Komikito Essay

INTRODUCTION

The first generation of Indonesian comic, komikita , began in 1930 and ended in 1954. Its genres range from social lives, martial arts, superheroes, to wayang . As Indonesia was still colonised by the Dutch, komikita was heavily influenced by western comic strips in Dutch newspapers. In the 1960s, the second generation of komikita introduced the romance genre. Unfortunately, this genre often displayed eroticisms unsuitable for Indonesia’s conservative society. The eroticisms sparked conflicts between different parties, causing this generation of komikita to end in the 1970s. This has left a stigma that komikita is a bad influence to its readers.

In the 1990s, manga made its debut in Indonesia and has become enormously popular ever since. Manga refers to a cartoon style of drawing style that was born in the midst 1900s in Japan. It also, refers to Japanese comic books. Together with manhua’s influence, manga’s influence gave birth to a new generation of komikita artists. However, even now it is hard for these artists to win readers back because of the stigma that remains and komikita artists’ technicalities that are still inferior to international comic artists’.

Is Yuniarto is an Indonesian comic artist who is heavily influenced by manga. He started his professional career as a comic artist with two

As an Indonesian who adapts manga style, I feel that he has made a breakthrough in Indonesia’s comic industry. When other komikita tend to adapt typical manga-esque genre such as school life, science fiction or fantasy, Yuniarto chooses wayang genre and has successfully localised the comic despite the Japanese manga influence. From the above given context, derived the research question for this