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Animation becomes big business - not just for children

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A girl kisses Pleasant Goat, a character from the animated series,” Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf', at a theater in Beijing. The animation industry is thriving in China. [CFP]

A girl kisses Pleasant Goat, a character from the animated series,” Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", at a theater in Beijing. The animation industry is thriving in China. [CFP]

Once considered part of the realm of youngsters, cartoons and graphic novels have suddenly hit China's mainstream culture as the country realized their potential for profit.

In a large hall of the National Art Museum of China, the country's top gallery for fine art, the poster of a cartoon goat, very popular on TV this year, was put on show last month.

Downstairs, there are oil paintings by China's realistic artists, including a portrait of a young girl in a Mao suit wearing a badge of Chairman Mao Zedong on her chest.

Gan Yujie, 60, who frequents the museum almost every week, said she never imagined the graphic novels such as "Romance Of The Three Kingdoms" could make it to the halls of the national art museum.

"I was excited to see the works there," said Liao Xiangzhong, dean of the Animation School of Communication University of China. "The exhibition in such a museum means that animation and comic arts have been recognized by the government as 'real' arts."

Organized by the Ministry of Culture (MOC), Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology, the show covered a wide range of categories in the field of animation and cartoon, including animation films, animation TV series, iconic cartoons and comic books.

Chinese animation began in the 1920s. The first animated feature film "Tie Shan Gongzhu", or "Princess Iron Fan", screened in 1941.

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