Singaporean graphic novelist Sonny Liew won big at the international comic industry’s prestigious Eisner Award at Comic-Con in San Diego.

He won three awards out of the six nominations he received for his graphic novel, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye.

- Best Graphic Album—New (lost to Jill Thompson)

- Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia (won)

- Best Writer/Artist (won)

- Best Coloring (lost to Matt Wilson)

- Best Lettering (lost to Todd Klein)

- Best Publication Design (won)

The annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards is the equivalent of the Oscars of the comic industry.

However, Singapore’s authorities were not too cool with the book.

In 2015, the National Arts Council (NAC) withdrew its S$8,000 publishing grant for the book, one day before its May 30 launch.

Since its launch, the book has garnered awards, such as Book of the Year for Singapore Book Awards 2016 and Singapore Literature Prize 2016 (English Fiction). It was also one of the first Singaporean books to appear on international bestseller lists by both Amazon and The New York Times.

Political cartoons

And if The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is your kind of thing -- where the retelling of the formative years of Singapore’s modern history is interspersed with Lee Kuan Yew and Lim Chin Siong's appearance -- local comic SemiSerious is also for you.

The creator of this cartoon is Guay Chong Kian, 46, a creative partner in an advertising agency.

Guay has been posting his tongue-in-cheek cartoons on Facebook.

The name "SemiSerious" pays homage to cartoonists at The New Yorker magazine and is reminiscent of the minimalist single-panel style of the publication’s cartoons.

Guay has done quite a number of cartoons since he started posting on Aug. 6, 2016, that highlight the trending socio-political issues of the day.

Here they are:

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