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THE ART OF CHARLIE CHAN HOCK CHYE

Name: THE ART OF CHARLIE CHAN HOCK CHYE
Author: Sonny Liew
ISBN: 978-1-101-87069-3

by Sonny Liew ; illustrated by Sonny Liew ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016

A fascinating look at a clever, uncompromising artist married to the times in which he lived.

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In this graphic novel, Liew (Shadow Hero, 2014, etc.) presents the life and work of an obscure comic-book creator in tandem with the turbulent modern history of Singapore, the land both call home.

This celebration of the real if largely unknown artist Charlie Chan Hock Chye opens with his two-page comic juxtaposing a pair of prominent Singaporean leaders—Lee Kuan Yew, the long-standing prime minister who shrewdly if brutally oversaw the country’s rise as an economic power; and Lim Chin Siong, a charismatic, populist orator who was outmaneuvered by political rivals, jailed as a dissident, and exiled, ultimately dying in obscurity. The opening is telling for its political focus, juxtaposition of pragmatism versus idealism, and status of having been drawn in 1998 but unpublished until its inclusion here. Born the year Superman and British children’s comic Beano debuted, Chan—a lifelong if self-taught student of the craft—became a sampler of comic styles, beginning with the manga-inspired tales of a boy and his giant robot, moving on to Dan Dare–style alien-invasion science fiction, comics strips in the vein of Walt Kelly’s Pogo, gritty street-level superheroics, and homages to MAD magazine and Windsor McCay. Sociopolitical issues abounded, with the giant robot responding only to commands given in Chinese (underscoring a Singapore divided by its English and Chinese schools) or colonialism playing out with alien overlords standing in for British rule and real-life figures and events in prominent if thinly veiled roles. Chan also created autobiographical comics detailing the struggles of a career frustrated by the repressive regime under which he lived (exacerbated by Chan’s compulsion for political commentary). But, acting almost like a politically minded Henry Darger, the undeniably talented Chan never stopped digesting his world into art, even if much of that work never saw publication. Liew provides sharp commentary throughout, illustrating interviews as well as accompanying strips that decode Chan’s layers of allegory.

A fascinating look at a clever, uncompromising artist married to the times in which he lived.

Pub Date: March 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-101-87069-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SHADOW HERO
by Gene Luen Yang ; illustrated by Sonny Liew

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HALI

AND COLLECTED STORIES

by G.V. Desani ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 1991

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Desani, born in Kenya, educated in India and currently a professor at the University of Texas, offers his first book in some 40 years: 23 stories and fables, along with a dramatic prose poem, that range from bleakness to ironic comedy and from supernatural tales to highly mannered satires. The prose poem—which tells the story of ``Hali,'' who loves Rooh, whose death plunges Hali into grief and a mystical journey— is most noteworthy as an example of private mythology turned into accessible invocation. The supernatural element in many of the other fictions is strong: ``The Valley of Lions,'' for example, is short and visionary; ``Mephisto's Daughter'' concerns a narrator who has access to ``Old Ugly's daughter''; and ``The Lama Arupa'' follows the holy man of the title through ``several states of consciousness'' after his death until he returns as a chicken. ``The Merchant of Kisingarh'' is told by a deceased merchant speaking through his son, a sometime medium. These pieces manage to be both wry and penetrating by turns, while ``The Last Long Letter''—an epistolary tale about a daughter sent away to meet her future groom, a boy who turns out to be visionary—is consistently bittersweet. ``A Border Incident,'' more traditional, tells of a man punished (mildly) for deserting his post to save a boy's life. Desani also offers a mock lecture (``Rudyard Kipling's Evaluation of His Own Mother'') on one of Kipling's more ludicrous compositions, and he closes with the phantasmagoric ``The Mandatory Interview of the Dean''—a madcap satire of bureaucracy and officiousness offered up in a style that is rich and frothily indulgent. A varied collection, impressive in its use of religious and personal mythology—and lushly descriptive of a sensibility and a culture that is part English, part Indian, and uniquely Desani's own.

Pub Date: May 24, 1991

ISBN: 0-929701-12-7

Page Count: 207

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS

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PERFECT TIMING

by Philip Lee Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1991

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Williams's fifth novel (Slow Dance in Autumn, etc.)—a bittersweet comedy about a man who searches for the woman he loved in the Sixties—is sometimes tedious, but its familiar mix of southern argot and good-ole-boy humor, spiced this time with some religious parody, can also be clever and touching. Ford Clayton is a North Carolina music professor suffering from midlife crisis: wife Jill moves to Macon after he has an affair, and his opera, based on East of Eden, is getting nowhere. Then he sees Camille Malone, the woman he worshipped, in a documentary about the homeless; and, once the story kicks into gear (it takes a while), Ford takes off with cousin Clarence (``I'll just be like your private preacher or something''), who was ``released from prison and washed in the Blood of the Lamb at the same time,'' for Myrtle Beach, where Ford arranges to meet Camille. Interwoven are flashbacks to Ford's childhood (``First and always, there was music'') and to his life with Camille. She was a whiz at almost everything from classical piano to Sixties lit-chat; founded ``The Malone Society'' for ``Philosophico-Musico-Politico Discussion''; organized antiwar rallies; and then found religion. At Myrtle Beach, Camille—still crazy but no bag-lady—founds a new religion with Clarence and later follows Ford back to North Carolina (he becomes reconciled with his wife) to kick off ``The Test and the Text'' (their religion) with a beer rally. It flops— and Camille returns to New York while Ford sets Yeats's ``Lake Isle of Innisfree'' to music, finally achieving something, if only in a minor key. The new religion (``The Book of Mister James Durante,'' ``The Book of Baseball Statistics'') is a lot of fun, and the humor is often right-on: altogether, then, a successful version of the Sixties Novel, about people who yearn to be who they once were but settle for what they have.