Drawing the line on a promise kept

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Li's death. To commemorate him, Beijing Times Chinese Press recently republished the first two volumes of the collection, which were created by Feng and Li.

"It's a commemorative version," says Xu Xiaofeng, editor of the book. "It contains articles written by Li's friends about him, and precious photos of Li, including photos of him onstage as a drama actor in his early life, and the last words he wrote before his death: bei xin jiao ji (a mixture of joy and sorrow)."

The collection is about protecting living beings, and that's what Feng learned from Li. Feng noticed that, every time when Li was about to sit in a cane chair, he shook the chair gently, and then sat slowly in it. He was curious and asked why, and Li replied there might be small insects resting on the chair. If he sat down suddenly, they might be crushed, so he shook the chair first to coax them to move. That left a deep impression on Feng, and he wrote about it in an article to commemorate Li in 1943.

Xu says she is impressed by a particular cartoon in the book, which shows a man sitting on a stool, and in front of him is a sitting dog. The man and dog look at each other, and the man seems to be in deep thought. Below them is a quote from Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev: "They are the eyes of equals."

Another one shows a procession of ants moving food on a collapsed wall, and halfway along they can see some flowers grow from brick joints.

"Feng's comics seem to be interesting at first sight, and the more the viewer considers them, they can develop various understandings of them. Basically, the collection advocates respecting and protecting living beings. The ideas are profound, and they will not become outdated," says Xu.

According to Feng, protecting life encapsulates not only the animals and plants, but also people themselves. "Protecting living things is to protect your heart, to help reduce its cruelty, and add more compassion to it, so that you can get on with people with such a heart," wrote Feng in the third volume of the collection in 1949.