By Dustin Cabeal

The brilliance of Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, is that it’s so convincing with its narrative and structure, that if you don’t already know it’s a work of fiction, you could easily be fooled into thinking it’s non-fiction. To be honest, I was, but then I didn’t read anything given to me about it which would probably have cleared that up.

Anyway, it’s a fictional biography about an artist in Singapore. It’s part comic history, part Singapore history and all parts fucking brilliant. The story is so layered that even giving a short summary of it, does it a huge injustice.

Liew’s artwork is masterful. Not only does he maintain his trademark style, but then he applies it to other famous styles in comics and manga. Visually it’s as brilliant as the writing. There will never be anything else quite like The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, so check it out and support a creator that clearly put his heart and soul into this story.