic it seems is now big business.

Long before his arrival in Hong Kong, in fact as a six year old boy growing up in middle America many moons ago, Crain became fascinated by the worlds represented in the comics of the day. He points out that many of those working today in the industry were kids like him who read comics during those school days when illnesses such as the measles would sideline kids for a week at a time. As boyhood obsession became adulthood career choice a move to New York City was inevitable, given that 90% of the American comic market is controlled by Marvel Comics and DC Comics, the two main players of the industry.

Crain joined a small but well-respected art house named Fantagraphics back in ’85 as art director, and the rest, so they say, is history. Since that time he has worked with most of the comic world’s movers and shakers in the US and many of the artists from Europe such as Art Spiegelman, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller, Robert Crumb, Jim Lee, Allan Moore, and Garth Innes and is friend to many of the publishers also. Crain is most enthusiastic about his old friend Spiegelman. ‘Art and I have been friends for 17 years or so and I was also an assistant art director on a much acclaimed magazine of avant-garde comics he did called RAW. Just an amazing experience. He also happened to go on to win a Pulitzer Prize a few years ago for his own book called Maus. No one knows or understands comics and their history like Art’.

Back in his earlier days Crain’s strong design skills saw him involved in publication design. But also during those days he was involved in the restoration of old newspaper comic strips which were used in various book collections and is a fan of such newspaper strips as Dick Tracy, Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, Terry and the Pirates, etc., an art form he is still fond of and a skill which eventually lead him to his current work in restoring old comics. So how did he make it to the Orient? ‘I married a girl from Hong Kong’. Six years ago the happy couple travelled here and like many before him, he simply fell in live with the city. ‘I knew right away that I wanted to live here! Eventually I was able to put two and two together and I realized that the type of work I do is very labour intensive and China is the world capitol of ‘hand work’ and so I sought out talent here. Each year recently I have been restoring about 2000 comic book pages. It took me a few years to set up but was so very worth it’. 90% of Crain’s work is done over the internet so as he puts it, he could be in Soho HK or Soho NYC and it makes very little difference.

The comic industry began in the US in 1938. First collecting and reprinting the very popular daily newspaper comics of the time then very quickly original material was generated, mainly at first – superheroes. Comics were inexpensive, simplistic, easy-to-read and (hopefully) exciting morality plays that originally sold for 10 cents; throw-away entertainment for the masses and were at their most popular during the years of? WWII with many titles selling up to a million copies. Much of what Crain painstakingly restores are the original comics of the 30’s and 40’s which are now more popular than ever. The old comics are scanned and then brought into Photoshop where using various techniques all the colours are removed and the black line retouched. This leaves pristine black and white art that is ready to be digitally re-coloured and reproduced with today’s much higher printing quality. Most of the old comics Crain restores were originally printed on presses that were primarily used to print cereal boxes, so quality was not the highest concern, only keeping the presses busy.

The very first comics from this time are now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (US) to collectors and are always highly sought after. Newer comics fluctuate in value more and can sometimes even have their value manipulated by industry players but one fact remains, old, original comics are worth a great deal of money. Between the 40’s and the 60’s there were a lot more characters enjoying popularity. Disney was in the market at this time also and the comics of the day featured many different genres such as kid’s comics, horror, mystery, war and even romance. Crain says that when it comes to comic books he has followed the creators more than characters. ‘There was a period in the early 1960’s when Marvel Comics just exploded with a torrent of great characters (written and drawn by incredibly talented people) Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Thor, just on and on. Many of these books were drawn by a fellow named Jack Kirby who is virtually the god of comics in the US.’

The public’s taste has changed over time and it is the superheroes that have emerged as the people’s choice in the US over the last 50 years. Between the 40’s and the 70’s explains Crain, the industry was run much like the Hollywood studio system where the editor was totally in charge. Now, it is the talent that writes and draws books that drive sales. He says an editor friend recently stated ‘I was a freelancer when editors were king and now I am an editor when freelancers are king.’ As the public’s taste has changed over 50 years, so has the role played by the movies themselves and a word we are only too familiar with these days; merchandising.

DC Comics was bought several years ago by Warner Brothers exactly so it could generate properties and franchises for WB’s movie division. States Crain, ‘As a matter of fact when I was on staff at DC as an editor, one of the best writers of introductions I could hire was the producer of the recent Superman and Batman movies.’ Apparently Marvel Comics is constantly in talks with studios also, both companies currently produce several direct to video releases that do quite well. The toy divisions at the big two comic companies are the biggest revenue generators within each company, the revenue now neck and neck with the increased bookstore sales for graphic novels. When asked what impact the Internet has had on comics Crain replies, ‘I’m sure with all the time and money spent on video games and such it has affected comics sales and to some degree the look of comics too. But it’s almost impossible to point out a direct effect because I think there is something tremendously special (and I hope there always will be) about holding an actual book in one's hands.’

With all the online entertainment why do people still love comics? Perhaps comics share more in common with the Hollywood action blockbuster, which isn’t really all that much different than a comic book; a simple story that is easy to follow, a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’ and lots of action. Those elements, be they in a movie or a comic book, are pretty universal communicators. And now with the movie industry optioning comic characters and producing superhero movies as fast as they can the two forms of media seem closer than ever. And who does he think is reading comics in 2006? ‘Well, speaking for the States, the readership has finally diversified a great deal. It used to be nerdy ‘fanboys’ that were the core readership and now it can be anyone from 10 years old to fifty. And, while superheroes still are (rather sadly) the most popular genre by far, the books are more sophisticated and the subject matter has diversified greatly bringing in a much wider readership.’

When asked if Manga had had much impact on the US comic market Crain replied that in terms of Manga’s effect, beyond a somewhat modified ‘big-eyed’ look which is fairly popular in mainstream comics in America there had been little impact on editorial content. The biggest effect has been the explosion of imported and translated Manga sold in the large bookstore chains which Crain describes as a major phenomenon. ‘I love the incredible diversity of Manga. The sheer number of genres just completely dwarfs those in the States. Every publisher in the US is amazed, befuddled and envious with the penetration Manga has made in Japan. Comics in the US are still a bit of a ‘bastard step-child’ when it comes to reading material.’ Apparently this is slowly changing thanks to the recent and ever-growing popularity of graphic novels now being sold in most bookstores US-wide.

So of course all these new trends and the scarcity of early works, makes many of the original comics now rather collectable indeed. Hence the fact that this talented and friendly individual (with his own life story bound so tightly to the world of the comic artists’ fantasy), is now working away feverishly in his TST apartment, on preserving some of the most important cultural artworks of the mid twentieth century. With high speed access to the world wide web connecting him firmly to his bosses’ office in NYC, the world of Thor, Iceman, Human Torch and the many superheroes that comics have bestowed upon the world’s imagination are much closer to us all in Hong Kong than you might think.