Drawing fame and fortune

Xu Han, the creator of a red fox named Ali. [Photo by Wang Jing / China Daily]

Chinese cartoonists are increasingly finding fame online, where a menagerie of animated animals are proving a hot with netizens. Deng Zhangyu reports.

In 2006, when blogs were still new in China, a group of cartoonists who had gathered at Beijing nicknamed their group "Capital Zoo", for the cartoon images they had created — a fox, a rabbit and a cat.

Now the most famous rabbit in China, Tuzki, is a popular emoticon, while the rest of the zoo is also well-known, thanks to the Internet.

Many cartoonists born after the 1980s found fame in a similar way: They created a cartoon image with stories, opened an online shop and various social network accounts such as weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) and WeChat (a popular mobile phone messaging app).

"The Internet has provided a convenient platform for Chinese cartoons," says Xu Han, who is a member of "Capital Zoo" and is known as the creator of a red fox named Ali.

Provided to China Daily

Ali, a cute fox character Xu created in 2006, grew its fame on the Internet when BBS and blogging were popular in China. Its popularity has continued to grow as Xu came up with more funny and vivid expressions for Ali, who is used by instant messaging service users as an emoticon.

Xu's company also offers a large range of Ali-related merchandise, from dolls to flip-flops to game cards.

Most goods are sold via an online store, the sales of which contributed to the company's revenue of millions of yuan last year, according to Xu.

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