The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye

Zusatztext 72456057 Informationen zum Autor SONNY LIEW is a comics artist, painter, and illustrator whose work includes the New York Times bestseller The Shadow Hero with Gene Luen Yang, My Faith in Frankie with Mike Carey, Malinky Robot, and a new Doctor Fate comics series with Paul Levitz. Born in Malaysia, he lives in Singapore, where he sleeps with the fishes. Klappentext A 2017 Eisner Award Winner for Best Writer/Artist, Best US Edition of International Material-Asia, and Best Publication Design Winner of the Singapore Literature Prize 2016 A New York Times bestseller An Economist Book of the Year 2016 An NPR Graphic Novel Pick for 2016 A Washington Post Best Graphic Novel of 2016 A New York Post Best Books of 2016 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016 A South China Morning Post Top 10 Asian books of 2016 An A.V. Club Best Comics of 2016 A Comic Books Resources Top 100 Comics of 2016 A Mental Floss Most Interesting Graphic Novel of 2016 Meet Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Now in his early 70s, Chan has been making comics in his native Singapore since 1954, when he was a boy of 16. As he looks back on his career over five decades, we see his stories unfold before us in a dazzling array of art styles and forms, their development mirroring the evolution in the political and social landscape of his homeland and of the comic book medium itself. With The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye Sonny Liew has drawn together a myriad of genres to create a thoroughly ingenious and engaging work, where the line between truth and construct may sometimes be blurred, but where the story told is always enthralling, bringing us on a uniquely moving, funny, and thought-provoking journey through the life of an artist and the history of a nation. Zusammenfassung NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From a bestselling graphic novelist comes a hugely ambitious, stylistically acrobatic work ( The New York Times Book Review ) that brings us on a uniquely moving, funny, and thought-provoking journey through the life of an artist and the history of a nation. Meet Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Now in his early 70s, Chan has been making comics in his native Singapore since 1954, when he was a boy of 16. As he looks back on his career over five decades, we see his stories unfold before us in a dazzling array of art styles and forms, their development mirroring the evolution in the political and social landscape of his homeland and of the comic book medium itself. With The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, Sonny Liew has drawn together a myriad of genres to create a thoroughly ingenious and engaging work, where the line between truth and construct may sometimes be blurred, but where the story told is always enthralling....

ldquo;A startlingly brilliant tour de force….Although the premise sounds simple—it purports to be the biography of a fictional comic book artist—what Liew does with it is anything but. At once dizzyingly meta and deeply heartfelt, the book spans 80 years, and in its complicated layering, reminded me of everything from Maus and The Tin Drum to, believe it or not, Ulysses….Probably the greatest work of art ever produced in Singapore.” —John Powers, *Fresh Air*

“Readers are treated to Chan unfurling his life story, with Liew himself occasionally popping in to provide further context within the margins. Over the course of the book’s 300+ pages, Liew presents examples of the artist’s work in between the more momentous occasions of his life, both in paintings, sketches, and most enticingly, through comics he created throughout his ever evolving career. Ducking and weaving between genres, and the historical interests of comics readers in given years, what Liew ends up concocting is a fascinating bildungsroman that rivals other Eastern-based works like Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, with a dash of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This is an awfully impressive achievement given that Chan is a fictional character….Easily the first comics masterwork of 2016.” —The Comics Beat
 
“Liew’s graphic novel is a fascinating look at a cartoonist’s growth over time and how his creative output reflects the culture around him, and Liew tells Chye’s story in a way that only comic books can….A beautifully multidimensional portrait of the cartoonist, beginning with Chye’s personal interpretation o the past before showing comics and sketches that provide further insight….The color palettes, the paper quality, the incorporation of photographs and sketches, they all combine with the text to provide a complex view of Charlie Chan Hock Chye that has a strong sense of history behind it.” *—The A.V. Club
 

• “Virtuosic….The portraits—of friends, family, Charlie himself and, significantly, both Lim and Lee—display Liew’s high-art chops. It’s his versatility, though, that’s really dazzling….Throughout, Liew advances a consistent critique of Singaporean politics. He’s deeply dedicated to the insurrectionist legacy of Lim, suggesting the man occupies a kind of opposite pole from Lee. But the fact remains that one is merely an exiled Communist, while the other led Singapore for decades. That fact brings a sadness—or rather, another layer of sadness—to the book. For all that it brims over with diverse, colorful creations, it’s fundamentally about a lack: the absence of an artist who should exist, but was never allowed to. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye mourns all the creators who have never been permitted to thrive in Singapore. Liew’s own existence seems to be evidence of a change, but only partly. The government withdrew its support from his book, but it didn’t ban it outright. That’s a kind of progress.” *—NPR.org
   
  *“A hugely ambitious, stylistically acrobatic work….the book is a mercurial delight, constantly switching between Liew’s invented narrative (in a relatively neutral nonfiction style), images of Chan Hock Chye’s works in progress over the course of his career and mock-weathered clippings from his printed creations, most of which are immaculate pastiches of famous cartoonists.”* —New York Times Book Review

*“Brilliantly inventive….Charlie is mild but steel-spined, observant and proud; with masterful economy of detail—an arched eyebrow here, his head at a resigned angle there—Mr. Liew crafts him into a fully realised character.” —The Economist

“Wholly original….Liew demonstrates an almost inhuman amount of diversity of skill. Like any great creator, he has stepped aside so his creation can live a life of its own….Ultimately, Sonny Liew has compiled a work of fiction so innovative and thoughtful that even the most observant reader can’t distinguish fact from fiction, biography from creation, memory from truth. And why should we? It’s a quiet story about an individual’s purpose, where one fits into society, how to live, the passion of good work, what else we should’ve done, and, perhaps the most important notion of all, what is possible. It invites, not demands, that we focus on the now, and let the past be past.” —The Rumpus
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*“A stunning tour de force masterpiece of imagined and real history as Liew recreates the entire career of the titular cartoonist via art and photos to explore the history of both comics and Singapore.” —Publishers Weekly, “The Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2016”

“An early candidate for the various best-of lists for 2016, this superlative achievement from Liew tells the story not o…