Li Zhiyong suffers for his art.

It's one of the oldest clichés in the book. In the fight of man versus cartoon rabbit, there's only going to be one outcome. But for 28-year-old animator Li Zhiyong losing the struggle with a cartoon rabbit might just drive him to the big time.

Li started animating when he was at university, and has since released three of his signature cartoons under the name of Vincent, featuring the one and only Kung Fu Bunny on the Internet. Each of the cartoons documents the troublesome escapades of a shorts-clad rabbit as it bashes and trashes its way through Li's office, and Li himself. Each of the short film is a real throwback to the old days of animation and comparisons with a less talkative, considerably more lethal Who Framed Roger Rabbit wouldn't be far amiss.

He's won acclaim on the Chinese animation scene, and also gleaned a job as a lecturer in Animation at the Communications University of China at the tender age of 25. Bouncing around enthusiastically while talking, you can see how the creations came to be. Li explained that he'd been drawing from an early age, and actually thought he invented flip book animation.

"When I was a child I liked drawing and animation; every child likes it. When I was very, very young, my grandmother asked me to draw a donkey. She told me it was good, I drew a donkey, like a donkey, and not like a horse. That was my first memory of drawing," he says. He picked up a flip book from the table and skims through it. "When I was about 7 or 8 I found out how to do flip books. I thought I invented it, I really did," he adds excitedly. He now knows that's the basic principle of animation in practice.

As a completely home grown and self taught animator, Li was not originally geared up for the arts. Up until 2005 he was well on his way to the exciting rollercoaster of working in China's transportation. "I spent seven years studying it; I had no connection with arts," he laughs. "If you attend a full time school it will stop you from being very creative."

Undervalued industry

Tinkering away with macromedia flash during his free study time, the rabbit came to be, springing from the screen and smacking its creator between the eyes. But for all the trouble that goes on with the cartoons, the rabbit gained him a following of Internet fans, an open pass to animation festivals, job offers and calm relations with his mother.

"It changed my mother's attitude. She never thought that you could make money from art," he says with a smile, noting that the bunny also got him his current job and other commercial offers. After his current boss saw the bunny at an animation festival, Li was invited to become lecturer. He hasn't taken up some of the commercial offers to make professional cartoons just yet and remains intensely aware of the animation industry in China. Just talking about it causes a student sitting behind him to start sniggering.

"He's laughing because we always talk about our animation industry. No one ever creates anything, but everyone talks about it," he says. "That's if we can say we have an industry, I don't think so. In terms of casual animation, it's not only because we've got few creative talents, but because our industry is not mature enough and society doesn't value them."

He despairs, because although he teaches the best and the brightest to be creative, there's not enough producers, directors and other skilled people needed in the right place at the right time, and with the right amount of money to make a half decent piece of work, even with institutional support.

"It's the biggest thieves' industry. They build all these large buildings for it, but don't know that the people are the most important. And children are so important to the industry, they are the future of the country, what the children think influences the future and the parents. Look at Blue Cat (a famous Chinese children's cartoon), it was terrible, but famous. There were a lot of copy cats. Now we've had Pleasant Goat (Xi Yangyang) [the sheep-thing you see in supermarkets], it's got a better story and skills behind it."

Getting ready

Although it sounds a little desperate if Pleasant Goat is being used as a benchmark, Li remains optimistic in the hope that as society and the economy develops, then so will people's tastes. Whether it takes 10 years or 100, he's ready for it and so will his students be.

"There are only two options in the world that can satisfy your conscience, one is teaching, the other is medicine, I think I'm working with my heart," he says. "Really old artists start to remember what they were thinking when creating, I was afraid of losing myself so I changed to teaching the concepts, to tell the students that you should have free thoughts to be creative."

He's hoping that when his students graduate, they'll already have a few animations under their belts, unlike other courses which are theory-heavy, until one final production in the last year. Meanwhile he's continuing with the bunny, most recently at the Annecy festival in France, which also gave him the chance to meet one of his heroes, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park.

"Wallace and Gromit is really international, they don't speak. It's all about the animation. You can even see the creators' fingerprint on the Plasticine; it shows who made it," says Li, hoping the same for the rabbit. "He saw my film and was happy to see some Gromit toys in the background. I was very lucky to meet him," he adds, showing off a signed book of stills.

Li had gone to the festival to showcase Kung Fu Bunny 3 - Counterattack, which has won an award in the junior animator category, something that a now experienced cartoonist like Li has debated and refused to accept, but no one at the festival has responded to him.

That hasn't stopped him from forging ahead with the fourth installment which he admits he would consider making into a series or a movie according to the advice of his seniors. If he's worried about merchandising, his students have already started making dolls of the rabbit to hang on the wall - looks like the popularity is infectious.

To watch Kung Fu Bunny 3 - Counterattack check out http://v.youku.com/v_show/ id_XMTMzODk2MjA0.html

Yu Xinyan contributed to this story matthewjukes@globaltimes.com.cn

 
Descending: Training the dog for the counterattack on the rabbit. Photos: Courtesy of Li Zhiyong