It took a couple of days, but the National Arts Council (NAC) eventually broke its silence and congratulated local writer/artist Sonny Liew for the three Eisner awards he bagged at Comic-Con last Saturday. It’s weird that it took so long, especially since the man behind The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is essentially the first ever Singaporean to score the prestigious award — much less three of them.
That’s great and all, but there were some glaring elements we have to point out in the compliment:
- There was no mention at all about why exactly Liew was honored. Namely, there was an obvious (intentional or not) lack of stating the title of the graphic novel — the very same one that the NAC revoked its $8,000 grant over “sensitive content” and political critique.
- NAC made sure to slip in the fact that Liew’s working with it in the upcoming Singapore International Festival of Arts.
We’ve already said our piece about the odd silence by the government despite this monumental achievement for Singapore; so we’ll just let internet commenters say their piece about NAC’s half-hearted congratulations.
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