ANGRY Birds" creator Peter Vesterbackam didn't expect the game would take the world by storm or that China would become its second biggest market.

"I was really surprised by Chinese players' enthusiasm," Vesterbackam said during the 8th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival that concluded in Hangzhou on May 3. To date, there were more than 100 million downloads of "Angry Birds," he said.

The game company plans to set up hundreds of "Angry Birds" theme parks around the world, including one in Shanghai.

It also plans around 600 "Angry Birds" retail stores worldwide, including outlets in Shanghai and Beijing, planned for this year. A store in Hangzhou is under consideration.

Vesterbackam was one of the major figures in animation industry attending the event.

The festival also included British Day co-sponsored by the organizer and the British Consulate General in Shanghai. It featured a Sino-UK Cartoon and Animation Education Forum, a conference about UK studies and awards for best animated short films by British college students. Around 40 UK works were submitted for the Golden Monkey Award.

It was second time for the British Consulate General to cooperate with CICAF, last year in the seventh festival there was a Sino-UK forum.

"It was the second year of UK participation in the animation festival and Sino-UK cooperation is both solid and expanding," said Matt Burney, cultural and education consul of the British Consulate General.

He cited the British Zone, a program that involves 18 high-end British institutions of cartoon and animation invited to the festival.

"Our program provides a platform for sustainable development of the institutions, government and leading companies, which creates a global, general and national relationship," Burney said.

"This is our first visit to China and Hangzhou, and it's like an experiment to find out what we can do to expand the relations with Hangzhou," exhibitor Andy Wyatt said. He comes from the Digital Animation Department of University College Falmouth and said that next year the school would definitely attend the festival.

The festival also featured the French Animation Culture Week of Hangzhou from April 25 to May 1, co-sponsored by the organizer and the Alliance Francaise de Hangzhou.

Tizianna Loschi, the director of Annecy Animation Festival, called the Hangzhou festival "a big initiative." She suggested separating professional marketing from commercial functions.

The festival attracted more than 10 well-known organizations such as DreamWorks Animation from the United States, the New Zealand Film Commission and the European Animation Center from Greece.

Masters

Many masters of cartoon and animation gave their opinions about China's industry and gave advice to young cartoonists.

"A cartoonist needs to suffer pressure from seeking inspiration and practicing skills, as well as pressure from the market and publications. Only those who can persist will become successful cartoonist," said Ao Youxiang, a famous cartoonist from Taiwan.

"A cartoonist should have his or her own style, characteristics and concepts that make people want to pay for cartoon books."

Taiwan cartoonist Cai Zhizhong, best known for his graphic works on Chinese philosophy and history, said, "I created my own style that Japanese artists cannot draw, so that my works can be tested by time and the market, and influence Chinese cartoon fans from the root."

"Compared with Japanese cartoons, which are like a sophisticated old man, Chinese cartoons are like a five-year-old child, who is vigorous, can soon cheer up after failure and is capable of doing anything," said Joseph Wong Chak, owner of WangZ Inc in Taiwan. The publisher issues "Old Master Q," a popular Chinese animation created by Alfonso Wong, Wong Chak's father.

"The path forward for Chinese cartoons is destined to be very long, yet promising at the end as long as people persist," he added.

"Old Master Q" first appeared in newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong in 1962 and was serialized in 1964. It still comes out today and Tangle Publishing Co on the Chinese mainland is the publisher.

Tangle Publishing Co said it plans to release three collections of "Old Master Q" created from 1965 to 1967; the remaining 27 "Old Master Q" collections from 1968 to 2012 are available in the market.

By the numbers

Statistics tell part of the festival's success story.

More than 2 million people attended the six-day-long event and around 460 enterprises from 61 countries and regions took part, including Shueisha, a major publisher in Japan, and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

During the festival, 165 contracts worth more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) were signed and 4.2 million yuan in transactions were completed; the total is 14 percent higher than last year's sums.

Also at the international animation fair, buyers expressed intention to purchase 285 programs; that includes 71,800 minutes from foreign countries, accounting for 44 percent of the total.

The 2012 Chinese Comic Works Auction that sold 220 works from China and overseas earned 13.2 million yuan, 12 percent more than last year.

Coolmart, an outdoor creative market, attracted vendors from around China and sold around 1.1 million yuan in products.

Some Chinese animation companies from other cities also took part.

Puzzle Animation Studio headquartered in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, established its operations center at Zhijiang Phoenix Creative International in Hangzhou, one of the festival venues. The center focuses on animated film and also recruits talented professionals. It plans to release the animation "Oriental Princess" next summer.

Also, Tony Wong Yuk-long, a Hong Kong cartoon publisher, invested more than 250 million yuan to establish the Cartoon and Animation Amusement Park in Yuhang District, Hangzhou. He spends around a third of his time in Hangzhou since he established Yuk-Long Cartoon and Animation Co last year.

Local companies also promoted themselves. Hangzhou Fanfan Cartoon and Animation Co invested 80 million yuan in strategic cooperation with Japan's MF Comics Co, which will turn its cartoons into animated films.

Zhejiang ZN Cartoon Co signed a 20 million yuan authentication protocol, to approve copyright of its animated film "Chinese Panda" to a leather wear company from Guangdong Province.