"What makes this comics series so appealing is that, on one hand, it tackles lofty, aloof knowledge, and on the other, every title dons a 'comic and humorous' costume. Dry, obscure knowledge thus becomes vivid, and the power of communication shines through."
—Global People (huanqiu.people.com.cn)

"'Half-Hour Comics World History' is written in a humorous, gently teasing style—great fun to read, yet on closer inspection its content is truthful and rigorous, not a joking retelling; it is a minimalist world history... especially suited to young readers."
—Xiang Rong, Professor, Department of History, Fudan University

★ A major popular-science work from the mega-brand "Half-Hour Comics," backed by an IP with 64 million fans. Chen Lei (Hunzi Ge) and his team—pioneers of comic-style popular science—follow their Half-Hour Comics Chinese History and Half-Hour Comics World History with another landmark title, a brand with formidable pulling power.

★ Hilarious comics lay bare three thousand years of science, making math, physics, chemistry, and biology easy to love. From ancient Greece to the twentieth century, it recreates the uproarious clashes of the giants of science—no dense theory, no dull archives—so you grasp, between laughs, how humanity moved from ignorance to reason.

★ Endorsed by both experts and readers alike. Xiang Rong, professor in the Department of History at Fudan University, and former CCTV host Zhang Quanling, give it their full recommendation; it scores 7.2 on Douban and has been listed as a recommended title by libraries in multiple regions.

To everyone who wants to understand science without the headache. Three thousand years of science in laugh-out-loud comics—pack the history of science into your head between fits of laughter, and learn to think like a scientist.

To everyone who wants to understand science without the headache.

The history of science is an epic of humanity's journey from ignorance to reason. Yet those tongue-twisting theories, endless dates, and lofty concepts have driven too many people away. Half-Hour Comics Science History uses laugh-out-loud hand-drawn comics to make three thousand years of scientific development as easy as reading a joke.

Across hand-drawn comics, the book presents the complete thread of scientific development from ancient Greece through the twentieth century.

Volume 1 begins with the dawn of science in ancient Greece—Pythagoras kicked a student into the river to defend his theory; Bruno was burned not for heliocentrism but for his own religious beliefs; Kepler was extremely near-sighted and at odds with his mentor Tycho Brahe in both manner and mind; Newton dabbled in alchemy and was a devout believer, yet went on to build the edifice of classical physics.

Volume 2 focuses on the Renaissance through the first Industrial Revolution, where Lavoisier sealed lead strips under a vacuum bell jar, ending chemistry's era of guessing elements out of thin air.

Volume 3 carries through to electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, relativity, and biology—Faraday never let his day job stop his scholarship and discovered electromagnetic induction; Einstein daydreamed about the cosmos in his idle moments; Mendel grew peas and Morgan bred fruit flies, laying the groundwork for the rapid advance of genetics.

This is not a textbook that makes you sit up straight, but a book that lets you pack the history of science into your head between fits of laughter. Open it, and in this age of information overload, learn to think rationally like a scientist.

Chen Lei (pen names: Erhunzi / Hunzi Ge)
A pioneer of comic-style popular science, Chairman of Shanghai Hunzhi Culture Communication Co., Ltd., holder of a master's degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University, and a senior science-communication researcher.

After earning his master's from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2009, he joined Shanghai Volkswagen as a designer and began publishing original popular-science comics online in 2012. In 2014, with 1.47 million yuan in angel investment from CCTV host Zhang Quanling and an additional 15 million yuan from Xu Xiaoping, he founded a comics studio. In 2015 he launched the "Hunzhi" WeChat account; by 2025 its cross-platform following reached 64 million, with total reads surpassing 500 million. In 2017 his Comic Chinese History sold out within seven hours of release, driving history books to the top of national sales for three consecutive years. In 2021 he won the Best Comics Publishing Award at the China Animation Golden Dragon Awards. In 2022 he was appointed Online Integrity Ambassador. In 2023 he opened the Hunzhi cultural complex at Shanghai Tower. In 2024 he was named one of the Top Ten Innovative Figures among Shanghai Cultural Enterprises (5th edition) and received the 16th Shanghai Outstanding Public Science Communicator title. He serves as a member of the All-China Youth Federation, a member of the Shanghai Youth Federation, and vice president of the Shanghai Youth Literature and Art Federation, among other public roles.

His representative works include the Half-Hour Comics Chinese History series (cumulative sales exceeding 30 million copies), the Half-Hour Comics World History series, the Half-Hour Comics Science History series (winner of the 2022 Shanghai Excellent Popular Science Book award), Half-Hour Comics: The Big Bang (selected among the 2022 National Excellent Popular Science Works), and Comic Centenary of the Party: The Founding.