Hi! Nice to meet you!

What was the first comic ever drawn? If ever there was a question as significant as the first word ever spoken by our ancient ancestors. Who can tell? It might be a caricature of a pet mammoth, in the veins of a delightful family comedy; or it could be the mauling of a disliked neighbour by a sabre-toothed cat, in full gory details, masquerading as an uncensored gore comic.

(If you’re interested in knowing the first published comic though, try here.) 

For me, the first comics I know came from my elder brother, who was (was, because I’m guessing he had out-growned them by now) an avid comic fan. It was during the 90s, when Hong Kong comics were the rage among Chinese-reading teenagers. Tony Wong was considered the King of Hong Kong comics, and his Jade Dynasty Comics nurtured more than a handful of rising comic artists. But my brother is a fan of one of his most prominent comic artist, Ma Wing Shing, the creator of Chinese Hero and Fung Wan (Storm Riders).

Never a fan of Hong Kong comics myself, I just skimmed through his prized possessions when he wasn’t at home. I somehow had the impression that he would skin me alive if he had found out that I’d been touching his books. 

Then, my brother started to buy a weekly manga magazine (published locally) that would be delivered to our doorstep every Saturday. At first I would (as nosy little sisters do) flip through the whole thing, and then drop it aside. The one manga that would catch my eye and started this whole comic-loving history of mine was Hell Teacher Nūbē, the quirky and super funny-and-scary ghost manga. I’m not sure how the two-person team of mangaka and the story writer did it, but the series gave me fits of hysterical laughter and chills up my spine at the same time, and later sleepless nights.

From then on, it was a discovery of a lot of interesting manga. From Rurouni Kenshin to Detective Conan, it seemed like there were tons of good stories to whet my insatiable appetite. 

My love affair with Japanese manga lasted for quite some time, because there were so many good stories with a wide variety of genres. But my selection was limited to what can be bought in magazines and tankōbon, translated to Mandarin (there wasn’t a market for English-translated manga yet back then, and Malay-translated manga are really limited).

And then, people started posting scanlated manga on the Internet. My choices expanded to Korean manhwa and Taiwan manhua. Later, I found webcomics posted usually by western comic artists. It feels like comics/manga/manhwa/manhua are experiencing a great growth spurt.

I just figured, since I’ve been gorging myself with famous/less famous stories alike, I can do some good by introducing the lesser known ones to other people. Readers don’t need another person telling them how awesome D.Gray-man is, but they might appreciate an introduction to Eden: It's an Endless World! And since almost everyone is hooked on manga nowadays, why not try a webcomic from Dubai (Warrior U)?

It’s a tiny wish on my part, that I can share the guffaws I have on reading comics. I hope you’ll enjoy the stories that I’ll be introducing on this blog as well.

Neko