Info Bites: 24 Hour Comics Day and Singapore Writers Festival 2012

Hello again everyone, it’s been a (long) while since I last updated this blog! I’ve been really (REALLY) busy for the past 8 months, travelling, drawing and whatnot! It’s been a crazy ride but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, though I do regret not making time to write about the comic-related things I’ve been up to. So this is me trying to make amends by kickstarting my writing engines again with an update.

24 Hour Comics Day

24 Hour Comics Day is just around the corner (like this weekend!) and will be happening on the 20th till 21st October worldwide. This year I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and commit to participating in the Singapore version of this event (since I’m still working here) but for those of you in Malaysia, there’ll be one taking place at the Balai Seni Visual Negara  organized by none other than Sarah Joan Mokhtar (about time too after the last one held back in 2007)!

 

The Poster for the Malaysian version of 24 Hour Comics Day

Both versions of the event require pre-registration so that spaces will be allocated for your participation, so please register quickly if you’re interested! I’ve not participated in one before but I am pretty sure that it’ll be a great experience as well as a good way to meet people who love comics!

The Poster for the Singaporean version of 24 Hour Comics Day

More information and details on how to register for 24 Hour Comics Day Malaysia can be found here on their Official Facebook Event Page while the 24 Hour Comics Day Singapore has its own pages for Rules (aka what to expect) and Registration.

Singapore Writers Festival

If you were like me a few days ago you’d probably be wondering what does the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) that will be taking place between 2nd till 11th November 2012 have to do with comics, and you’d be delighted to know (like I was) that SWF has a lineup of comic panels/sessions in their itinerary!  Here are some of the comic-related highlights that I am itching to attend, if possible (click on the links for details of each event):

Brand New Books: Lingua Comica – Graphic Novels from Asia and Europe

Panel: Comic Artists Capture Singapore (Featuring Sonny Liew, Oh Yong Hwee, Miel)

Workshop: The Making of a Graphic Novel (Featuring Khalil, Creator of webcomic and graphic novel Zahra’s Paradise)

Meet the Author: Jimmy Liao

I’m definitely attending the Lingua Comica book launch session even though it’s on a weeknight I need to grab a copy of each of the books, especially the ones containing Hwei and Sarah Joan Mokhtar‘s comics when they attended Lingua Comica, a comics exchange program by the Asia-Europe Foundation! I’m still trying to make a tough decision on whether to attend the workshop or the meet-and-greet session with Jimmy Liao (a very famous Taiwanese Illustrator, in case you didn’t know. Go brush up on him on Wikipedia!), as the last three items on the list (Panel, Workshop, and Meet the Author) are taking place on the same day with overlapping time slots! The pains of being an avid comic lover!

Well, that’s all I have for now (that is, until Comic Fiesta rolls around in December)! Till next time, keep drawing!

P/S: There’s loads of drawing competitions currently bring co-organized by Comic Fiesta in conjunction with Comic Fiesta 2012, so you should probably take a look at the Comic Fiesta Forums if you want to join in! (Yes, I’m lazy to write about them now, haw!)

A Rare Occurence

The title of this entry would be a suitable label for the frequency of my posts of late, as well as the significance of today’s date, the 29th of February.

I originally intended to try to rush finish up part 2 of the Comic Fiesta Doujinshi Reviews that are long overdue (among other things in my life) just to make it for tonight, but then I didn’t want to compromise the length of the article for a self-imposed deadline so I figured that I should just type up something short and fresh that I’ve been meaning to share with you for a while now.

During the past month and a half (somewhere after the Chinese New Year holidays up till now), I’ve been travelling quite a lot to attend social obligations (willingly, mind you) and somehow I ended up travelling to Batam, an island located in Indonesia. It’s just a stone’s throw away from Singapore (an hour’s ferry ride) which made for a nice weekend getaway for my colleagues and I.

