A Belgian comic book artist, also a co-author of "Leonardo is a Genius" book series, Philippe Liegeois, offers his young fans in China a signature on his book during his visit to China for an author-reader interaction activity held in Beijing on August 23, 2015. [Photo: ccppg.com.cn]

A series of popular European comic books are now available in China. This effort is a bid to help local children to develop an interest in science.

"Leonardo is a Genius", or literally translated into Chinese as Tian Cai Fa Ming Jia ("天才发明家"), is based on the stories of the famous Italian painter, Leonardo da Vinci.

Li Tong, an editor with the China Children's Press and Publication Group, is the executive editor of the comic book series' Chinese edition.

"Leonardo da Vinci was a polymath. According to calculations made by later generations, he came up with over 50 inventions of various types. With passwords, Lockfast was one of his great inventions. This book series aims to popularize science knowledge, but through humorous drawings in a comic."

The first ten books of "Leonardo is a Genius", which have been translated into Chinese, will be available in China under a cooperation deal between the publication group and the French Dargaud publishing house.

Li Tong has also disclosed that a 78-episode animated television series on "Leonardo is a Genius", made by French Dargaud Comics, is expected to broadcast on CCTV by the end of this year.

Li Tong thinks all these projects will undoubtedly arouse local children's interest in their science studies.

"Children would feel bored with the common practices in lessons on scientific theories, although the ways of instruction may be vivid and interesting. But if scientific knowledge is mixed into a world of cartoon figures and related fun stories they are interested in, they would feel more than happy to learn and even willing to make experiments like those figures accordingly."

To date, the number of books in this series has risen to 43 since it was first published in 1975. The children's books have also been translated into a total of 15 languages.