Sonny Liew

Jumping ship perhaps, due to customization limits with livejournal, pls goto:

http://sonnyliew.wordpress.com/

I've been told that adding this livejournal users can add this account to their friends page to get an RSS feed from the new blog:

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/sonnyliew_rss/

Just before the trip to France got a chance to do a short spiderman story written by Roger Langrige... I'd forgotten how much I liked reading those stan lee- steve ditko stories as a kid but doing some reading and research for the story really brought back memories of Mysterio, the Vulture and that whole sick crew...



Both Roger and Me wanted to do a homage to Ditko I think, plus that feel and look of old comics so I got some advice from Matt Hollingsworth on how to get that half tone effect on photoshop (filter-pixellate-color halftone)plus that yellowed paper look (scan, rubber stamp, use as multiply layer)...



The whole thing was a wee bit rushed but I hope it turned out ok. Does everything a spider can! :p

To appear in MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #50

The Wonderland trade is out, Amazon link here... there was a nice review in Publisher's Weekly... The colours... well didn't turn out the same way they did in the original series, but  I guess that's a issue for another time...

Meanwhile a couple of videos!

Bao put this together for Malinky Robot:


And Parry Shen put this together for the Secret Identities Anthology :)

The making of video here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mnHjcqZF4E&fmt=18

Back in Singaporeland after a 2 and half week trip to France and Belgium to promote the new french edition of Malinky Robot published by Bao.

Our first stop was the BD Fugue comics store/cafe in Annecy...



Met up with fellow Flight artist Nicolas Bannister there (he happens to live in Annecy), and BD Fugue itself was a really cool store which kinda gave a sense of how differently the comics medium is treated in France. Here in Singapore big stores like Kinokuniya aside you just don't see comic stores like this, with a good balance of all sorts of comics - mostly they're just stocked full of mainstream superhero stuff, and the only one that kinda bucked the trend (Atomix Comix at Orchard MRT shut down bout a year ago).

Anyhow it was exciting to see that Matt Groening and Gilbert Shelton has been there too! :p



My dad was with me on the trip, partly to see Geneva, but mostly to make sure I didn't fall over too much given my dodgy achilles tendon. The cold weather and Too Much Comics seemed to take a toll though, with increasing frazzledness as the week went on, but it was good to see him chipper again when he headed home after a week :)



Before that though we went to Alberville to see lots of mountains and snow. In the pics above there's Bao editor Jean-Paul Moulin, plus two very excellent artists also on the book promo shindig, Chaiko from Shanghai and Tony Sandoval from Mexico...



I lugged back home lots of comics (wait 'bandes dessinees' i mean) i couldn't read back home, and i think my favourite French creators remain Nicolas DeCrecy and Manu Larcenet, whose "Ordinary Victories" was very excellent indeed...



Other places we did signings at was the Apoklyps in Paris, the Brusels Libairie Galerie in Brussels and the Salon De Livre, where i ran into Obelix and Dogmatix! :p



All that book signing left everyone kinda tired by the end of the Salon de Livre, but one highlight of the trip was a chance to go visit Borge's grave in Geneva...



A Bunch of Dedicacees above, and some sketches below...











More pics at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115702

Well kinda sorta anyhow... Bao books made this promo thing for the salon de livre and assorted websites :p

http://bao.paquet.li/2009/03/bande-annonce-de-malinky-robot-sonny.html

Its been an educational trip so far, learning bout the comics industry here in france, and finding out exactly how much cheese they eat over here :p

There's been a lot of controversey over the  New York Post cartoon showing two cops shooting  a chimp.



Those defending the cartoon seem to have this to say:  (a) the cartoonist didn't mean it, (b) "I" didn't see the connection  (c) anyway its just a cartoon  (d)  Al Sharpton is a total tool and/or (e) whats wrong with showing Obama as a dead chimp anyway?

1. The problem with (a) and (b) is that  whilst its true that  interpretations of any cartoon are  always somewhat subjective, and authorial intention can differ from  what the reader gets, we would expect anyone peddling in visual communication (as the cartoonist and editors are) to be aware of a  link as salient as this one (obama= monkey killed by violent means), despite what these folks have to say.

Linking imagery from two current events is a common enough gambit for cartoonists, but failure to think through the implications feels very sloppy ; its what they do for a living - you wouldn't go round excusing a bomb expert who accidentally negligently blows something up by saying " i might have cut that red wire myself too" :p

2. Political cartoon and satires have been a powerful tool in communication for ages, dismissing something as 'just a cartoon' doesn't really work - its the reason why politicians in Singapore have never allowed negative political cartoons of government figures in the media. The use of cartoons during the Reformation also tells its own story :)

3.  If [insert name of someone you dislike] spoke out against child abuse, it would still be relevant; so Al Sharpton or not the  criticism still stands, contrary to the New York Post's attack on 'opportunists'...

