His fans call him MTJJ in the cyber world, an abbreviation of Chinese pinyin meaning wooden block, which Chinese people use to describe someone who's taciturn like Zhang Ping and his black cartoon cat.

After resigning from a cartoon company, MTJJ spent several months producing the first episode of his serial animated film in 2011 on his own. Producing the film himself and distributing it online meant the five-minute film cost as little as 3,000 yuan ($490) to make.

Now the production team has added four employees, and has produced seven episodes.

Like Zhang and Xu, MTJJ has his own e-commerce store on Taobao, China's leading e-commerce platform, to sell products related to his animation hero Luo Xiaohei. About 1,000 black cat dolls were sold in July.