The gist of it was that I had a whale of a time thanks to my happy-go-lucky colleagues, but the highlight of the trip for me was my serendipitous discovery in a bookshop there.

 

The complete set of Indonesian Adolf volumes by Osamu Tezuka

This! I’ve longed to read Adolf since I discovered its existence after reading The Art of Osamu Tezuka but the English editions are quite difficult to find (they were published almost 16 years ago by Viz). What you see above are the Indonesian editions of Adolf, printed by Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, one of their local publishing houses. It’s been translated into Bahasa Indonesia of course, but I’m still slowly but surely making my way through the books! After all, apart of the meaning of certain words, the sentence structure of Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia are almost similar, so I guess I’m somewhat learning a new language as I’m reading this!

Taking place before World War II, Adolf chronicles the story of three different individuals by the name of Adolf and how differently each of their lives play out. There’s loads of mysteries and rumours entwined into the story, which I am still trying to get my head around (hey, it’s in a somewhat foreign language to me!).

At the bookstore where I purchased these, I was quite surprised to discover the sheer amount of different comics that are being officially translated and published for the Indonesian market. From bandes dessinees (European comics) like Lucky Luke to the latest shoujo or shonen manga (they even had Nurarihyon No Mago) , they have them all! Their editions are fairly thin though, thanks to the brown and thin recycled paper (I think?) that they’re printed on, but don’t let that deter you from grabbing them should you ever chance upon them as the printing quality is extremely good – clear till the last crosshatch. This pretty much justifies the prices of the books though, as they roughly cost about RM15 per copy.

This made me reflect on the quality of comics that are currently being made and translated for the Malaysian market…and it pains me to say this but we still have a lot of catching up to do in terms of quality of content and the maturity of themes presented.

Well, that’s all I have to share with you on this special day that only comes about once every 4 years. I hope that it’s been an enjoyable read though I’m writing this off the cuff while I edit some of the images I’ll be using in part 2 of my Comic Fiesta Doujinshi Review. Trust me, it’s shaping up pretty well and it’ll be done real soon, I promise!

Till then, adieu!

P/S: Here’s to hoping that Vertical will re-release Adolf in English! *fingers crossed*

Info Bites: Spera Volume 1

Hey guys and girls, I know that I probably should be following up with the next part of the Comic Fiesta 2011 Loot Review, but I just couldn’t help but promote Spera Volume 1 after I remembered that it should’ve been out by now – and I was right!

 

Spera Volume 1 Cover (source)

Spera is an on-going story written, created and editted by Josh Tierney, who has enlisted various artists around the world to help make his visions come to life – in the form of graphic novels. As I’ve not read Spera before (yet!), I think it’s only fair that I use the ‘official’ excerpt for the book to give you an idea of the story:

Lono’s life as a princess consisted of sitting, reading, and dreaming—until the day Pira, princess of a neighboring kingdom, arrived with news of a waking nightmare! With the help of Pira’s best friend—a fire spirit in the form of a dog named Yonder—the princesses now find themselves in a race against evil. The goal: Spera, a magical realm of which the princesses had only ever heard the tallest tales. The prize: their very lives!

This book deserves your attention because it contains a comic by one of our very own up-and-coming Malaysian talents, Hwei! If you’ve not heard of her (which is impossible if you’ve been keeping an eye on this blog as I’ve mentioned her work before in my review of Hawk in my Comic Fiesta 2011 Loot), she won 2nd place in the inaugural Morning International Manga Competition (MIMC) back in 2007 with her entry, Vefurrin. And if that’s not enough to make you sit up and take notice, her work was recently (and I mean as recent as 36 hours ago) featured on Comic Book Resources. Plus, come on, it’s not everyday that you can say that somebody you know has their work published alongside Emily Carroll (yes, she’s in Spera too)!

I do intend to sit her down sometime soon and hopefully squeeze an interview out of her but until then, I shall leave you with an interview she had back in 2008 with The Star.

