The tireless cartoonist

Cartoonist Tsai Chih-chung

"I created a new genre in China,"Tsai tells China Daily. "Nobody tried to interpret Chinese classics the way I did－by using simple storytelling and cartoon images."

Last week, the 18th China Animation and Comic Golden Dragon Award announced the launch of a new award named after Tsai. According to the organizing committee of the event, the new award is a recognition of "works and artists with outstanding achievements involving the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture".

Princeton University Press was the first to publish his books in English, with the first book, Zhuangzi: The Way of Nature, which was translated by Brian Bruya, released in 1992.

In 2016, Princeton regained the copyright of Tsai's works from Doubleday Publishing Company and relaunched the series The Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics in 2018.

Among the first to be released were The Analects, with the foreword by Michael Puett of Harvard University; Sunzi: The Art of War, with the foreword by Lawrence Freedman; and The Way of Nature, with a new introduction by Edward Slingerland. This summer, a new book titled The Ways of Zen will be released.

"His line is elegant; his characters are sharply drawn; his humor is sly and appropriate; and his subject is profound. This is cartooning of the highest order," writes Larry Gonick, author of The Cartoon History of the Universe.

Gonick also describes Tsai's works as "awe-inspiring".

"C. C. Tsai's introductions to the world of Chinese thought and spirituality are masterpieces. His drawings are charming, clever, and engaging; his texts are clear and faithful to the spirit of the originals; and Brian Bruya's translations are fluid and accurate," writes Stephen C. Angel of Wesleyan University, referring to The Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics.