Comic Effects: Postcolonial Political Mythologies in The World of Lily Wong

The World of Lily Wong, a long-running comic strip in Hong Kong, documented the final 100 days of British colonial rule leading up to the transition to Chinese sovereignty. For an anxious audience, the strip defined the nature of Hong Kong's transition by simplifying a highly complex event, relying heavily on mythical images of communists, capitalists, and bureaucrats to portray the transition to Chinese sovereignty as the end of the world of Lily Wong, or Hong Kong's society. This article explores the role of comic strips as a political and propagandistic medium in the People's Republic of China, analyzes the political mythology portrayed in the strip toward both British colonial and Chinese rule, and demonstrates the way in which Lily Wong articulated attitudes and fears toward the Chinese transition. Drawing on Roland Barthes's understanding of mythology, the article then illustrates the ways in which political mythologies are communicated through the use of images in comic strips to demonstrate how comic strips, calling on hidden reserves of meaning, serve as a perfect vehicle for political myth-making, hiding political agendas behind a mask of humor.