PeKOMIK

Bulan Komik -

Bulan Mei adalah “bulan komik” dengan memetik pandangan seorang penulis yang tidak asing lagi dari sdr Hafidz M dari komuniti IACAScW. Kebetulan, Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur kali ke 26 sedang rancak berlangsung di PWTC. Kami tertarik dengan email sdr Hafidz M dan tulisan beliau meliputi senario komik yang mutakhir.

Guys, don’t forget that May will be “Comics Month” at Kino where you can get a neat 20 percent discount on all comics bought in a single receipt (unlimited amount) when you show the cashier a coupon.

And you can only get that discount coupon by spending RM150 in a single receipt (for any type of books) by the end of this month (April) or on the first weekend
in May.

Once the first weekend of May passes, you’ll have to wait till the first weekend of JUNE in order to get the 20 percent discount coupon set; and therefore you would have missed out on the discounts for the entire Comics Month. So try to go to Kino this weekend…

Today I went to Kino, and boy, it was so-ooo hard to resist the stuff currently sold there. I kept having to tell myself, “Hafidz, just wait till next week!
You’ll get a 20 percent discount then! Wait, wait, wait…”

Well, resistance was futile. I still bought about RM100 plus worth of manga! But mind you, I quickly fled the comics area before my resistance totally fell
apart. I could’ve easily bought about RM250 worth of comics if I hadn’t run away.

What I’d recommend, if you want to buy comics at Kino in order to get the discount coupon, is to get the first “All-Star Superman” collection by Grant Morrison
and Frank Quitely ‘cos that graphic novel already has a 20 percent discount. (But it’s hardcover.)

Besides, “All-Star Superman” is nominated for an Eisner Award for Best New Series or something like that. It’s not like the typical Superman stories — they feel familiar and yet… alien. Like written and drawn by a Bizarro, perhaps!

At Kino, I bought “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee” by Charles J. Shields, an unauthorised biography of the intensely private author of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Like so many people, I am very curious why she (Lee) only wrote one novel despite the overwhelming success of that novel, and I also hope to learn the creative
process behind the creation of “the 20th century’s most widely read American novel.”

GEMPAK #179: The current “Gempak”, with the Spider-Man cover, has an interview with Adijin. I present here anexcerpt:

Gempak: Apa pendapat Adijin tentang industri komik di Malaysia?

Adijin: Kita mempunyai ramai artis komik berbakat besar. Tapi masih belum banyak komik yang betul2 hit.
“Kampung Boy” dapat sambutan hangat di US dengarnya. Saya harap banyak lagi karya tempatan boleh mencapai tahap sebegitu. Sudah tentu saya juga akan turut sama
berusaha untuk sampai ke tahap tersebut. Saya amat berharap industri komik kita akan lebih maju di tahun  yang akan datang. Kita perlu lebih banyak penerbit komik dari yang sedia ada sekarang ni. (I agree! –Hafidz.)

Gempak: Adakah Adijin rasa sudah berpuas hati dengan percapaian sekarang?

Adijin: Saya rasa saya masih belum sampai ke tahap yang saya inginkan selagi saya tak menulis & melukis komik2 saya sendiri, bukan sekadar bergantung dengan melukis komik idea orang lain. (Hafidz: Glad to know he still hasn’t given up on being an all-rounder,
writing his own comics instead of just forever depending on someone else’s scripts. Hope he is well on his way to achieving this dream!)

Gempak: Apa cabaran terbesar Adijin perlu hadapi sebagai artis komik tempatan & antarabangsa?

Adijin: Melukis komik itu sendiri memang suatu cabaran. Sebab melukis komik bukan hanya memerlukan skil melukis sahaja, tapi yang penting ialah penyampaian cerita. Masih terlalu banyak yang perlu saya pelajari. Lebih banyak yang saya faham, lebih banyak yang saya rasa perlu belajar. (Hafidz: Yep, one should always keep learning in order to improve
oneself. You can never be so good that you can’t learn something new, right?)

On the topic of “penyampaian cerita”, I would like to make some constructive criticisms about Gempak.

Why is it that Gempak is fond of using captions in the comics without having the boxes around them? When the text blends in with the art in the background,
especially if the art is pretty complex, it makes it darn hard for readers to read the words. That can’t be good. It strains the readers’ eyes and henceinterrupts the telling of the story.

With computer technology, you can of course do all sorts of “tricks” like text that blends with the artwork, but there must be a good reason for doing them.

If doing a “special effect” interferes with effective storytelling, just avoid it. No one is impressed anyway. You would rarely see Marvel, DC or other professional publishers using words without boxes or balloons, and when they do, they make sure the words
can be read easily. Just common sense.

And for Kaoru’s comic “Helio’s Eclipse”, the dialogue balloons are semi-transparent, so the text blends in with the background to some extent. I see absolutely no reason for making the balloons semi-transparent.
From what I can see, they’re made transparent just for the sake of doing it.

My view is (and I welcome an opposing view), one can be “stylish” without resorting to computer tricks like the semi-transparent word balloons, which make reading
difficult and appear tacky. Sometimes doing things the traditional way is best.

Another surprise is that Gempak has resorted to something out of reality TV shows. You know how you have to SMS in your votes for Akademi Fantasia,
American Idol, One in A Million, etc? Well, Gempak is doing the same thing for its readers’ art section! (It is charging 50 sen per vote.)

My thought is, “Et tu, Gempak? Isn’t there a better way to make some money than doing something so ridiculous?” It just reeks of greed, greed, greed.

On a more positive note, I’m glad to report that Gempakstarz’s “Peraduan Bakat Baru Komik Malaysia” is back after a two-year break. Submissions deadline:
June 30. Grand prize for the comics-drawing open category is RM3,500 plus a bunch of other stuff, second-place winner gets RM1,500 plus some stuff, and third place winner wins RM800 plus some stuff.

For more info, please visit www.gempakstarz.com.

Oh, I find Jo’s comic “Showtime!” in Gempak darn hilarious! It’s a parody of the movie “300″, with the title “30.” Such a crazy story, but well-told. Bravo!!!

Hafidz of IACAScW