Illustration:
ill. 6.50 (set: 6.50)
Author:
Author: Yi Fu Artist: Deng Ke 改编:艺夫 绘画：邓柯
Date:
1977
Genre:
comic, comic strip
Material:
scan, paper, black-and-white; original source: print on paper, black-and-white
Source:
LHHB 1977.3:14:1/2. “Sun Wukong san da baigujing” 孙悟空三打白骨精 (Sun Wukong thrice defeats the white-boned demon).
Keywords:
hero, Sun Wukong, radiance, Journey to the West, hero, heroism, visualisation, symbolism, revolutionary masses, santuchu, Three Prominences, after Cultural Revolution, comic

Sun Wukong thrice defeats the white-boned Demon 1977 (Sun Wukong san da baigujing 孙悟空三打白骨精)

1977 saw the publication, in Lianhuanhuabao, of yet another version of Monkey King’s fight with the demon (LHHB 1977.3:14–17). This time, the white-boned demon is a stand-in for the now demonized “Gang of Four” who is thrice defeated by Sun Wukong, and this time Monkey King comes to symbolize not Mao but the revolutionary masses (亿万革命人民), as the preface explains. It is for this reason that the circle Sun draws does not throw radiance, either (ill. 6.50). In its use of a reduced ornamental style, this comic is artistically rather different from both the refined Zhao Hongben and the cruder Red Guard versions discussed above. It is different, too, in terms of its practice of Three Prominences.