Get Hold Of The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye Engineered By Sonny Liew Available As Readable Copy

cannot summarize it better than Kenny Mah of the The Malay Mail, so will simply quote him:

“Part graphic novel, part art book, part narrative essay, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Malaysianborn, Eisner Award nominated comic artist and illustrator Sonny Liew is a look at Singapore unlike any other before.
By reflecting on the life and work of a comic creator whose career spanned half a century, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye comments wryly on Singapores past and present while honoring comics as a storytelling medium.
”

This is a staggering work from an incredibly talented author/artist, and I often forgot that Charlie Chan Hock Chye was not a real person in history, but an artist that the author created as a device to document Singapore's turbulent history.
The versatility and range of artistic styles in this graphic novel are in of themselves worth the price of admission, and I learned some history along the way.


An NPR review: sitelink npr. org

The only reason I docked a star is due to my own shortcoming, I do not know much of the history described here, so there were moments of confusion as I tried to make sense of it all.
With this graphic novel, Sonny Liew has raised the bar of what can be expected from this genre.
Highly recommended.

Brilliant and subversively educational, I sometimes feel like Singapore is gaslighting me, This book suggests that I'm neither insane nor alone, I actually finished this book in one sitting, which is a very rare thing for me these days, and am belatedly updating Goodreads almost a month later.
THE ART OF CHARLIE CHAN HOCK CHYE is a stupendous achievement a study in history, art, and fictional biopic, serving as a superlative example of each, while laced with plenty of humour and pathos as well.
Sonny Liew's book is a delight to read and pore over: it radiates a love for comics and a keen grasp of politics and power that is quite blissful to encounter within the same pages.
Seldom has a history lesson been so absorbing partly because this is an alternative narrative that's largely ignored in Singapore schools, but also because of the way Liew weaves different genres of art and comics from scifi to satire into the life story of the titular devoted comic book artist who never made it big.
Within the political twists and turns is an intimate story of broken dreams and lost hopes, one which serves as quite a good metaphor, too, for the country Singapore might have been in a very different universe.
This is my third reading of what should be called the secret history of modern Singapre reimagined through the eyes of an imaginary icon who happens to be the father of Singapore comics.
Should be made available to all who are interested in greater a better perspective of how Singapore came about as the economic miracle it is today.
I literally could not put this book down,

I devoured it, messily, poring through the pages, lifting up my glasses to peer closely with longsighted age at the details, flipping back and forth, forward and back in time, chuckling at the quiet humour, marveling at the subtle and notsosubtle homages to style and history, raising it to look at it this way, then that way, at the multifaceted piece of work it is, knowing that repeated readings would throw up even more layers.
If you're a comic book reader, you feel this book as much as you read it, and you can see the heart and mind of the artist, fictional and real, laid if not quite bare, then at least sufficiently ajar before you.
There is an aura here, the

sense of nostalgia, the yearning of a history that never was as well as the timeline that Chan lived through, and an everpresent yearning for things not done, paths not taken, goals never quite achieved, and a soft demand as to why things can't be this way.


The current reaction to the book is revolving mainly around the brouhaha caused by the withdrawal of the NAC grant, but to concentrate on that misses the many other layers that this book has to offer.
Make no mistake, this book does deal with the political history of Singapore, and political history can always be sensitive, especially when the orthodox narrative or viewpoint is challenged, even if in the most gentle of ways.
But The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is so, so much more,

When I got to the part where Sonny presents the cover of "Ah Huat's Giant Robot", I had a flashback to a conversation with Sonny at one of the first Singapore Toy Game and Comic Conventions, nearly a decade ago.
He talked about the idea for an alternate history of Singapore comics dating back to thes.
We never had locally produced comics, but what if we had What if we had local superhero comics published alongside ones from the United States and England What would that have looked like Looking at this volume, I realized that this was Sonny pulling the trigger on that idea, but taking it much further.


This is an alternate history, but this is also what happened, This is a political book, but it is also about aspirations and the creative spirit, This is a book of tributes, but it is completely original, This is a personal book, but it is also about a particular culture, a particular society, This is Sonny Liew. This, not to put too fine a point on it, is Art, Kudos not just to Sonny, but to his editor, Joyce Sim, whose steady hand I sense just as much in this.


To recap: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is structured like a tribute/biography/showcase of the career of the titular artist who has been drawing comic books since thes and lived through the tumultuous decades surrounding Singapore's independence and up to the present day.
The comics he draws evolve, reflecting the styles of the times, and move into political allegory as the stories reflect the events of those years.
The conceit here, of course, is that Chan is a completely fictional character, He never existed, and neither did his comics, There was never an "Ah Huat's Giant Robot", or a "Dragon" weekly magazine, or "Roachman", but God, we wish there were.


The comic book history he emulates is not your typical one it would have been easy and too pat to suggest that Singapore would have had an American Golden Age style comic in thes.
Instead, Sonny has Chan's style being influenced by what comics were actually available to us in that period, from early Japanese manga in the Tezuka vein, to the Beano, Eagle, funny animal comics and only later going into Kurtzman's E.
C. war comics and then the Marvel era and beyond, This is the kind of book that screams for annotations, quite apart from the pages of notes that Sonny provides at the end of the volume.
The last but one comic showcased, "Days of August" is said by Chan to be inspired by Philip K.
Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" but the obvious homage to "The Dark Knight Returns" is not even commented on, for example.
"Roachman" predates the Marvel Age by a few years but is definitely a riff not just on "SpiderMan" but the pulpish comics English and nonEnglish of the lates and a narrative layout and colours reminiscent of Charlton.
I could go on, but that would be too geeky and selfindulgent, I have to say though, that I would gladly pay for a full volume of the Pogoinspired "Bukit Chapalang" strips.


I can't say enough good things about it except to grab you by the lapels and demand that you read it and love it as much as I do.
This book deserves to get several awards, I understand why the NAC doesn't want to get behind it, but sadly, it's really their loss.
I would hold this book up for an Eisner as a sterling example of what the comic book medium is capable of.
This is an ambitious work beyond what we would expect a Singaporean comic to be able to do, and Sonny just kicked its ass.


You completely blew my mind, Sonny, I'm proud to know you, .