LATE Chinese cartoonist Zhang Leping’s “San Mao: Le Petit Vagabond” won the heritage award at the 42nd annual Angoulême International Comics Festival last week.

    In 1935, the cartoonist started publishing books that featured the orphan San Mao’s stories and the series lasted for more than a decade. It was popular among readers back then because it not only vividly captured how ordinary people suffered during the war but also tactfully satirized wartime society.

    Although there are occasional captions, all the stories are told through pictures. San Mao, a skinny poor child who lived in the 1930s, sold newspapers, polished rich men’s shoes and did all sorts of odd jobs in order to survive in the comics. Zhang brought the character to life through his art, making San Mao a household name in China.

    “We hope San Mao can reach more audiences abroad just like Belgian cartoonist Hergé’s Tintin did,” Zhang Weijun, Zhang Leping’s son, said to the press.

    During the award ceremony, he added, “It’s been 80 years since my father first created this character. I think he would be really glad to see this if he were still alive.”

    “San Mao is not just a Chinese cultural heritage but also the world’s,” said Xu Gefei, the first Chinese to launch a comic publishing house in Europe. She is the one who decided to republish the French version of the San Mao stories. The French version covers Zhang’s works from 1946 to 1949 and has been sold in bookstores in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Canada.

    The book beat 10 other contenders for the heritage prize this year.

    The festival launched in 1974 as an event to celebrate comics from countries around the world. This year, the festival opened Jan. 29, just weeks after 17 people, including five Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, were killed in terrorist attacks in France. The five cartoonists were awarded a special posthumous Grand Prix award.(SD-Agencies)