Graphic novelist Sonny Liew is first S'porean to win prestigious Eisner Award

SINGAPORE – Local illustrator Sonny Liew has become the first Singaporean to win an Eisner Award, the comic industry’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Liew, 42, won the Best Writer/Artist category on Saturday morning (July 22) at the Eisner Awards ceremony at the annual Comic Convention International (Comic-Con) in San Diego for his graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. He also snagged the Best Publication Design and Best US Edition of International Material (Asia).

Besides these three categories, his graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye was also nominated in the Best Graphic Album (New) and Best Colouring, Best Lettering categories.

Liew had the most number of nominations in six categories, which were announced in May. 

When contacted, Liew said he is "over the moon". He said he was "a bit stunned when they called" his name. He had not prepared a speech "because I thought it'd be better to assume I wouldn't win anything".

"I'm still letting the whole thing sink in," added Liew. 

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye was published by Epigram Books in Singapore in 2015, and subsequently by Pantheon Books in the United States. It was on the Economist’s Best Book of the Year list last year (2016), as well as The Washington Post’s list of Best Graphic Novels of 2016.

It also bagged the Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction in July 2016 — the first time the prize went to a graphic novel.

The publication caused a stir when the National Arts Council withdrew an S$8,000 publishing grant for The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye in May 2015 due to “sensitive content” on the eve of its Singapore launch in 2015. The work follows the story of fictional artist Charlie Chan during the formative years of Singapore’s modern history.

It includes events and personalities in the nation’s history, such as Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, opposition politician Lim Chin Siong and Operation Spectrum, the so-called Marxist Conspiracy, in 1987.