He kept drawing comics and hoped that one day his work would be published, he says.ĭuring his senior middle school days in Hubei, his dream came true when his work was published by Comicfans, a Guangzhou-based magazine in Guangdong province. In junior middle school, many of Zou's classmates were fascinated by Japanese anime series. It is said to be China's first comic magazine, mainly introducing Japanese manga while promoting domestic illustrators. Meanwhile, comic magazines began to appear on the Chinese market. Since Astro Boy became the first Japanese animation series to be introduced in China around 1980, more manga works have arrived, causing the art form to quickly spread among teen groups in the country. 'I began to draw characters from Dragon Ball, hoping that one day I would become a manga artist like Akira Toriyama (creator of the manga),' Zou recalls. While in grade two or three in Zhijiang, Hubei, he started to go through manga comics such as Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya. Influenced by his father who is an ink artist, Zou developed a fascination for drawing at a young age. It blends autobiography, horror and fantasy into a vibrantly detailed surreal world, winning acclaim with its unique style in narration and drawing. īooklist, a publication of the American Library Association, which does book reviews, sees Zou as 'a leader in China's alternative comics scene' who thoughtfully annotates each story with provenance and original publication, layering context and personal experience into his graphic memories. Night Bus, one of his representative works, has been published abroad. Zou Jian reveals his observations on the transformation of the country through his comic books.

Dragon magazine 310 pdf