Zhang Leping

Zhang Leping (1910–1992) was a Chinese cartoonist from Jiaxing, Zhejiang. He was instrumental in shaping modern manhua and is best known for creating the comic series Sanmao.

Early life

Growing up in extreme poverty, Zhang had to leave primary school in 1924. In 1927, the Northern Expedition army attacked his area. The following year, at age 18, with help from relatives and recommendations from teachers, he returned to school for formal art training. After the January 28 Incident in 1932, his artistic skills became highly sought after, as China used comics in anti-Japanese propaganda.

He officially began his comic career in 1934 and within a year joined an anti-Japanese comic propaganda team. When he first drew Sanmao in 1935, his aim was to show the suffering caused by Japanese aggression through the eyes of children, especially orphans, and to express concern for the real street orphans he saw. The character became a symbol for those children.

Career

In the 1950s, Zhang worked for the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, the Liberation Daily, and the Shanghai Youth and Children's Publishing House. During the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted and forced to stop drawing. After it ended, he moved from the Liberation Daily to the Children's Publishing House. On June 1, 1977, after a ten-year hiatus, he revived his Sanmao comic.

In 1983, he received the "National Advanced Children and Young Workers" award. That same year, he was diagnosed with severe Parkinson's disease, but continued drawing despite the difficulty. In 1985, he won the "Yushu Award" and became editor-in-chief of Shanghai's Manga World magazine.

His final comic strip, People to Old Age, came out in 1986. In 1989, the Taiwanese writer Sanmao visited him in Shanghai, and he called her a literary genius. In his later years, he was deeply committed to cultural exchange across the Taiwan Strait.

In 1991, he won a special prize from the Central People's Broadcasting Station for his essay "People's Cross-Strait Love." His last comic book, Cat Feeding Rats, was published in the Liberation Daily on April 4, 1991. That winter, he donated the Sanmao manuscript to the Shanghai Art Museum. Over his career, the Sanmao comics were translated and introduced abroad, and the character appeared in films, cartoons, and stage productions. Zhang died on September 27, 1992, at Shanghai Huadong Hospital, aged 81.

After death

After his death, a 1997 trial in the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai settled a dispute over the rights to Sanmao, ruling mostly in favor of his widow and children. In 2007, Sanmao served as the mascot for the Special Olympics in Shanghai in his honor. The Zhang Leping Picture Book Award was established in 2016. A memorial hall dedicated to him exists in his birthplace, Jiaxing.