Beijing Enlight Media, the studio behind last year’s animated smash hit “Ne Zha,” said it will invest about 1 billion yuan ($145 million) over the next five years to adapt comic content into animated productions.

Company president Wang Changtian said the investment will aim to create 10 productions.

The announcement was made Tuesday at a media event to launch a comic art platform mobile app, Yi Ben Man Hua. The app was launched by Beijing Enlight’s subsidiary, Caitiaowu, which was established in 2015 to focus on creating comic content and producing animated films.

Yi Ben Man Hua’s target will be to make comics suitable for adapting into animations, focusing on themes such as mythology and fantasy, according to Jiang Zibin, the app’s chief editor. The app currently has 21 comic creators with a total of 47 comic titles available, most of which are free, according to Jiang.

The market leader in this area is Tencent-backed tech giant Kuaikan Manhua, which boasts about 3,000 creators and more than 3,000 available titles. (Image: Weibo)

(Republished with permission from Caixin Global.)