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• Don't get me wrong; I know it's about Singapore. Please bear with me. As someone grows up in China Mainland, this book really resonates with me. Premier Lee is one of the most stubborn anti-communist, which everybody knows. But it's REALLY WEIRD that China Mainland's communist government regards Singapore as their role model. Not only so, but they also sends a lot government officials to Singapore to study its ways of running the country. Can you imagine that? Such a BIG BIG country, with over 1.3 billion people, learning from such a SMALL SMALL city, with 5.4 million people. You know how many communist party members in China Mainland? 80 million. That's 16 times of the population of Singapore. In retrospect, it's easy to see what they want to grasp is how to implement authoritarianism combining confucianism, nothing else. How does that turn out? For them, I'd say, pretty good, except the anti-corruption part. For the ordinary people? Well... I mean yeah, many many Chinese people has more money, more freedom ( comparing to 30 years ago), but how about ruining the eco environment which will provide foods, water, even air for the children? And their children? How about brainwashing the young generation and making them provincial nationalist? How about close the Internet one step a time while other countries embracing the shared knowledges and wisdoms of human being? By reading this book, I gradually sees where everything happens around China comes from. And there's much more about the book: the structures are amazing, both the page structures and the underlying plot lines. Between the lines and squares, the character develops some extraordinary twists. Or should I say to Charlie sadly and pitifully: I told you so??? After having read the book from cover to cover 3 months ago, I've been keeping thinking about Velazquez's painting - Las Menias. They all have so many layers, and so many different ways to be interpreted, while my way of course is only one of them which is shallow and transient. But I'm pretty sure that this book, as the painting is, will be one of the classics forever shining in mankind's history.

• Sonny Liew’s autobiography of a fictional comic book creator Charlie Chan Hock Chye is an illuminating history of Singapore and a clever exercise in multilayered storytelling. Charlie’s story takes you through his family’s history, growing up in a shop house run by his parents and his own life that largely stands still as an unknown comic writer. It covers his disappointments in comic publishing and the decline in ‘pavement libraries’ as TV became an important form of information and entertainment. One of Chan’s comic book superheroes is a ‘night soil man’ who gets bitten by a cockroach and develops super strength and abilities. Until the necessary infrastructure was built out Singaporeans used to dispose of their toilet contents manually. They would be collected by a night soil man and driven for disposal in a lorry. Various life events of Chan are outlined; his parents selling the shop to pay for his father’s unsuccessful medical treatment in Singapore. The love of his life marrying a business man and an unsuccessful visit to ComicCon. All of this tangentially addresses changes in Singaporean society in terms of public housing, medical care and economic improvements. Chan’s failure reflects on what they author felt Singapore lost by not having this kind of critique. Through Chan’s comic stories we see a post-war Singapore lose respect for the British following their defeat by Japan and the path toward a post colonial future. The book takes an oblique but cutting tilt at the legacy of the People’s Action Party and Lee Kuan Yew and asks at the end what if things had turned out differently. Beyond the storytelling and the historic analysis of Singapore, the book is a homage to the greats of the comic book world: Osamu Tezuka Walt Disney Will Eisner Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Despite being relatively oblique in its critique of Singaporean history, the Singapore National Arts Council withdrew a grant $8,000 for the book. Citing “sensitive content” and its potential to “undermine the authority and legitimacy” of the government. Just a few decades earlier Liew could have received a stronger reaction to his work from the state. It leaves some interesting questions, Singapore has been a success growing from a post-war where much of the infrastructure was destroyed to an economic power house unlike any other country in South East Asia. Admittedly, it did much of this prior to the opening up of China; but it also didn’t enjoy the natural resources of its neighbours either. Had Singapore missed out in this dash to economic success?

• It is one of the best read of the year. Perhaps those who haven't lived in Singapore may not connect with it as much, but the narrative is flawless enough for those who haven't. Thank you Sonny Liew for creating Charlie Chan

• Got this hardcopy at a steal. Story of Singapore from a comic artist’s perspective.

• A visual story about telling stories visually. Funny, beautiful and smart.

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