“The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye” by Sonny Liew

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Rating: 4/5 Stars

An interesting graphic novel about the life and art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye as told by Sonny Liew. The book is both the story of Charlie Chan and the art and comics he produces over the years. The comics featured in the book are also the story of Singapore as seen by Charlie Chan, covering the period of pre-independence to just before the present day.

The comics featured in the book, as produced by Charlie Chan are a statement on how Charlie sees the society, culture and politics of Singapore at the time. The comics cannot help but feature the prominent political figures of the times like Lee Kuan Yew and Lim Chin Siong from Singapore and Tunku Abdul Rahman from Malaya / Malaysia during the period of time when Singapore merged and then separated from Malaysia. Other comics tell the story of other events that affected Singapore, from the Japanese invasion, the period of Emergency (from Communist insurgents), to the development and modernisation of Singapore.

The last part of the book is a sudden change in tone, when Sonny suddenly pulls out an ‘alternative history’ version of Singapore (similar in style to Philip K. Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle”), where it is Lim Chin Siong instead of Lee Kuan Yew who goes on to become leader of Singapore, and Charlie Chan becomes a prominent cartoonist instead of a mostly forgotten person in the main story. Whether this version of Singapore is better than the capitalist version that is current day Singapore is left as an exercise to the reader.

Book read from 2020/12/18 to 2020/12/24