My Only Child

ONE-CHILD POLICY. It is estimated that there are over 218 million only children in China today following more than three decades of a one-child policy by their government. Under the ruling, which ran from 1980 to the end of 2015, most couples were only allowed one child under penalty of fines, forfeiture, and even sterilization. Government figures state that around 400 million births were prevented in that time. But some unforeseen circumstances caused much heartache and grief for upwards of 10 million couples who lost that only child and this book tells four of their tragic stories. The couple whose only boy child was seemingly abducted for resale; the 27-year-old only child who died of cancer, leaving her parents alone and childless; the old man who adopted a little girl some years after losing his only child; a mother who sells up everything to give her dying daughter the best years she can. Sensitively written by Wang Ning from all-too-common real life situations, some of them first-hand, and beautifully illustrated by four of the best individual talents in Chinese comics today who have all been touched by this policy.

Xu Ziran graduated from the Film and Television Animation School of the Sichuan Fine Arts Academy, China. He started to work on comics full time in 2013. In 2018, he was invited to participate in the creation of a World Cup comic collection by a French publishing house. Many of his comics have been published in France. Born in 1990, Qin Chang graduated from Tianjin University Animation Department. He used to work in games, film and TV design for many years. He created the ‘White Pupil Series’ collection. In 2018, he participated in the National Culture and Art Fund training project. He was also invited to create the back cover of the French master of manga, Edmond Baudoin’s, French language comic book, “China notebook”. Ni Shaoru is a muslim artist who graduated from the French Gobelin Animation Academy and studied plastic art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts for four years. He has experience and skills in modeling design, visual development, storyboards and screen writing. Wu Yao graduated from the Animation Department of the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts. In 2007, she started to publish comic booklets. She was involved in the creation of many series of comic book collections. In 2019 she won the gold award in the “Second Sino-Japanese comic strip competition” jointly held by China and Japan Wang Ning was born in 1971 and came through animation to form Total Vision in 2004 whose main purpose is to export copyrights on Chinese comic books around the world. His success is measured in numbers when from 2007 to 2018 Total Vision sold over 170 rights in three continents accounting for 1.1 million copies printed and winning many awards worldwide. They have participated in many shows and exhibitions in that time including 15 consecutive years at Angouleme International Comic Festival.