Student comic "Silly Bird" gets off to a flying start

Based on the Liver Bird of Liverpool, 4 students have created an original and playful cartoon character growing in popularity, known simply as silly bird . This naughty bird hates the monotony of lectures and prefers to wreak havoc around the university playing jokes on the President of the University rather than do his homework.
After its publication on renren , a social network website popular with students, the serial comics centring around the silly bird attracted nearly 6,000 fans within a month. And it is not only students from XJTLU fascinated with the silly bird , but also university students across the nation have come to follow the ornithological phenomenon.
Professor Youmin Xi, president of XJTLU, and a regular guest star in the comics said, [It is] an interesting and thought-provoking creature and I like this image a lot.

(The designing team of XJTLU "Silly Bird" comic)

'The Social Network , a film about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, showcases just how much energy an innovative idea can bring about. Meanwhile, the Oscar winning movie also points out just how creative the next generation is.
Just like Zuckerberg, the self-named QTD team (consisting of four post 90s students Youhong Tang, Jiadong Qiang, Xueying Chen and Yihe De) have become popular across the network and campus because of the silly bird and its funny comics. Their initiative is audacious and unusual but most importantly, welcome in a university that encourages innovation.
Last year, Youhong Tang, a freshman studying Civic Design wanted to do something creative related to campus culture. When she met Year 1 student Jiadong Qiang, who is skilled in designing and drawing, and then Xueying Chen and Yihe De, inventive with storyboards and promotion, the silly bird s creation was just a matter of time.

("Silly Bird" series)

The Liver Birds are famous focal points of Liverpool and can be found on the school badge of XJTLU, as well as University of Liverpool and Liverpool FC s emblems and they provided the idea for the silly bird .
This fat bird, which can be described as an incredibly simple yet effective image, has developed along with its creators. At the beginning, the bird looked like a wild duck; now the bird is more like a fat chick something the team didn t particularly intend. What started as some fun, they now see as a way to bring about a spirit and atmosphere of striving to move forward through the cartoon image.
'Silly bird' is more dynamic than just cute , and the QTD team, who promise its various characteristics, will be revealed successively. The silly bird will communicate, live and study with the students. We want to create a campus life circle around the silly bird to show our distinctive styles. Additionally, we would like to publicize the spirits and pursuits of our post 90 s perspective, said the four students.
The Chinese name of silly bird is xili niao , which is phonetically similar to the Chinese pronunciation of the abbreviated form of XJTLU xili used by the students. The creators think the English name silly bird can best characterize the feature of the image.
The project is not just for fun though, they have a clear and definite plan about the future. We have applied for the XJTLU Third Enterprise Competition and we will register our own company in March. At that time, we will be able to sell related products such as bookmarks, notebooks, T-shirts and so on to popularize our own brand , said Youhong Tang.
XJTLU has provided students with massive support for setting up their own enterprises. There is a Student Entrepreneurship Development Centre (SEDC) on campus where students and teams who want to start their own business ventures can bid for the shops. The winning teams can use the shops free of rent. If we can apply for the shops in SEDC successfully, we are on our first step toward success and we can save a lot of money. We will also regard this shop as a foundation for a wider market , said Jiadong Qiang confidently.
He added What we need the most for further development are good ideas and contents. The content of our comics now is mainly about campus life but we will move on towards hot topics gradually. We will do whatever the customers like.