China News Service, Hangzhou, September 5 (Lin Bo) Looking through yellowed old books, page after page of hand-drawn comic strips freeze thousands of stories in world literature. This is the collective reading memory of generations of Chinese people. Nowadays, this batch of art heritage that has been accumulated for nearly 40 years is stepping out of the pages of books with the blessing of artificial intelligence, transforming into AI comics adapted to short video platforms, and flowing with vivid light and shadow on mobile phone screens...
This is the "Comic Project" launched by Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Publishing Group, and Zhejiang Shengxi Huashi Culture Media Co., Ltd. - the "World Literary Masterpiece Comics" AI comic project with hundreds of thousands of episodes (hereinafter referred to as the "Hundreds of Episodes" project). It is also a living practice of the creative transformation of traditional IP in Zhejiang's "Eight Runways" innovative approach.
In the 1980s, Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House gathered more than a hundred painters and scholars and spent five years creating the "World Literature Classics Comic Book", with about 12,000 hand-painted masterpieces. It turned nearly a hundred world literature classics into easy-to-understand comic books and became national-level readers.
This series has been published for nearly forty years.
"Three years ago, we made full use of new media marketing methods to revitalize this series of books in the market. Tens of thousands of copies were sold that year, and they are now a regular seller." According to Guan Huiyong, editorial board member of Zhejiang Publishing Group and president of Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House, using innovative marketing methods, this series of books has regained market vitality.
As short videos and AIGC technologies become more popular, Zhejiang has chosen to take a bigger step and launch the "Hundreds of Movies and Ten Thousand Episodes" project. It plans to complete about 100 and 10,000 episodes of AI comics by December 2028, convert static comic strips into online audio-visual content, and simultaneously lay out the development and operation of IP derivatives.
Guan Huiyong said: "Use new expression techniques, especially AI animation, to regenerate original classic content on new communication platforms with new expression methods."
This kind of exploration is particularly thought-provoking in the context of the current cultural development in Zhejiang.
In recent years, the "three new things" of culture, represented by online articles, online dramas, and online games, are becoming the new business cards for Chinese culture to go global.
As a pioneer in the digital economy, Zhejiang has developed the "three new things" of culture earlier and faster. Digital technology is reshaping the entire chain of cultural production and dissemination. Lightweight audio-visual products such as micro-short plays and AI comics have become new choices for mass cultural consumption. Young audiences are more accustomed to obtaining cultural content through mobile terminals.
But amidst the excitement, there is also a hidden worry: when digital content is crazy "selling", will the classic artistic heritage printed on paper and accumulated over time be forgotten?
Zhejiang’s answer is: let technology serve classics. This is the deep value of the "Hundreds of Books" project.
In 2026, the Propaganda Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee will set up eight runways of "casting souls, speaking out, inheriting, developing industries, benefiting the people, managing the network, eliminating risks, and gathering people" to systematically promote ideological and cultural work. Among them, the "inheritance runway" requires promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional culture; the "industry runway" requires the prosperous development of cultural undertakings and cultural industries; the "people-benefiting runway" requires deepening culture to benefit the people; and the "vocal runway" requires increasing Zhejiang's voice at home and abroad.
A "hundreds and thousands of episodes" project runs through multiple "runways."
In terms of inheritance, it uses AI comics, a lightweight audio-visual format, to allow children to access world literary classics through easy-to-understand animations, realizing "watching comics and reading classics"; in terms of development, it provides a replicable path for the activation of a large number of domestic comic book IP resources ; In terms of benefiting the people, it lowers the reading threshold of classic literature, serving the reading of all people and improving the humanistic quality of young people; in terms of sound, world literary masterpieces have a broad global cognitive base, relying on AI to quickly realize the production of multi-language versions, and land on overseas mainstream video platforms...
"The best way to inherit the original classics is to bring them back to the public in new ways." Guan Huiyong said that short video consumption is a new way of life for the public, and AIGC is a new technological tool. Classic content superimposed with new needs and new technologies can give birth to new products and new business formats, and truly realize the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture.
From the rebirth of paper books to the digital rebirth of AI comics, the transformation of an old comic strip reflects the vivid picture of Zhejiang's integrity and innovation in the construction of a culturally powerful province.
At present, the first batch of 10 AI comics will be launched soon. By the end of 2026, the project will have completed a total of 40 dramas.
Starting from Hangzhou Wulin 921 Digital Culture Industrial Park, these literary classics that have "come alive" from "little people's books" are heading further afield along the digital track.
