The Comic Embassy, a pop-up artist commnunal space at Tekka Place, is currently in its second month of operation. Every month from June 2022, two artist ambassadors will be in the spotlight, providing ample opportunities for people to meet them, and get to know more about their creative works. In June, the artist ambassadors were Collin Yap and James Leong. This month, local artists Alan Bay and Foo Swee Chin will step into the spotlight.
Alan Bay is a prolific illustrator and comic book creator who is known for his artwork in several high profile projects, including games like Assassin's Creeds: Brotherhood and TMNT, and the comic book “ONCE UPON A SINGAPORE... TRADERS”, which was nominated for Singapore Book Publishers Association's Book of the Year 2019.
Red Dot Diva last met Alan Bay when he was busy promoting local fantasy comic book “SACRED GUARDIANS”, published by Asiapac Books. She managed to catch up with Alan for this interview as he prepares for his appearances at the Comic Embassy:
The realm of webcomics is like an unfiltered pool of digital creativity. Ever since the medium's boom in the 2000's, there has been a growing number of formats and titles published. Readers can decide if they prefer the snappy one panel web comics, or those that are written as an on-going series, like those Hong Kong TV serials you grew up with. Since most webcomics are published independently, there is a wide range of genres out there to cater to a smorgasbord of tastes, especially if you are looking for something really niche.
Kanme Studio is one of those creative collectives who have started publishing webcomics. The studio is founded about 3 years ago by American writer named Yam. The collective's core includes usogami, who mainly takes care of the web-related aspects, and local freelance artist Alan Bay whom Red Dot Diva has gotten to know in recent years. Alan Bay has also done worked in the games industry, and drawn for a number of books including the recently published SACRED GUARDIANS comic (Asiapac Books) and ONCE UPON A SINGAPORE... TRADERS, a finalist for Book of the Year at the Singapore Book Awards 2019.
Holy Bak Kut Teh! The prequel comic to the local tokusatsu SACRED GUARDIAN SINGA project will be having its launch tomorrow, 12 September 2020 on local leading publisher AsiaPac Book's Facebook page!
The virtual launch party for the comic entitled SACRED GUARDIANS will begin at 3 PM. Writer Aydeel Djoeharie and artist Alan Bay will be appearing at the livestream (moderated by AsiaPac's Chong Lingying), ready to share their creators' journey in bringing this book to fruition.
“Writing Sacred Guardians was both challenging and fun. With inspiration from American and Japanese superheroes, the story blends in Southeast Asian history, heritage, cultures as well as positive values to create an exciting, relatable story for our young (and older) readers,” said Aydeel Djoeharie, who written and directed several film projects before.
As for the book's artist Alan Bay, “Sacred Guardians was a special project for me not only for its story and characters but because it also helped me get through the pandemic as I spent most of time staying at home and working on it.”
Just before tomorrow's launch, the five SACRED GUARDIANSpoofed in unexpectedly into Red Dot Diva's lair with a present - a limited preview copy of the comic. They declined her offer to stay for tea, but said that she could share a little about their origin story to her readers.
Local Red Dot Island illustrator Alan Bay may call himself smallguydoodle on social media, but his artistic talent is anything but small.
He has worked for an extensive list of projects, ranging from high profile game titles like Assassin's Creed, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Romance of Three Kingdoms Online, to comics, cartoons and children's books.
His first printed fantasy-RPG-based comic was a collaboration with Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) and ChuangYi Publishing called ATLAS. The comic still lives as ATLAS REALMS on tapas.
Red Dot Diva is excited to get her hands on SACRED GUARDIANS, so she took the opportunity to ask Alan Bay about his experience working in the different industries as well as nab a couple of teasers for the upcoming comic book.
The inaugural online event this weekend (16 and 17 May 2020) consists of a list of workshops by local comic book creators as well as live streams of book launches and meet and greets. It is such a great way to help the community remain connected with each other during the Covid-19 Circuit Breaker.
For Sunday's (17 May) schedule, there will be a series of free live streams via Facebook:
1400 hrs - Meet the creators: Sacred Guardians Singa
1500 hrs - Comic book launch: Elizabeth Choy
1600 hrs - Making comic books with Asiapac Books
1700 hrs - Discover the "POP" within you with Singapore Comic Con
1800 hrs - Launch party for Comix.sg, Singapore’s new online directory for comic creators
Soon, Red Dot Island will have another superhero to call our own! And, he is even more awesome than VR Man. His name is Sacred Guardian Singa, and he possesses great power from an ancient source of local and South-East Asian origins.
Sacred Guardian Singa is a passion project by Basil Yeo, Gan Meng Yeow and Aydeel Djoeharie, the founders of tokuAsia. tokuAsia first started out as a community built to foster the appreciation tokusatsu entertainment, which includes the likes of Godzilla and Kamen Rider. Their love for tokusatsu movies has inspired them to do a fan movie for many years, and finally, they worked together with other equally dedicated team members and partners, to bring a Red Dot Island version of a tokusatsu superhero to life via a recently formed company tokuAsia Pictures LLP.
A comic book called SACRED GUARDIANS about the origin of Sacred Guardian Singa and his past lives will be launched this year through Asiapac Books. It will be written by Aydeel Djoeharie with illustrations by Alan Bay. And of course, a Sacred Guardian Singa live action series is expected to be developed by end-2020.
For now, the co-founders of tokuAsia are excited to share the Sacred Guardian Singa concept trailer to fans out there:
“We are thrilled to finally be able to present the concept trailer for Sacred Guardian Singa to the entire world. It was always our vision to develop a superhero story that resonates with who we are and our place in this world, yet contains enough universal themes that will appeal to
someone living on the other side of the globe,” said Basil Yeo, CEO of tokuAsia Pte. Ltd.
“The concept trailer gives our audience an idea of the flavour of the Sacred Guardians brand, and the quality that they can expect as we continue to develop the pilot episode, with a view of making a full series by year end. With the incredible level of talent we have on-board the project,
and the amazing support that we have received from our partners and the community, we are very confident that we can take the brand to the next level,” said Aydeel Djoeharie, COO of tokuAsia Pte. Ltd.
Red Dot Diva watched the Sacred Guardian Singa trailer when it premiered at Singapore Comic Con last December. She appreciated how the trailer managed to show a Red Dot Island heart at its core, with relatable South-East Asian faces, recognisable accents, well choreographed fight scenes, and an appealing superhero costume (love the white and gold aesthetic and that lion headgear design!).
**For the non-locals, Singa means lion in Sanskrit. It is where the name Singapore comes from, which means Lion City.
There's one thing that Red Dot Diva absolutely loves about STGCC. It is a special event that lures local and regional artists out of the cubi-holes which they tend to hide in.
During the two-day convention (and sometimes a few weeks prior), Red Dot Diva will get to know a few more talented people that she has not met before. Whenever she walks down Artist Alley at STGCC, it feels like it's one huge happy block party! So much fun!
This year, she noticed an adorable and relatable cartoon character called "Small Guy" :) (That's mainly because Red Dot Diva is small too!?) The local artist who created "Small Guy" is Alan Bay, who has worked in the gaming industry previously where he employed his skills in 2D concept boarding and 3D modelling.
Alan is currently working on his next comic book within his own Smallguydoodle imprint. His first published comic book called "Atlas" was a collaboration with Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) and ChuangYi Publishing. (BTW peeps, one can purchase "Atlas" over this portal - http://fantasticfox.org/ebookdetail/188).
Together with booth buddy and fellow artist Muhammad Firman, Alan can be found flexing his small but imaginative artistic biceps at Booth #AA36 during STGCC.
