Thirty-nine-year-old artist Luo Jikun can't remember how many times he cried in the past month while illustrating stories on the efforts of the people who fought against the novel coronavirus epidemic.

His illustrations, focusing on the role of Wuhan's sanitation workers, went viral in China on April 8 as the city ended its 76-day lockdown. They were viewed almost 2 million times in just a few hours after being posted on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social network, with thousands of netizens commenting and praying for Wuhan and its people.

The illustrations were made into an animation, which begins by presenting Donghu Lake, a landmark in Wuhan, on a cellphone screen. In the past two months the lake was only open to visitors online.

By pressing the play button on screen, viewers can enter the virtual park, which is open in reality now as the city returns to normal. The video goes on to present scenes from across the city, with images before and after the lockdown displayed in contrast.

Behind the scenes, Luo's team of illustrators worked for a month, often overtime, to show their respect for the people who have been fighting the virus over the past three months.

"We all care about Wuhan," Luo said. "The ending of the lockdown shows that our country has made an extraordinary achievement in containing the virus."

The animation takes the city's sanitation workers as its heroes to inform viewers how the city and its people have contributed to the fight against the epidemic.

"Sanitation workers are the people who felt the city's pulse during its lockdown. While other residents were quarantined at home, they kept working. They witnessed the city's changes; therefore, they must have a deeper understanding of the city's plight," Luo told Beijing Review.

Another work by Luo's team has got even more attention. Their Illustrated Handbook on Chinese People's Anti-Epidemic Effort, a 10-meter-long graphic scroll, has been viewed more than 600 million times across multiple digital platforms, according to Beijing Evening News.

Luo had been developing the idea since January, but it wasn't until his team resumed work in early March that they were able to start on the illustration. They created the scroll from 100 stories and 8,000 photos collected throughout the pandemic, including those recording the rapid construction of the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan temporary hospitals, medical workers from around the country supporting Wuhan, and a young patient and a nurse bowing to each other.

"At the beginning, we wanted to illustrate the stories of the heroes, but we found it hard to depict the panoramic view of the Chinese people's heroic deeds," Luo said.

The team decided to use the structure of a traditional Chinese scroll painting to tell the story of Wuhan in chronological order. "Its visual effect is stronger than that of a common grid layout," Luo said.

Originally trained in oil painting, Luo used realism to present each figure vividly. Four painters and three writers spent 17 days and nights to finish it, sleeping only three to four hours a day.

The graphic scroll was republished by more than 2,000 Chinese media websites.

The illustrations came under the spotlight again on April 4 after they were included in an eight-minute video and published online as the country observed a day of national mourning for those who died during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Luo attributes the video's popularity not to his expertise but to the touching stories of the heroes. "It is their sacrifice that moved people. We just tried to make it known in our own way," he said.

Copyedited by Laurence Coulton

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