Aug 2, 2021 3 min read

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Meet Afu, the purple bat at the center of Fenta’s well-loved comic series.

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Chinese Illustrator Fenta Built a World Around a Small Purple Bat

Shanghai-based illustrator Fenta’s comic series about a little purple bat called Afu is beautifully realized. Based in a fictional place called Golden Valley Forest Park and populated by a motley crew of quirky characters, including a boy named Da and a tall brown otter called Ta, the series has developed into a world unto its own.

Every great piece of work should have a great origin story. As Fenta, whose real name is Chen Fenda, tells us, “You need to do a lot of things to build a whole comic world. You need to come up with details of the city, the small town they’re living in.”

For him, he found his inspiration while he was living in the tiny attic of his sister’s apartment.

“I was living in an attic, and I felt like I was a bat living there. I wasn’t in a good mental state at the time,” Fenta tells us. “I wanted to use this diary format and turn myself into a bat living in an attic and have a conversation with myself. Or perhaps, through the bat’s view, look at the world and his life.”

Meet Afu, the purple bat that is the cynical center of Fenta's fantastic comic series.

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