Most famed for his 'Sanmao the Orphan' comics. In the late 1920s, Zhang moved from his coastal hometown to Shanghai, where he quickly found work as a commercial artist and cartoonist. Zhang joined Ye Qianyu and others in 1935 in an anti-Japanese cartoon propaganda team. He debuted the 'Sanmao the Orphan' comics — China's first cartoons produced specifically for young children — in 1935 and drew them until 1937, when the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War led Zhang to leave Shanghai as a member of a cartoonist propaganda troupe.
He traveled all over China during the war, finally returning to Shanghai in 1945, and quickly returned also to his Sanmao character, producing new series of cartoons that depict Sanmao as a child recruit in the corrupt Nationalist army. Zhang's biggest hit came in 1947 with the serial publication of 'The Wandering Life of Sanmao', a narrative about the trials and tribulations of life on the streets for Shanghai's orphan children.
In 1983, Zhang Leping received the "National Advanced Children and Young Workers" award. In the same year, he contracted severe Parkinson's disease; in spite of the difficulty in drawing he consequently encountered, he continued his cartooning career. In 1985, he received the "Yushu Award" and became the editor-in-chief of Shanghai's Manga World magazine. He produced his final comic strip in 1986, titled People to Old Age (人到老年).
2. Ye Qianyu
Born in Tonglu, Zhejiang Province, Ye Qianyu taught himself drawing in his youth. As a caricaturist, Ye was an influential figure in the Chinese arts scene. In the mid-1920s, he went to Shanghai and started to design commercial work, educational illustrations and stage props. In 1929, he started contributing his critical work to newspapers and journals. Ye joined Zhang Leping and others in 1935 in an anti-Japanese cartoon propaganda team. After 1949, he became Professor of Chinese painting at the Central Art Academy. In the late 1950s, Ye was branded a Rightist; from 1969-1975, he was imprisoned as a "Guomindang Spy". His name was cleared in 1978.
Feng Zikai died on September 9th, 1975, after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
He is most famous for his paintings depicting children and the multi-volume collection of Buddhist-inspired art, Paintings for the Preservation of Life.
Liao Bingxiong said "I was sad for the good people who have been victimized. I was angry against the evil people who hurt others. That was why I drew mostly sad and angry cartoons." The sad and angry cartoons showed the shocking horror, terror and sorrow. "Like a beam hanging over your head ready to come down," "Like a nightmare in which you see a meteor falling in front of you," "Like a strange corpse by the grave or a widow crying by the burning oil lamp in the middle of the night!"
Liao Bingxiong's cartoons were unique. They were not appetizers or desserts. When you view his cartoons, you find tears in the laughter and then you will feel an indescribable sense of solemnity and oppression. He had mentioned this himself in an essay: "I feel that I am at a crossing point in the world history of cartoons. Whereas cartoons everywhere are humorous (including black humor), my works tend to express sadness and anger. They do not relax people. Instead, they make people feel oppressed and shocked."
From 1932 to 1994, he spent more than 70 years in a career with many ups and downs. But Liao Bingxiong adhered to his artistic principles. He had four creative peaks in his career. His serial cartoons during the initial stages of the anti-Japanese war of resistance and the "Annals of Cat County" against the KMT regime in the 1940's earned him the reputation of a "brilliant genius." In the three years that he spent in Hong Kong before the Liberation, he created "The Story of A-Geng" for the ordinary citizens, which some Hong Kong citizens can remember with fondness. After 1979, his "Self-Deprecation" and "The Nightmare Records" created the Bingxiong era of 1980's cartoons.
This humble old man assessed his own art and life much lower than others. The cartoon genius Zhang Chengyu said at the end of his life to Huang Miaozi that Liao Bingxiong kept negating his own accomplishments. In 1979, before the sensational "Self-Deprecation" appeared, Liao nervously consulted a worker in a puppeteer company whether his cartoons were comprehensible and was relieved to receive an affirmative answer.
5. Te Wei
(1915 - 2010)
6. Wan Brothers
Animation got its start in China in 1922, with the Wan brothers’ Shuzhendong Chinese Typewriter, a short advertisement produced for the film department of the Shanghai Commercial Press. Wan Laiming (1900-1997), the Walt Disney of China, his twin brother Wan Guchan (1900-1995), and their younger brother Wan Chaochen (1906-1992) were originally from Nanjing. Their mother encouraged an early interest in the arts, especially puppetry. Laiming joined the Commercial Press in 1919, and his brothers soon joined him there. The Press operated one of the earliest film studios in China, having in 1917 acquired equipment from an American entrepreneur gone bust.
Employees of the Press, including the pioneering director Ren Pengnian, were initially trained by a crew from Universal Pictures, which was shooting on location in China in 1919. The Motion Picture Department produced a number of silent short films between 1919 and 1921, and then made China’s first feature film, 1921’s Yan Ruisheng, which was directed by Ren.
Wan Laiming and his brothers had been experimenting with flip books and zoetrope animations on their own before creating the 1922 short for the Commercial Press. Their original style of film animation is unknown, but by 1926 the brothers were working at the Great Wall Film Company, where they produced the 10 minute long 'Uproar in the studio'. Modeled on Max Fleischer’s 'Out of the inkwell', the short combined live action film of an artist with animation of the drawing he is working on. The artist was played by Wan Guchan.
In 1935, the Wan brothers made China’s first sound cartoon, 'The camel's dance', for the Mingxing studio. As the political situation in China became more dire, the brothers supported the war effort by turning out patriotic cartoons. Despite the worsening situation, and inspired by the Disney film 'Snow White and the seven dwarfs', Wan Laiming pursued his dream of developing a uniquely Chinese approach to animation, one that would draw on traditional stories, using traditional art and music. Working under severe budget constraints and Japanese occupation, the Wan brothers managed to complete China’s first feature-length animation in 1940, the black-and-white 'Princess Iron Fan', based on an episode of the Monkey King saga, “Journey to the West. 'Princess Iron Fan' was a popular success, and was even shown in Japan during the war, where it was a major inspiration for a young Tezuka Osamu, creator of “Astro Boy.” — Jean Lukitsh
