[Servalan]

Sonny Liew: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Epigram Books 2015 und Pantheon 2016)

Singapur wurde 1965 unabhängig. Diese fiktive Comicbiographie kompiliert Comics aus aller Welt, von Osamu Tezuka bis zu Walt Kelly, zu einem Mosaik, in dem sich die reale Geschichte mit Comics zu etwas Neuen verwebt.

Singapore gained its independence in 1965. Without doubt the most surprising and perceptive account of the five subsequent decades comes as a graphic biography of one extraordinary comics artist, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Epigram Books, 2015 and Pantheon, 2016). At over 300 pages, this metatextual memoir is the most ambitious project yet by Sonny Liew, a ‘Causeway Child’ of a Malaysian father and Singaporean mother, who converted to Singapore citizenship amid the new excitement in the air after the 2011 elections. “I felt I need to do this book as a Singaporean, rather than a foreigner or as someone on the outside looking in. It took a lot research, talking to publishers, writers, historians, reading all sorts of books on Singaporean history. It’s been a real education, one that has helped me understand a little better this country’s past.”

Liew parallels the island nation’s turbulent history with Chan’s life and career, resonating with his personal sketches, photos, accomplished paintings and the ever-shifting subjects, styles and formats of his comics, shot from fading print or original art, some of it previously unpublished. Our guide, an elderly Chan is not lacking in modesty: “Maybe I always destined to become Singapore’s greatest comics artist.” The seed was planted from Chan’s boyhood reading in ‘Pavement’ or ‘Five Foot Way’ street rental libraries.

Chan always wore his influences on his sleeve, from Ah Huat’s Giant Robot saviour, his teen debut imitating Osamu Tezuka’s robot manga, or Dragon, his 1957 copy of British weekly Eagle, to his funny animal fable close to Walt Kelly’s Pogo and localised superhero Roachman (below). Throughout Liew annotates the topical politics implied or explicit in Chan’s series, while recreating key turning points in the artist’s life. The reader is pulled inside this double-edged history, pulsing with the tensions and wonders of lived experience.