4. (e)  enters into trickier waters.. George Bush was depicted as a monkey often enough, so what makes Obama off limits? Racism is of course the key issue here - similar to  issues were raised by Spain's Beijing-bound basketball team, or any use of the word  "Golliwog". I guess it usually boils down to how sensitive you are these things; in this case though its more about the issue raised earlier: that the cartoonist and New York Post editors should (in professional terms) have been aware of the connotations.

If they weren't, a less defensive apology would have been nice, and if they were, well, they're probably in the right kind of hot soup now....

A French edition of the collected Malinky Robot stories will be release in March...  the publishers (Bao imprint from Paquet books) have also been kind enough to arrange for a trip to promote the book, which should cover several cities, including the "le salon du livre" from March 13-18 abd another convention in Grenoble ... more details soon, maybe :p Some stuff in french here...
 

 Meanwhile also out in March is the Secret Identities anthology, featuring(mostly)  Asian American creators, exploring Asian American identity via superhero stories. I did a story with Gene Yang ( "American Born Chinese" ), also featured is Dustin Nguyen and many more....

Haven't got a copy yet, but they had the Wonderland HC trade on display at the Disney Hyperion booth at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference recently, and Tommy sent me some pics of it .... :p



In less fun news, ruptured my right achilles tendon last week, so its going to be crutches and rehab (and no footie) for the next 6 months or so :p (the foots not as mangled as it looks - that's just the backslab :p)



Meabwhile some paintings and original comic book art up at the J Cafe at the  MICA Building ,140 Hill Street, #01-01, S(179369) here in Singapore until Feb 18th :)

opening hours:

Daily:
11.30am - 4.30pm
6.30pm - 10.30pm

contact: 6337 7009

Thanks to Kelvin from Asian Art News for the hookup, and J Cafe for putting up the show :)   For more info goto : Singapore Art Tours

Did a cover for Marvel's Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice... the magazine approach was totally editorial's idea, i just tagged along :p out in this months previews i think... the adaptation is wriiten by  Nancy Butler and interior art by Hugo Petras  Petrus  :)


 

The Straits Times ran a bunch of comic strips by local creators in the xmas issue of Life, here's the one i did:



FSc, Troy Chin and Otto Fong also contributed  theirs:

http://www.straitstimes.com/gallery/Breaking%2BNews/Lifestyle/Story/STIStory_318476.html

The book signing at KLCC Malaysia just about wraps up all the promotional shindigs for Liquid City for 2008. It's been lots of fun meeting all the artists involved in the project, but tiring as well; all this PR stuff requires a kind of disassociation i think, a projection of some self other than the one you're used to. Maybe in time the two will coalesce, but maybe not just yet :)



Anyway, the folks from Gilamon were there, including Kaoru who couldn't make it to the Singapore signing, plus Leong Wan Kok. Otto Fong made the trip across the causeway, and Tan Eng Huat and Pekomik's Muhamad Azhar Abdullah showed up to lend their support. Wan Kok brought his laptop along and it had all sorts of amazing works in progress on it... check out his website!



Lat was all PR-ed out  from all the signings he did for his new stamp collection, but he did join us for drinks afterwards, and it was great as always hearing him talk about his experiences :)



Above from left to right: Micheal Chuah, Kaoru, Keith Chong, Chin Sau Lim, Lat, Muhamad Azhar Abdullah, me, Tan Eng Huat and Leong Wan Kok.

an aside: watched "Bolt" in 3D today, the first 3D movie i'd seen since a Jaws sequel ages ago... it was an interesting experience, but after the first half hour I think you start getting used to the effects, and its back to old fashioned storytelling to sustain the show. Maybe Jame Cameron's Avatar will take 3D to its next step though, with the effects somehow becoming intergral to the story, who knows :)

The Half Flat show is in its final week; it'll probably be kinda sad when its time to take all the paintings down :p

The Half Flat Art Show is on from Nov 29- Dec 30 at the Black Earth Art Musuem in Singapore. Original Comic Book Art and Robot Paintings on display, together with the works of another 3 illustrators :p



For more event photos, click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88943 

For a show review:  http://www.liquidcitizen.net/temp/IS-reviewsmall.jpg



For Gilamon Studio's report of the Liquid City book launch at Kinokuniya Singapore, goto:

http://gilamon.blogspot.com/2008/12/at-liquid-city-launch-in-singapore.html

The Liquid City comics anthology hit the shelves as of last week (US$29.99, S$42) and the official book launch at Kinokuniya Singapore is on the 29th of November, with another signing in Malaysia on 13th December.

Go here for more info: http://www.liquidcitizen.net/LQcity.pdf

and : http://www.liquidcitizen.net/EVENT2.jpg

Book Launch (Singapore)

29th November 2008 (Saturday)
2.00 p.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store (Takashimaya),
Crossroads

Pre-Event Exhibition of Liquid City
Crossroads from 17th November 2008 (Monday) to
29th November 2008 (Saturday): an exhibition of
some of the artworks from Liquid City.

