Comic powwow

There has never been a better time for the comics scene in Singapore. The inaugural Illustrators Art Festival (IAF), organised by The Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC Singapore) in celebration of its tenth anniversary, kicked off last Friday. There was also the fact that Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye won the Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction in July, as well a new sequential arts focus at the Singapore Writers Festival 2016 happening in November.

Yet comics have always been an inextricable part of Singapore’s pop culture and literary scene — who can forget Mr Kiasu, the local comic created in 1989 by Johnny Lau? This iconic character personified the Singaporean concept of being “kiasu”, which is essentially being afraid of losing out in any situation.

“I remember reading Mr Kiasu when I was still a kid at the reading corner of my English tuition centre (in Indonesia), while waiting for my English class to start. It was my first brush with Singapore comics and Singapore culture,” said Christine Kabul, teacher at River Valley High School and comics creator.

Mr Kiasu was on display last month at Speech Bubble, an exhibition curated by graphic novelist Sonny Liew and comics historian Lim Cheng Tju. The exhibition celebrated the history and contributions of comic writers and graphic novelists here from the days of the British rule, as well as lesser-known comic strips by renowned art-house filmmaker Eric Khoo.

Andrew Tan, illustrator of children’s book series Sherlock Sam, whose work is featured in the exhibition, shared his reasons for being involved: “I get to meet up with fellow comic artists and catch up on what they have been doing while ‘hiding’ in their studios. Drawing comics is a solo thing, where you just have to keep at it in the solitude of your own studio. So having all of them come out of hiding is nice.”

The 43-year-old Eisner-nominated graphic novelist added that as comics are a niche art form in Singapore, “it’s refreshing to see works by fellow artists and myself being celebrated in the public eye. It makes people more aware of what we’ve been producing, and hopefully the medium will gain more popularity here. And that, in turn, will attract more artists to start creating comics.”

MORE TO COME

Already, there is a manga art club in Rosyth School, established in 2008 to nurture budding comic artists. Manga art is part of the school’s formal art curriculum since 2007, where pupils learn the techniques of manga drawing. The school revealed the club has grown from strength to strength — it now has 41 members spread across six academic levels. One of them is primary six student Matthew Lam, who says the manga sessions allow him to stretch his imagination “to create interesting characters”. He added: “The sessions are very fun and engaging. We do lots of research online to broaden our perspective in manga drawing, and are able to make our characters more realistic.”

Festivals like the IAF and Singapore Writers Festival, to promote the art form, further boost its profile. The IAF has hands-on workshops by artists such as Liew and Hideyuki Katsumata, who is known for his dazzling, psychedelic cartoon strips.

One of the festival’s organising committee members is Dan Wong, an up-and-coming comic artist who started A Good Citizen Movement in 2012 to take on global issues through local satire grounded in colourful, vivid illustrations. The 33-year-old also recently produced the graphic-novel interpretation of the film One Hour to Daylight for the Singapore Writers Festival 2016 initiative, Utter.

As a major local literary arts platform, the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) is making a concerted effort this year to recognise the rise of graphic novelists, illustrators and cartoonists. SWF-goers will get a chance to meet their favourite graphic novelists such as Gosho Aoyama, who is widely regarded as one of Japan’s leading manga artists, and Miriam Katin, who sketched her first graphic novel, We Are Our Own, when she was 62, detailing how she and her family escaped the Nazis. Katin’s connection with Singapore comics is a cherished one as her work appears in two anthologies published by the eminent critic and collector and her friend, Ng Suat Tong. “The two volumes titled Rosetta in 2002 and 2004 included many giants of the comic field and very strangely also me, a total newcomer at this age.”

BABY STEPS

Although comic creators are heartened by this increased interest in their work, they remain cautious. Kabul, 28, who is known for her initial work Liquid City, The Adventure of The Robbit, a funny, futuristic depiction of Singapore said: “I am excited about the increased attention (as it means more readers) … It will also translate to more comic events and opportunities for creators and writers. Having said that I think there is still a long way to go. Our local comics community is small — we lack the critical mass. Even if students are reading comics, they mostly read the imported ones. Our local ones are still very niche.”

Tan agreed. “For now, we have a handful of good local graphic novels, but too few to make any waves, in my opinion,” he explained. “But it’s a start. It will make a difference when there are more good local graphic novels available, which will take time.

Liew, who some might say kick-started the whole buzz, agreed that the comics industry in Singapore generally has some way to go. “That’s probably true of publishing in general, despite the positive noises you hear coming from some quarters. There isn’t a simple solution to it — everyone has to play a part. On my end, I hope to be able to create comics of a certain quality — that’s fulfilling one end of the bargain at least. Working on anthologies like Liquid City and events like Speech Bubble are an attempt to get the community more connected, and to reach out a little more to a wider audience.”

The Illustration Art Fest runs from Nov 4 to 6. Tickets available at illustrationartsfest.org

The Singapore Writers Festival runs from Nov 4 to 13. Tickets are available at SISTIC.