Liquid City Vol.2 book launch

Today marked the first of 2 events to launch the second volume of Liquid City - the comics anthology by Image Comics featuring comics creators from Southeast Asia. Two years after the launch of the first volume, Liquid City is back again bringing more tales centred around the fluid, ever-changing nature of cities and their citizens.

Featuring both established as well as new creators, Liquid City is a visual treat presenting a variety of styles and genres. If you manage to peel yourself from returning cover artist Shelly Wan's painted cover and flip the pages to a buffet offering of good to great comic strips ranging from Miel's "Signs" to Dave Chua and Koh Hong Teng's "Paper City" to Lefty's "The Way Back" to Troy Chin's "Delays". Malaysian legend Lat contributes a new strip about football game in Malaysia. Co-editor Sonny Liew himself contributes a very Singaporean "The Hunt for Mas Selamat" (with a bogus, in-his-dreams football scoreline).

The spotlight wasn't merely on Liquid City Vol.2, with appearances by local artists Ye Zhen and Otto Fong who spoke about their recent comics work.

Don't worry if you missed the book launch at Kinokuniya earlier today, there will be another book launch event next week (6 November 2010, 2pm) at {prologue}, Ion Orchard.















Be sure to check out Dave Chua and Koh Hong Teng's "Gone Case: The Graphic Novel" slated to launch later this year at STGCC 2010


Otto Fong signing my copy of Sir Fong's Adventures in Science Book 3: Cells!


Otto Fong together with guest artist Koh Hong Teng who drew backgrounds for a page in the book


Koh Hong Teng obliges with his autograph




Troy Chin ... always delightful to have a chat with


JC Wong with Ye Zhen looking on









Autograph production line




Liquid City Vol. 1 & 2


Managed to add Hong Teng's autograph to my Vol.1




Vol.2 autographs



Otto's and Hong Teng's autographs on Otto's latest book



Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #50 signed by Sonny Liew



Marvel's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice signed by Sonny Liew

Singapore Writers' Festival (24 Oct 09) - Lat, Mark Waid, Sonny Liew

It was a bright a cheery Saturday to kick off a series of panel discussions at the Arts House featuring comics.

First off, I went down to Funan Centre food court to meet some of the folk from a local comics mailing list. Some are published creators, some are aspiring to be published and others like me are just starry-eyed fans.

Then we made our way to the Arts House for the first panel. Moderated by Cheng Tju and featuring the art of the Malaysian cartoonist Lat, it was an informative session about how the beloved Lat started out and ended up in a career of cartooning - first from his early days learning English from listening to rock and roll records to performing well enough at school to head to town for further studies to his days as a journalist for the New Straits Times newspaper. A real-life Datuk, he was friendly and approachable nonetheless and gamely signed all the Lat books I had - Kampung Boy, Town Boy, Lat: The Early Years as well as added his autograph to the Liquid City anthology.


Cheng Tju and Lat


A portrait of Lat

Next up was the Terence Chua-moderated panel featuring Mark Waid. Mark was supposed to have arrived at SWF two years ago together with Kurt Busiek and Gail Simone, but had to pull out at the last minute. This year he finally managed to participate as a guest. The room was packed with comic fanboys and the line of questions was reflected as such (from Superman's telephone number to the gang of 4 working on "52" and why Geoff Johns is a very evil man). Someone went so far as to declare that he's here attending this panel while leaving his girlfriend to wait at the airport... and something about preferring comics to sex (too much information, dude!). Mark cruised through the autograph line and signed my set of Kingdom Come issues. I realised I didn't have many books by Mark Waid... having been more of a Marvel Zombie early in my comic reading career, thus missing out on many of the DC titles Mark had worked on, such as JLA, Superman, The Flash etc. I also asked him to autograph a CC Beck (creator of Shazam!) tribute that appeared on the inside front cover of Sandman #14. G&B Comics were giving out free comics to those who attended. I scored a copy of Valor #17 written by Mark Waid and with great art by Colleen Doran.


Mark Waid

The final panel for the day... also moderated by Terence Chua featured Lat, Mark Waid and Causeway Child - Sonny Liew where they dished out advice to aspiring writers. I don't remember much of what was said except Lat stealing the scene with his funny quips - "I was popular in the last century...".


Sonny Liew, Mark Waid and Lat panel


Lat The Early Years featuring Lat's cartoons from the New Straits Times


Signed and sketched Lat The Early Years


The First Second American editions of Lat classics - Kampung Boy and Town Boy


Signed Kampung Boy


Signed and sketched Town Boy


Signed Liquid City Vol.1


Signed Valor #17


Signed column in Sandman #14


Kingdom Come


One of Mark Waid's autographs in Kingdom Come