Little red fox becomes big business (3)

"I once wanted to draw a story that could move people to tears within five minutes, but I spent a whole afternoon drawing nothing. Now it's clear that good stories come from my life," the cartoonist says.

Xu started drawing Ali when he was a middle school student. Back then, cartooning was a way for him to kill time when his teachers bored him in class. Later he drew the cute fox to woo a girl sitting in front of him.

"Before I started my graduate study, Ali was only a cartoon image," Xu recalls. His study of brand visualization at Tsinghua University enabled him to understand the value of a brand, even a cartoon brand.

Xu began to write stories featuring Ali. Meanwhile, the Internet offered a perfect platform for his little red fox to move into the wider world.

Xu and his partners set up Beijing Dream Castle Culture Company in 2009. The cartoonist is in charge of drawing Ali stories and designing cute expressions to put online, while his team runs the company and promotes Ali and its products.

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