Business.asiaone.com reports that Singapore's print and audio consumer-book market hit a high of $159 million US dollars last year, with Kenneth Tan, the MDA director of film, animation, and publishing saying, "Recently, comics and graphic novels have gained tremendous popularity around the world."
As such, the Media Development Authority is trying to nurture the success of local comic artists in Singapore by creating the First-Time Writers & Illustrators Publishing Initiative which gives $8,000 to successful applicants to help them as they find their niche.
While artists in Singapore have yet to have it easy, there seems to be a lot of support behind them to ensure their success.
For those of you who are interested, you can check out the kind of graphic novels they are releasing
here. Has anyone from Singapore read these comics? Care to let us know how they are?
'Super Zeroes' actually kind of surprised me, because the storyline turned out to be quite a mature and somewhat touching story, and the art, in the artist's style, looked great in the later chapters.
The creator of 'Monsters Everywhere!' draws the animal-like monsters very well, but somehow the story seems quite familiar.
'Lament's story is complicated, the art is very detailed, but in some areas the anatomy and proportions are way off.
'R.E.M' has a somewhat romantic but kind of weird storyline, but like Lament, the anatomy and proportions are sometimes below average.
'Mystery Investigators Five' reminds me of those McDonalds' comics.
'Bard's Tale' doesn't have a compiled tankoubon yet, not sure if it's getting one. The art is sketchy in many places, and the main character reminds me a bit of D.Gray-Man's Allen. But it was an enjoyable read.
'Atlas' has simple art, but the story didn't really interest me. One of the protagonists, Captain Shane, has witty lines though.
There was another comic, called 'Bunny', it was one of the better comics among them, but the creator had to drop out halfway due to personal issues. It had great art without being too detailed, and entertaining characters.
Of course, the creators were only limited to six chapters for their series, so the plots were kind of rushed and everything (although I have to say, Jack Doe's creator handled it pretty well), but they could have been less generic.