Illustration:
ill. 6.11 (set: 6.8)
Date:
1975
Genre:
comic, comic strip
Material:
scan, paper, grayscale; original source: printed paper, black-and-white
Source:
Haiying 海英 (Sea heroine). Beijing: Beijing renmin meishu, 1975:95.
Keywords:
model hero, heroine, heroism, sun, sunrays, iconography, Mao´s words, Mao Zedong Thought, gesture, waves, comic rhetoric

Sea Heroine (Haiying 海英)

In Sea Heroine (海英 Haiying), a comic published in 1975, a sent-down youth is seen in a moment of desperation in her fight against the creepy Chen Wulao 陈乌佬, who is crow-like not just by name and who is trying to sabotage her efforts to get a good fishing harvest. Haiying is inspired by Mao’s powerful words: “Even great storms are nothing to be dreaded. It is in the midst of great storms that human society moves forward” (大风大浪也不可怕. 人类社会就是从大风大浪中发展起来的) (Mao 1957, 387). She understands that difficulties are there to be overcome. Mao’s words, from a conference on propaganda work held on March 12, 1957, are, so says the text, like the sun to her (and this is visualized in the image as they appear in a balloon that really is the sun); they warm her heart and enable her to make a spectacular catch.