The anime industry is a saturated one, to be sure, and the robust growth of futuristic gigantic robots and maid uniforms are testament to the ever-increasing fan base worldwide. But who will spare a tear for the struggling writers and artists who are sweating buckets of blood and tears in the local scene? Well, today I’ll do my share for the community by appreciating the work of three great authors from the local arena.
HACKER
Language: Bahasa Malaysia
Publisher: Gala Unggul Resources Sdn. Bhd.
Cartoonist: Zint
Category : Shonen (action)
Hacker is the brainchild of local author Zint. Apparently, Hacker was supposed to be a hack-and-slash style battle comic, a la Dragonball, but at the last moment the author supposedly had a sudden surge of inspiration and decided to incorporate strong storyline elements into the story. So how did the improvements turn out? Let’s take a look.
Hacker tells the story of Slash, a mild-mannered high school student who more often than not ends up on the wrong side of his classmates. However, what they don’t know is that Slash actually masquerades as a Cyber Cowboy, a new breed of antivirus programs which sucks the person right into the heat of the battle, much like in The Matrix. Together with his team of hackers, they trawl the cyber skylines fighting for justice on the Web. But what happens when a special virus arrives and starts wreaking unstoppable havoc on the Internet?
To be sure, much appreciation is deserved to the author of this book in the amount of effort he has put into writing out the story. You can tell that a lot of thought has been given to the fleshing out of characters and the full color pages. However, Hacker fails to compel us with its storyline the way rival Japanese classics like Samurai X and Naruto has, if only for the reason that there is too little content to capture our attention.
KALEIDOSKOP
Language: Bahasa Malaysia
Publisher: Gala Unggul Resources Sdn. Bhd.
Cartoonist: Ho Seng Hui
Category : Alternative
Kaleidoskop by Ho Seng Hui is hard to describe. To put it in words, it’d best be seen as an alternative comic which tests the creative limits of our relatively conservative society today. Why would I give it such a label? Well, let me explain a little.
The comic is basically a series of one-shot chapters combined together into one book. The undeniably obvious main story Is actually quite a funny one – a young native finds a kaleidoscope in his village, and is mesmerized by the flower-like patterns it turns the world into. Pretty soon, the entire village is clamoring to get a chance to see it, until it rolls off a cliff…into the hands of another young villager of another village. Quite a nice touch to short storytelling, actually.
The same can’t be said for the other stories, however. Some of the stories in Kaleidoskop border on the rungs of creepy, and certainly isn’t for regular comic consumption. Let me give an example. One story revolves around hungry orphans in a futuristic world finding food… and eating dead people. Another is about how a woman whose son has died buries him in the soil where a magic tree grows… and he not only resurrects, but multiplies. The full impact of the story is hard to deliver here, but once you read it you’ll see what I mean.
PENTAS REALITI: ASPIRASI SENI
Language: Bahasa Malaysia
Publisher: Gala Unggul Resources Sdn. Bhd.
Cartoonist: Fakhrul Anour
Category : Casual
Lastly, we come to a new age version of novel writing, Pentas Realiti Aspirasi Seni. Pentas isn’t so much of a comic book as a novel; the author tries to combine the two formats to form a hybrid system where there are comic pages interspersing the regular novel word by word, line by line format. It’s an interesting take on challenging old ideas, but one that doesn’t work very well. The reason why I say this is because it fails to capture the attention of either novel enthusiasts or comic book fans, something like a mismatch of two great things which don’t work so well together. However, the storyline is pretty decent, something you’d expect of a local Malay novel writer.
RATINGS
Hacker: 3.2 out of 5
Kaleidoskop: 3.2 out of 5
Pentas Realiti Aspirasi Seni: 3 out of 5
Hacker, by Malaysian standards, is actually quite a good effort, though it fails to deliver as much as its counterparts in Japan. However, one can see that future books by the author has potential to be better. Kaleidoskop is creepy, but it’s a nice book to consider if you just happen to be walking past a bookstand and have money to spare. It’s more different than anything, so at least it has an attractiveness factor. Pentas Realiti Aspirasi Seni, however, isn’t something that most comic book buffs would consider. However, if you’re a novel reader, then by all means go ahead and try it out for a read.
Last but not least, a great salute to our Malaysian authors! It may not have been better then Japanese comics, but without you there wouldn’t be that twinkling hope of manga development on Malaysian shores!