Since The Comic Embassy's launch in June 2022, the pop-up art community space has hosted a number of local comic book creators like artists Foo Swee Chin, James Leong, Alan Bay and Collin Yap. These ambassadors met art students, comic book fans, did live drawings, drew portrait sketches as well as conducted interesting workshops about illustrating comic books. Creative guests like poet Felix Cheong also shared about their personal creative journeys.
Last month, on Community Day, a busy flow of comic book fans, art students and members of the public mingled and sat down for portrait sketches by the artist ambassadors. The many colourful participants of the Harajuku Fashion Walk Singapore dropped by that day, adding on to the convivial and creative ambience of the place.
The Comic Embassy will wrap up its busy and fruitful run promoting the local comic book scene at the end of August 2022. Before that happens, the organizers have planned a list of exciting activities, and will be introducing more featured guests throughout the month.
From 1 to 14 August, the theme will be Realms Of Chiaroscuro. SAM LAY, SEAN LAM and KANG JING are the three featured artists who will share and demonstrate the use of their skills and techniques of using light and darkness to tell compelling narratives. There are also scheduled sessions with other creatives like veteran artist Cheah Sin Ann (best known for The House Of Lim), Zaki Rahman and Danny Jalil.
For more information about the events scheduled in 1 to 14 August, please click here: https://sgcartoonhub.com/comic-embassy/#programme
Here’s a short introduction to get to know the talented featured artists of Realms Of Chiaroscuro:
SAM LAY
Pantomime cartoonist and illustrator Sam Lay creates art from ‘everyday’ things and occurrences with a dash of humour and satire. With deft strokes of a pen or pencil, Sam is able to convey his ideas and expressions without the use of words or dialogues. You might find his lines and drawings familiar. This is because Sam is also a cartoon columnist with Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore’s Chinese newspaper, and you might have seen his works published in the papers since 1995.
In 2020, Sam created a cartoon series titled Oddly Sequential. In the following year, he started the Life In A Notebook project where he drew highly creative art combined with mundane everyday objects like batteries, nailclippers, staplers, and rubber bands. The series became popular and his art was turned into an exhibition in 2022 through the support of NAC, CapitaLand and the National Kidney Foundation (NKF). His artwork was displayed as part of the DIASPORA visual art exhibition held at Basheer Books during this year’s Singapore Art Week. Recently, 70 of his past and recent pieces were exhibited at Grids Coffee, a lifestyle cafe and event space.
You will be able to meet Sam Lay on 13 August (Sat) from 3 – 4 PM at The Comic Embassy.
SEAN LAM
Sean Lam is an acclaimed artist who has made his name overseas for over 20 years by creating several graphic novels with various American and European publishers. He has worked with multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Larry Niven to produce a two part graphic novel adaption of New York Times’ best-selling sci-fi novel Ringworld. He is also well-known as the artist for The Curseborn Saga manga series, a collaboration with writing team the Four Lords.
One of Sean’s notable achievements is a 32-page Pope Benedict manga comic with over 300,000 copies produced in Spain, and was distributed during World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid. For his work in bible themed graphic novel, Judith: Captive To Conqueror, Sean received the International Award at Angoulême Christian Comics Festival in France. In 2019, Sean returned to Singapore, and soon after, he started ctreating and self-published GEUNGSI, a cinematic horror tale dedicated to the “Chinese vampire” set in the familiar local heartland.
Red Dot Diva interviewed Sean earlier this year to learn more about GEUNGSI. Click here for the article.
Recently, Sean was featured in the 29 July 2022’s episode of Mediacorp Channel 8’s Hello Singapore (狮城有约) news and current affairs show. You can watch him share about his aspirations and his experiences being an artist abroad and back home on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xVgZcWjtP4
Sean will be doing a meet and greet on 6 August (Sat) at 3 – 4 PM, and a live drawing demostration on 13 August (Sat) at 4 – 5 PM. Remember to stop by The Comic Embassy to say hello to him!
KANG JING
Homegrown comics creator Kang Jing (KJ) is the founder of Chiral Comics. In 2019, KJ debut his martial arts comic series, The World My Arena, through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. The series follows the story of the main protagonist Nathan, a victim of school bullying and how he overcame his difficulties through learning martial arts. The World My Arena quickly gained traction has since been featured on local media like CNA Lifestyle, and has been adapted into animated videos the ComicVid app by VividThree Productions.
Following the success of The World My Arena, a spin-off bilingual webcomic series Save Me From Chloe was produced. The cartoon strip about the ups and downs of siblings Nathan and Chloe is also available in printed comic book form.
KJ’s works are also published in comic anthologies internationally, including The Covid Chronicles by Graphic Mundi as well as the Kickstarter-funded Destiny And The UnXplainables.
In August 2021, KJ was a special guest in Live With Red Dot Diva, a monthly livestream featuring South-East Asian creators. In the session, he shared about his personal experiences in self-publishing comic books. Click here to watch the livestream.
KJ will be conducting two talks at The Comic Embassy :
* 6 August, 2 -3 PM : How to break into comics with anthologies
* 13 August, 2-3 PM : Making of The World My Arena
Do lend your support to our local talents, and drop by The Comic Embassy during its last month at Tekka Place.
You can sign up for the workshops, attend the talks, admire their artwork on display and interract with the creatives during the scheduled meet and greet sessions. A varied selection of locally made comic books are also available for sale, so don’t miss the opportunity to pick up one of more interesting titles for your collection!
THE COMIC EMBASSY
Where: #B1-01/02 at Tekka Place, 2 Serangoon Road, Singapore 218227
Date: Till 30 August 2022
Time: Please check the schedules here - https://sgcartoonhub.com/comic-embassy/
Admission is FREE
------------------------
RELATED THE COMIC EMBASSY ARTICLES
Art Is Community - The Comic Embassy Opens At Tekka Place - 11 June 2022
The Comic Embassy - An Interview With Local Sketch Artist Collin Yap
The Comic Embassy - An Interview With Multi-faceted Freelance Artist James Leong
The Comic Embassy - An Interview With Versatile Comic Book Creator Alan Bay
The Comic Embassy - An Interview With Inimitable Local Artist Foo Swee Chin
No comments:
Post a Comment