Since today is International Women’s Day, here is a shoutout to some of Malaysia’s most prominent and promising comic creators, from Eisner-winners and nominees to globally read webtoonists.
In 2020, young Malaysian artist Erica Eng made history when her webcomic Fried Rice clinched the Best Webcomic award at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, making her the first Malaysian comics creator to win an Eisner (though Malaysian-born Singaporean comics creator Sonny Liew had previously won three Eisners in 2017 for The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye).
Started in 2019 and published on friedricecomic.tumblr.com, Fried Rice is “a work of autobiographical fiction” about “a 17-year-old girl who wants to be an artist and also lives in Malaysia”. It revolves around Min, a girl from Batu Pahat, Johor, who visits her relatives in Kuala Lumpur and is aspiring to be an artist and animator.
Besides the Eisner, Fried Rice also won the Ringo Award for Best Webcomic that year, and was nominated at the prestigious Harvey Award for Digital Book of the Year as well.
Apart from the ongoing Fried Rice, Eng has also worked on other projects, including #UncoverLife Atopic Dermatitis, More Than Skin Deep, a series of comics aimed at raising awareness about atopic dermatitis (AD), a skin condition she also has. The comics highlight the struggles of real AD patients as well as addressing myths about AD. and was published in 2021.
Speaking of Eisner Awards, in 2018, a then-unknown young Malaysian comics creator named Reimena Yee burst into the public eye with a surprise nomination for Best Digital Comic for her webcomic The Carpet Merchant Of Konstantiniyya.
Although she did not win, Yee used that nomination as a springboard to launch her career, with more titles under her belt as well as a new webcomic called Alexander, The Servant & The Water Of Life.
Yee is now midway through Chapter Six of her “21st Century Alexander Romance” since its launch in June 2021, and it is every bit as sprawling and epic as you might expect (you can read it at alexanderromance.com).
Based on the life of Alexander the Great, the comic was born of an “obsession” with the ancient Macedonian king Yee had since 2017. After reading and finding out more about all the history and folklore surrounding Alexander, Yee, 27 felt “compelled to contribute to this almost 2,000-year-old chain of storytellers with my 21st century retelling”.
Besides Alexander, the Melbourne, Australia-based creator has also released Seance Tea Party, her debut children’s graphic novel about lonely 12-year-old Lora who is afraid of growing up, and ends up making friends with a ghost. Yee also co-wrote a comic with Filipino comics artist Tintin Pantoja, called The Maker’s Club.
Her new middle-grade adventure graphic novel My Aunt Is A Monster, is scheduled for release later this year, and is about a blind girl writer and her (formerly) “World’s Greatest Adventurer” aunt with a big secret.
Besides her own work, Yee co-founded and co-runs a grassroots collective called Unnamed, which focuses on building community, infrastructure and appreciation for comics in South-East Asia.
Another comics creator who has made it onto the global stage is Tay Yen Ee, better known as Fishball, the creator of popular webtoon My Giant Geek Boyfriend (also known as My Giant Nerd Boyfriend).
Fishball, who took that name because she wanted something that was easy to remember and related to South-East Asian cuisine, first started the comic by drawing her day to day experiences in a diary. After officially launching in 2017, it has since become one of online comic portal Webtoon’s biggest hits.
The comic was nominated in 2018 for a Ringo Award for Best Humour Comic, and Fishball herself has been making appearances in international comics conventions, including the popular New York Comic Con.
If you have never read or heard of Mirror, then you would do well to pick up the trade paperback for this 10-issue mini-series by Image Comics.
Not only is it written by award-winning comics creator Emma Rios (artist of Eisner-winning Image Comic series Pretty Deadly), it is also beautifully illustrated by Malaysian artist Hwei Lim.
Lim’s image Comics profile describes her as a “Malaysian artist known for her soft, painterly style and impressive approach to fashion and character design”. But that description doesn’t adequately describe her work.
A look through Mirror reveals beautifully painted vistages and dreamily illustrated characters that are quite unlike many mainstream comic books.
According to an article by Comics Alliance, Rios was offered a chance to produce a book for the Brandon Graham-curated shared sci-fi/fantasy collective 8house, and immediately thought about working on it with Lim. They’d met and worked together at a workshop in Japan in 2008 and became best friends after that.
In the same article, Lim describes Mirror as “a story about what it means to be human, sentient, self-aware”.
Mirror ended in April 2019 after 10 issues, and Lim, who is currently based in Malaysia, has not had any other major comics work lately. Her other works include a short comic called The Loneliest Whale, a fantasy reimagination of Tang Dynasty’s Princess Pingyang called Our Glorious Deeds, and a mini-comic called Monstering created for last year’s Comic Art Festival Kuala Lumpur
Jon Suraya (real name Suraya Md Nasir) is best known for her Jejon Di Jepun series of travel comics, which she has been producing since 2015, when she went to Japan to study manga art.
According to a biography published by the International Conference On Indian Comics (for which she was a speaker in the 2021 event), Suraya graduated with a PhD from the Manga and Anime Department of Kyoto Seika University in 2019 with a focus on manga theory.
Besides Jejon Di Jepun, Suraya has also produced comics for Malaysia’s APO! Magazine, among other works.
Sarawakian sketch artist Hanie Mohd’s claim to comic book fame is her contribution to DC Comics’ Wonderful Women Of The World, an anthology of stories released in conjunction with the 80th anniversary of Wonder Woman last year.
Released last year, the anthology celebrates real-life wonder women of the world, and Hanie, 39, contributed a story about Professor Khatijah Mohamad Yusoff, an academician and virologist whose research on how the poultry virus Newcastle Disease Virus can be used to treat cancer is recognised worldwide.
Although she is not tied to any regular comic job at the moment, she had previously done work for IDW (the Womanthology: Space graphic novel) as well for local comic magazines like Karangkraf’s JOM and SEAD Studio’s Awang Khenit.
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