Chinese comic artists look with envy to places such as Taiwan where an agent system makes it easier for budding talents to find an outlet and reach a sizable audience.
"There's definitely a market for comics in China, and there are lots of artists, but the problem is that so far there are no agents," said Tao, the amateur.
"Maybe it's because this kind of new profession is associated with a certain degree of risk," he said.
Tao, himself a member of a minority of Chinese comic artists who seek to tackle large, complex issues rather than just entertain, acknowledged there probably would never be a huge market for his works.
His comics are compact and entirely without text, dealing with timeless subjects such as the future of mankind or the battle of the sexes, often in just a single page.
Few seem interested in changing society with their comics, and even the most ambitious content themselves with expressing intensely private sentiments or semi-religious ideas.
Politics is, unsurprisingly, strictly off-limits, not least because magazine editors are keen to keep their licenses.
"You can't make cartoons about the leadership," said Bao Wei, a 27-year-old artist from northeastern Harbin city.
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