Comic Cover Challenge 2024
Top 5

Among the four stories that the organising committee extracted excerpts from as the inspirational prompts, I was most drawn to The River That Brings Us Life, written and illustrated by Sarah Ang. Her illustrations, in the original work are beautiful watercolour landscapes, which I did not wish to emulate as there would be no point in reinventing the wheel. 

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Instead, I opted for a simple, bold cover, which features Clarke Quay, extracted from a map in the National Archives of Singapore.

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"Where it all began" is a personal touch, an homage to our heritage as a trading port, and the cleaning of the river being a milestone in Singapore's growth as an economic and tourism hub.

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I think it's a fairly "Majulah Singapura" moment, to have the Singapore River in red. I would have liked to add more bumboats, but it would have made the cover too crowded, and the boats too tiny, so suspend your disbelief, please!

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