Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

If you draw a comic book and manage to get it published and receive a few dozen or a hundred yuan in royalties, you're lucky. If you can produce a masterpiece and earn a thousand yuan in royalties, that's incredibly awesome. Buying a house, owning a bicycle, and having a car and a radio are all within reach.

Who would still think about adapting movies, animations, or art films?

You think you're worthy?

"Da Biao, you... you haven't even started drawing yet, and you're already thinking about making a movie?"

Teacher Zhou thought Zhang Dabiao was being delusional.

"Which publisher would agree to such a ridiculous condition?"

Zhang Dabiao stood up and patted the dust off his trousers.

"Teacher, you don't need to worry about it."

"I will definitely draw it for you, and I promise I won't embarrass you."

"As for the contract, you take me with you, and I'll personally discuss it with the publisher."

After saying that, Zhang Dabiao pushed open the office door and walked out, leaving Teacher Zhou looking completely bewildered in the wind.

------------

School in the afternoon.

Zhang Dabiao rode his cool sidecar motorcycle, carrying Mu Wanqing and He Yushui back to Nanluoguxiang. Now that they had motorcycles, which were faster and went farther than bicycles, He Yushui "pretentiously" and "shamelessly" asked Dabiao to pick her up after school.

Whether you accept one or two, it's all the same, so let's accept them all at once.

However, the seat behind Da Biao belonged to Mu Wanqing, and no one could take it away from her—she was his proper fiancée, with whom he was engaged.

Qin Jingru went straight home at noon. Middle schools still have a half-day break and staggered school hours.

This motorcycle is now a major attraction in the alley.

Every time Zhang Dabiao rode his motorcycle into the alley with a rumble, it would attract a crowd of elderly people to watch.

Zhang Dabiao drove directly into Yan Jiecheng's small courtyard in the outer yard, locked the gate, and walked into courtyard number 95.

Qin Jingru was already waiting in the courtyard, sweeping with a large broom in her hand.

Seeing Zhang Dabiao return, Qin Jingru quickly dropped the broom and went to greet him, also helping to take the schoolbag from Mu Wanqing's hands.

"Brother Biao, what are we having for dinner tonight?"

Qin Jingru blinked her big eyes and asked.

"Let's have hot pot! Go slice some lamb and wash that cabbage!"

Zhang Dabiao waved his hand and gave the order.

Before long, a steaming copper pot was set up in the small wooden house in the courtyard.

The charcoal fire burned brightly, and the mutton tumbled in the boiling broth, emitting an enticing aroma.

Zhang Dabiao picked up a piece of mutton with his chopsticks, dipped it in sesame sauce, and put it in his mouth, exhaling a satisfied breath of hot air.

Mu Wanqing, He Yushui, and Qin Jingru sat around the table, their little faces flushed from eating.

"Hey Biao, what good thing happened to you at school today? You seem to be in a good mood."

While chewing on her rice noodles, He Yushui asked curiously.

Zhang Dabiao put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a towel.

"The school assigned us a task: to draw comic strips."

"I'm going to accept it."

The three girls stopped what they were doing and looked up at him.

"Draw comic books? That's great!" Qin Jingru's eyes lit up. "Could they be printed into books and sold in bookstores?"

"Absolutely." Zhang Dabiao raised his eyebrows smugly.

"Brother Da Biao, what story are you planning to draw?" Mu Wanqing asked softly.

This was precisely the problem that was giving Zhang Dabiao a headache.

In the afternoon, he went to the bookstore and bought a few current comic books for reference.

There are currently only two main themes.

One type is war-themed works, such as the War of Resistance against Japan and the War of Resistance against Japan.

This kind of subject matter is good, as it's mainstream, but it has too many restrictions, making it less free to draw, and the pieces are usually very long.

Zhang Dabiao's "little nest" archive contains "Bright Sword," and he originally wanted to draw it, but after calculating the number of episodes, he gave up.

That would take forever to complete.

I also downloaded some movies from the 70s and 80s, such as "The Herdsman" from 1982, the one starring Zhu Shimao, "Garland Under the Mountain" from 1984, "The Chess King" from 1991, "11 Flowers", "Devils on the Doorstep", "In the Heat of the Sun", "Summer Palace"... These are not suitable.

But we need to create a comic strip with a main theme, to make it easier to win awards.

The second type is traditional mythological themes.

For example, "Journey to the West" and "Water Margin".

But everyone has been rewriting "Journey to the West," and the illustrations have all become stale, making it difficult to create anything outstanding. Zhang Dabiao remembers collecting the "Journey to the West" by the master Dai Dunbang when he was in college—a large illustrated book version, as well as "Dream of the Red Chamber," "Legend of the White Snake," "Chen Sheng and Wu Guang," etc. Zhang Dabiao didn't buy many physical illustrated books, but he did buy four or five of Dai Dunbang's works.

Anyway, Zhang Dabiao felt that he didn't have the ability to draw it. He was just a quack from a crash course in art, and he could only do a little bit of animation and games. He couldn't handle the charm of traditional Chinese painting style comic strips. He was aware of that much.

Forcibly copying will not bring out the charm, will be meaningless, and will even ruin the classics.

So he was really troubled: "I'll think about it tonight and then we'll talk about it. Let's eat first."

The next day, Zhang Dabiao decided to conduct a social experiment.

Simply put, it's about creating a survey, covering all the schools of several people.

He graduated from the Sijiucheng Arts and Crafts School (a vocational school).

Qin Jingru – Junior High School;

The universities attended by Mu Wanqing, He Yushui, and Liu Gen include art, teacher training, and textile industry programs.

Then they gathered all the little ones in the yard, such as Yan Jiefang, Yan Jiekuang, Yan Jiedi, Liu Guangfu, and Da Tou Hu Zi and Liu Gen's younger siblings. They gave each of them a few milk candies and asked them to help them fill out a questionnaire...

Of course, Jia Jiabanggeng was sidelined.

Ask their classmates what stories they want to see drawn into comic books—existing movies, novels, legendary stories of war heroes, the Four Great Classical Novels, folk myths, etc.

Write down any ideas you have first, and then Zhang Dabiao will study them together.

Teacher Zhou was also attracted by Zhang Dabiao's commotion and asked him what he was doing.

"I'll draw whatever stories the people like."

"We are commercial art majors, which are meant to serve the people, not to become artists."

"What I want to draw is my personal business. Now, we draw what the people want to see."

After hearing these words, Teacher Zhou couldn't find a single fault with them, but she still felt...

What you said makes sense, but you were initially too lazy to draw comics. You only started doing it after hearing there was a competition next year, and it wasn't about what you wanted to draw, but rather what everyone wanted to see...

Isn't this typical opportunism?

However, he dared not say such things carelessly, so he shook his head and let him go.

By evening, all the questionnaires had been collected, totaling over 100 copies—actually just over 100 sheets of paper. At this time, there were no photocopiers available, and Zhang Dabiao couldn't possibly go out of his way to get ink and print papers for this. It was just a single sheet of paper; if you wanted to see a story drawn into a comic strip, you could simply write your name on it.

Then everyone works together to collect data. Once the data is collected, we'll know what type of comic books people want to read.

I'll draw whatever you want to see, isn't that great, glorious, and righteous?

And it's guaranteed to look good!