Among the medal winners on Dec 27 was Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, a commercially successful Chinese animated television series. It has become a popularly accepted animation domestically. Its first movie, The Super Snail Adventure, was launched in January 2009 and raked in 30 million yuan during its opening weekend, a domestic box office record for a Chinese animated film.

Another recipient was Xia Da, or April, a Chinese animator who successfully serialized one of his works in Ultra Jump, one of Japan's most popular comic magazines.

Chinese comic and animation producers were rewarded for their performance.Photo/Xu Xinlei

But culturally, a top-quality product in China is still more of an exception than a rule.

Original works find it difficult to survive in China due to rampant copycat practices by companies eager to make quick and easy money. Once a comic or cartoon proves to be commercially successful, knockoffs multiply and quickly take over the market, causing original works to suffer an abject decline.

Producers face a troubling paradox. To increase their visibility, they have to sell their animations to television stations, led by CCTV’s Children’s Channel and Aniworld Satellite TV as the best distribution channels. But they do so at a much lower price than their cost prices.

Some argue that the business practice has gravely hurt their business interests, while others believe the ultimate value of a certain cartoons comes from derivatives, such as toys and copyright trading.

Adult comics also find it difficult to take hold, though a huge market beckons.

“It is not a good time to develop adult comics in China because it needs much more capital and brain resources,” said Sun Lijun, president of the Animation School at Beijing Film Academy. “Most of all, a large majority of Chinese adults grew up while watching comics and cartoons from Japan and America.” His piece, The Legend of A Rabbit, was given the Top Animated Film Award.

Still, many Japanese adult comics are spread throughout China via pirated versions or illegal online downloads, which makes it difficult for a commercial comic to win in a market full of free downloads, Sun added.

For comic and animation students, the career prospect is not a bed of roses. As the business grows, more schools have set up comic and animation majors, and have churned out a growing number of workers for fictional vacancies.

The market, however, is crying for creative professionals as well as managerial and marketing executives. The gap between academy and reality forces many students out of the field and consequently upsets the supply of excellent brain resources, hampering a rapid and healthy industrial development.

The best chance of ensuring a healthy development is to open the black box of the Chinese comic and animation industry, look inside and figur out what makes China act the way it does now.