Book Launch (Malaysia)

14th December 2008 (Sunday)
3.00 p.m.
Kinokuniya Malaysia, KLCC, Mezzanine Floor.

note: errata

-Page 115 and 116 of “Alpha Gorilla” should take place after page 123.

- Shari Chankhamma is wrongly listed as Shari Chankhammer in the contents page.

It was really hard selecting just 3 from all the excellent pieces submitted, thanks to help from Mike Carey, Dustin Nguyen, Shelly Wan, Drewscape, Leong Wan Kok and Charlene Chua for their input :)

Winners please send me a note with your mailing address; pls also indicate whether you would like to receive the books  a.s.a.p. (with limited number of signatures), or if your willing to wait till the end of the month (with more signatures :p)

Thanks to everyone for participating, there really was a lot of great stuff submitted, I wish we had more books to giveaway!



Book and O.A.. Book  


All entries  for the Liquic City Giveaway Draw-A-Robot Contest below:

1234


5678

9101112

13141516

17181920

21222324

25262728

29303132

33343536

37383940

41424244

45464748

49505152

53545556


57585960

61626364

6566676869

Currently working on editing all the old Malinky Robot stories that are being put together for a collection in French, to be published by the new BAO imprint of Editions Paquet Sàrl.

Its taking longer than expected; the intial idea was to just colour the existing black and white pages (for consistency's sake, since later malinky robot stories were coloured, the black and white look could no longer represent 'reality/normality' as such), but as with a lot of old drawings, you end up wanting to fix things here and  there, so there've been whole pages redrawn...

Not sure how much change there is, but something just didn't look right :p here's a before and after sample:


Anyway... its an exciting project, just hope i can get everything done in time! :p

meanwhile here's one of the oddest most compelling vids i've seen on the tube :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4E9Vs74E7Q

Learnt last night that the DC Minx line got cancelled; there're a whole bunch of blogs speculating about the why and how of it, of which these are a few:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/09/25/breaking-news-minx-line-cancelled/

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cbr_dc_comics_ends_minx_imprint/

steverolston.livejournal.com/89645.html

Some of the reports argue that it was a placement issue, the books ending up in the comics/graphic novel section rather than the YA  or manga ones. That was certainly true here in Singapore, and maybe it was an unfortunate result of the hybrid nature of the line.

Personally of course the worry is that, whatever the marketing or placement issues, some of it comes down to the quality of the stories themselves, in this case the art - would Regifters have done better with better drawings? Or if it had been done in a different style?

There've certainly been some who thought that different creators might have fared better - getting more  YA authors involved for example, or having more female creators.

I'm sure though that Shelly must have thought all these things through, and my sense is that any set of decisions would have been criticised at some level - if they had gone with more YA authors, there might have been complaints about not making more use of actual comics creators who understood the craft better; if there were no male creators involved they might have been accused of a sort of reductive reasoning that you could only create comics for your own gender; and I'm pretty sure any name other than 'Minx' would have ended up with problematic connotations at some level or another; and so on and on.

Having said that, I think the debates over the reasons for the demise of the line  is interesting - leastwise in helping everyone figure out what exactly makes Manga and YA  fiction so successful in the first place. How much is down to marketing,  to the quality of the stories, to that ineffable thing that helps a Viz, TMNT or Harry Potter catch fire like its nobody else's  business?

And maybe some of it really is a mystery - how on earth did [insert name of your most-hated movie/singer/band/book/comic] end up making millions whilst [that excellent movie etc you really liked] ended up sinking without a trace? As comics creators i guess all we can really do is try and tell the stories we think are worth telling and hope that the jungle of the marketplace out there somehow thinks they're worth reading too.



 

Press Release info for the Liquid City launch and the "Half Flat" Art show :

http://www.liquidcitizen.net/pressrelease3.pdf

The Anthology launch will be at Kinokuniya (Ngee Ann City) 2:00-4:00 PM on November 29 2008, and the "Half Falt" art show opening will be at the Black Earth Art Museum, later that evening at 7:30 PM.

Thanks to JF Koh, we've been able to put together a blog and previews site for Liquid City:

http://www.liquidcitizen.net

The anthology will be launched in November this year, and includes works by creators like FSC, Leong Wan Kok, Gerry Alanguilan, Troy Chin, kenfoo, Lefty, Drewscape and many others. Lat's participation though was particulary exciting, cos i grew up reading his comics, and books like Town Boy and Kampung Boy get better with every reading; you realise how much craft goes under the deceptively simple surface.

We'll be arranging for book signings at Kinokunikya in Singapore and Malaysia, watch... various spaces for updates :p




Speaking of Kino, recently headed there to get some new comics, and saw the Vertigo Encyclopedia; so the first thing i did of course was to see if they had any entry on My Faith in Frankie...and was surprised to find it did in fact get a whole page! :p




Finally me, Hong Teng,  Lun Cheak and Skan will be having a group exhibition of our personal and commericial works at the Black Earth Art Gallery starting November 29, more details once we've firmed up stuff :p