Zheng Yuanjie with a young reader on December 8, 2013 in Beijing Photo: VCG

China's prolific children's book writer Zheng Yuanjie recently announced on Sina Weibo that his magazine Fairy Tale King, which he has managed for 36 years that was also dubbed as China's modern "Grimm's Fairy Tales" will be shutting down in January 2022. 

The author noted that the reason behind his tearful decision is that he needs to dedicate more time to tackling trademark infringements, or "672 trademark gangsters," as Zheng said in his Sina Weibo post. 

Earlier on Wednesday, the author had posted a letter "From Zheng Yuanjie to three trademarks" on Sina Weibo, taking aim at three trademarks that had registered to use his most famous IPs - Pi Pilu, Shu Ke and Fairy Tale King. 

The name Pi Pilu, the bubbly boy character in Zheng's most famous story series Pi Pilu and Lu Xixi, was registered by a company in 2010 to promote pork products. In 2011 and 2009, Zheng's magazine title "Fairy Tale King" and the name of his mouse pilot character Shu Ke were registered by two children's clothing companies. 

"Taking Pi Pilu as an example, if he didn't register the name before others did, then it will be difficult for him to win the case, especially since the company did not register in the category of culture and entertainment," Xu Xinmin, a law expert, told the Global Times. 

"I'll have to stop writing the monthly magazine to dedicate all my energy to you three until I get the 672 infringements sorted to guard my rights," Zheng said in his letter.

Fans expressed their disappointment after Zheng's announcement. Some also joked that as the creator of so many famous IPs, if Zheng built a "Fairy Tale King" theme park it would likely prove to be more popular than Universal Studios in China.  

Zheng has indeed been an extremely active children's book author, racking up 711 fairy tale IPs so far. Once in an interview, he responded to the question of why he doesn't need a team like Marvel by saying that his creativity can support him to make every single stories complete. 

"It feels like someone is forcing me to delete my childhood memories. Every day after school when I was young. Shuke and Beita were how I learned about heroism, far before Spider-man," Sardine, a fan of Zheng's work, told the Global Times. 

Since Fairy Tale King was founded in 1985, it has published almost 500 issues, almost all authored by Zheng Yuanjie, and sold more than 200 million copies. 

Despite closing down the magazine, Zheng still expressed a passion for continuing writing, this time turning to "copyright protection" as the subject for his future works.  

"The best advice to creators in the field is to learn about registering a trademark before anyone else gets 'inspired' by it. Also registering it in different categories that you think may be important," added Xu.