Drawing-room sensation(2)

Han's visit saved the project. He negotiated with Chen for an hour and then bought the international dealership of the four collections for 10 million yuan ($1.6 million).

It was a big deal at a time when Japanese comics dominated the Asian market.

To date, the comic books of Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms have been sold in 17 versions to countries and regions including South Korea, Japan, Spain, the UK, France, the US, Thailand and Vietnam.

Japan was one of the most difficult markets to enter because it has its own highly developed comics industry. Japanese comic books also account for 40 percent of the European market and 20 percent of the US, Chen says.

So it was almost a superheroic act when, in 2006, The Water Margin became the first Chinese original comic book to enter the Japanese market.

And back home the same year, the black-and-white Japanese comic style, which had dominated the Chinese market for decades, met its colorful match when Chen cooperated with China's largest periodical publisher, Zhiyin Group, to launch a comic weekly called Zhiyinmanke in his "New Chinese Comic Style".

The weekly proved very successful and now the new style dominates the domestic market.

Chen was born and grew up in a remote city in Northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. His parents had been among those sent from the cities to the countryside during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

He went on to study oil painting at Hangzhou Normal University.

After graduating, he went to Beijing, joining a group of young painters at the Old Summer Palace, who lived meagerly off the sale of their art.

In 1995 Chen landed a design job at an advertising company in Tianjin. But what he always wanted to do was to create comics. He left the company a year later and started his own studio, Creator World Comic.

Since that meeting with Han, his Korean publisher friend, the success of the four Chinese classic comic-book series has brought Chen fame and wealth.

Chen's studio too has developed into a business group that incorporates a creative branch, copyright company and website service.

"For years, most of China's cartoonists have been starving," says Chen, now 44. "They earn very little from their drawing - 200 to 300 yuan for a page. Even if they become popular, there will be many copycats right away. That is what I'm trying to change through our group."

And, comic illustrators across the country are being inspired by his story and dreaming of emulating his success.