Annotation

Zhen Bao (‘needle’) was a sanriken (a tabloid published ‘every three days’ – actually twice a week) known for its sharp commentaries. According to a note in its first issue, the paper was aimed at reviving a discontinued periodical of the same name from the 1930s. Political news, ‘Exclusive Updates from Discrete Sources’ and entertainment news were its most common content. Regular columns included ‘One-off Non-serialized Fiction’ (very short fiction), ‘Needle’ (political commentary), ‘Three-day Big troupe Events’ (opera troupe gossip), ‘Three days in Canton’ (gossip and social news from Guangzhou), and ‘Fictional Court’ (comic accounts of juridical hearings about public events). From 1947 onwards, it also serialised comics by Yutian Lei, among them Four-eyes-Piu (Siyan Biao) and the household figure King of Slipshod (Wulong Wang).