Badiucao, Chan publish dystopian manga aimed at Gen Z 'Chinamaxxers' — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Badiucao and Melissa Chan released 'You Must Take Part in Revolution,' a dystopian graphic novel set during a 2035 China-US war, with the Australian launch this week, US release in 2025, and UK release on October 8
- The novel opens with the real-life 2019 Hong Kong protests, when almost two million people demonstrated against an extradition law, and features characters from Hong Kong, Taiwan, US, and Tibet diasporas weighing choices under authoritarian rule
- Chan was expelled from China in 2012 after officials refused to renew her Al Jazeera press credentials; previously anonymous cartoonist Badiucao was forced to reveal his identity in 2019 after authorities threatened his family
- Badiucao frames Gen Z's 'Chinamaxxing' as the 'lazy way' to cope with political disillusionment over Gaza, the Epstein files, and perceived elite corruption in the US
- Stylistically the book draws on Japanese manga like 'Attack on Titan' rather than Western graphic novels such as Maus, with Badiucao arguing manga shapes an entire generation
- Readers including Ukrainian refugees and Czech communities who lived through the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic have contacted the authors about their own histories after reading the book
Why it matters: Two creators who personally paid the price for criticizing Beijing — credential revocation, forced doxxing, family threats — are deliberately targeting young western readers drawn to Chinese aesthetics. Their novel's choice to portray the US as a 'proto-fascist state' alongside China rejects whataboutism while steering the conversation away from ironic 'Chinamaxxing' toward lived diaspora experience.
Ask SkimNews