Do get the book if you can from a bookstore close to you, or just order it from Amazon.

It’s 2012!

Hello everyone!

It’s already a week and a few days into the year 2012 and I’ve yet to post anything yet! Inexcusable! Before that, please allow me to wish you a Happy New Year! Here’s to hoping for more quality posts on Indiedoodle (fingers crossed)!

Also, I would like to take this opportunity to direct your attention to the spanking new Indiedoodle header that was updated a few days before the new year. A great big thank you to Ashel for making this very pleasant surprise!

New post coming soon! Till then, doodle on!

Comic Fiesta 2011 Loot Review Part 1: Artbooks

On the 17th and 18th of December 2011, I made a trip back to Malaysia just for the most epic annual comic festival that I’ve been faithfully attending for the past 9 years: Comic Fiesta. It was held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center Exhibition Halls 4 and 5, the largest event space it has ever taken up in its 10-year run. Despite some glitches with crowd control on Day 1 which I will not go into, I found myself enjoying this year’s event the most out of all my previous experiences, which I must credit the event organizers and the legendary booth owner tag (which basically allows its bearer easy access into and out of the event halls).

In any case, the purpose of this post is not to review the event itself (even though I would love to), but the marvellous swag that I managed to procure. Year after year of attending Comic Fiesta I realized that many people do not take the time to type up their thoughts on the stuff they’ve bought, which I am partly guilty of myself, so I decided that I would do it all to completion this year, so matter how tedious the task might seem.

In this first part, I will be reviewing the 3 artbooks I purchased: CHAM (the official Comic Fiesta Art Collection), A Splash of Imagination: The Art of Silver Fox, and Hawk.

 

From Left to Right: CHAM, A Splash of Imagination, Hawk

Return from Limbo

Hey guys, how’ve you been? My life has been a massive blur since the last update 2 months ago, thanks to my comic drawing escapades for fanzines sold at the recent Comic Fiesta 2011. No worries though, for now that all that is over, I intend to update regularly again, starting with a review of the loot I’ve acquired from the event (with the exception of the books I’ve contributed to because it just feels wrong somehow)!

I hope to do it sometime later today and the review might be split into a few parts, so do keep a lookout for it!

Oh yes, and have yourself a Merry, Merry Christmas in the meantime!

Comics Are Cool! (Like we still need convincing?!)

If you’re already following me on Twitter, then you’d have noticed that I retweeted Zid’s tweet about Earthy 638′s upcoming event called ‘Comics Are Cool! @ Earth 638′.

 

The Comics Are Cool! Event Poster (So Cool! Haha!)

I remember that Earth 638′s shop used to be located in Damansara Jaya’s Atria Shopping Complex, but I guess they must’ve moved since demolition/reconstruction work on the complex began a few months ago. They’re now located at Lot No.31J-2 on the 2nd Floor of Kelana Mall and this event could be an ingenious way for them to draw supporters of the local comic scene to their humble shop once again.

They have a strong lineup of Malaysian artists gracing the event; Gilamon Studios (which comprises of Tan Eng Huat (who is slowly becoming a familiar face at comic events around Southeast Asia), Slaium, Lefty, and Michael Chuah), Alan Quah, Faezal Tan, and the list goes on. It’s going to be a great opportunity to rub shoulders with the who’s who in the Malaysian comics scene!

‘Traditional’ comic shops like Earth 638 are few and far in between in Malaysia nowadays (with the exception of The Mind Shop), so show your support by attending whether you’re a comic aficionado or creator. You probably won’t regret it.

As usual, all the cool things happen when I’m not back in Malaysia, but it’s cool (pun unintended). You can find more information on how to get there and such (like the launch of Malaysia’s 1st Indie Comic Wall) on the Official Comics Are Cool! Facebook Event Page. Viva Comics!

Minor Edit: Changed the Poster image to the latest one to display more information.