Johnny Lau, the author and artist behind the iconic comic book series Mr. Kiasu, once hoped Singaporeans would eventually mature as a society and stop being obsessively kiasu, or being afraid to lose out.

You'd think that the fact that he made Mr. Kiasu (the character) makes his opinion sort of ironic, but it's clear to him now that technology has served only to worsen one of our most recognisable traits:

"I think it’s here to stay... In fact, if you look at all this technology that we have now, in some ways they have made us more kiasu. You selfie all the food you ate, you show to your friends where you went last week, in a way lah, that friend say like 'wah, I have to outdo you the next trip.' So I’m not sure if technology has make us more relaxed; it sometimes make us more tense, I think."

Now, you might be thinking — why are we talking to Lau? Isn't Mr. Kiasu but an icon from the distant past (the 1990's is ages ago, obviously)?

Truth is, though, the book series Lau and his original motley crew of three army mates started endures as one of the best-selling comics in Singapore, with over 400,000 copies sold over the years.

So popular it was that it spawned its very own McDonald's burger and toys, got adapted into a radio show, a stage musical, and of course, a sitcom that featured well-loved Channel 8 star Chew Chor Meng.

The afraid-to-lose Singaporean has a very special place in the hearts of kids who grew up in 90's Singapore. Nearly three decades after the first inklings of Mr. Kiasu's big toothy grin, it's safe to say that he cemented an irreplaceable part of the Singaporean identity.

Meeting Lau

We arranged to meet Lau via Shogakukan Asia, his current publisher, at their modest office in Sunshine Plaza.

The otherwise quiet mall is best known for its cluster of print shops for students, young budding artists and fan-artists in Singapore — a haven for printing anything from name cards to final-year-project printing and binding, and, of course, artwork, for sale at local pop-culture conventions.

At the heart of Singapore's art community, it couldn't be a more appropriate place for our chat.

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We were also happy to find that in person, Lau, with his untamed hair, casual graphic tee and slacks, is approachable and laid-back, despite decades of fame from the series.

The Japanese publisher has a lot of pride in the Mr. Kiasu series, which is further illustrated by a row of Mr. Kiasu comic books that adorns one side of the meeting room, along with standees that has Mr Kiasu's signature frantic expressions emblazoned on them.

There's even an encased figurine of Mr. Kiasu, and his loyal dog Ah Kow, that sits right in the middle of the meeting table, setting the agenda.

The making of an icon

Back from the U.S. with a parent-pleasing architecture degree in hand, Lau first came up with Mr. Kiasu in 1989 when he was working on Pioneer magazine during his National Service.

Together with three co-authors whom he met then in the army — James Suresh, Lim Yu Cheng and Eric Chong — the first volume launched in 1990 to great success.

It did so well, it sold out its initial print run of 3,000 books, and its tongue-in-cheek social commentary ensured that Mr.Kiasu's kiasu-isms went beyond ink on paper and straight into the Singaporean psyche.

Nine years, eight volumes, several spin-offs and hundreds of thousands of copies and (perhaps a few less) burgers sold later, the series, in perhaps an unexpected turn, went the way of Calvin and Hobbes, heading into retirement.

By the time the sitcom ended its run in 2002, everything that was associated with Mr. Kiasu made a very quiet exit through the back door.

Trying — and failing — to shake Mr. Kiasu

It was a good 10 years, Lau says. But he didn't want it to be the only legacy he would leave behind.

So 18 years ago, he left it all behind. He pursued other creative projects and even other comics, along with teaching and mentoring.

Unfortunately, much to Lau's consternation, people just couldn't stop themselves from associating his work with him.

He relates to us an incident where he was involved in an event with a traditional Chinese music association — i.e. pretty much as far away from Mr. Kiasu as he could get — and even then, its emcee introduced him as "Mr. Kiasu's creator".

"That’s how I felt. That’s why I stopped. That’s why I left 18 years ago and I thought that’s it, I could get rid of it.

But I couldn’t.... At the end of the day, I was like okay lah, I can’t run away from it. If you can’t beat them, you join them lor."

It didn't mean he was completely ready to jump back in immediately, though.

In fact, it would take not one, but three separate entities — the managing director of Shogakukan Asia; the owner of MM2 Entertainment; and the founders of Action City — approaching him individually, around the same time, before he was ready to make a comeback.

Lau rejected them a few times, refusing to do anything Mr. Kiasu-related, save for a 2013 bit comic he did for the National Library Board.

Finally, last year, all three proposals for two new comic books, a feature-length movie and figurine respectively, also went through.

And after an 18-year hiatus, Volume 9 of the series was released last year. It was titled Mr. Kiasu: Everything Also Like Real.

It was a meaningful effort: Lau called back his old collaborators, and Vol. 9's cover was designed and illustrated by Lim, with Chong penning its foreword. The trio made a reunion appearance during the 2017 Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention:

This year, Mr. Kiasu finally hit the big 1-0, with Mr. Kiasu: Everything Also First Class. It was launched during this year's STGCC, and is now available for general sale to the public.

Blending the old into the new

As with his previous books, not everything is done by Lau — while he works on the story and art, longtime collaborator and artist Nick Tan contributed greatly to the creation of Volumes 9 and 10.

And the system he established over the years with his team of artists resulted in subtle evolutions in style and look, which he oversees to ensure that it's consistent as a whole.

"Sometimes I will tweak certain things. Sometimes I will let go. In order to work with co-artists I need to allow a certain liberty and freedom for them to express their art... also because my interest is not so much in sitting down and drawing nice drawings. My focus is sitting down and telling nice stories."

The latest two volumes see colour being worked into the visuals of the stories — this, Lau concedes, was a drastic departure he initially fought against, and so he came up with a unique approach to introducing old readers to this new style.

Books nine and 10, one will observe, start in the traditional black and white before more and more blocks of colour are added, finally transitioning into full-colour pages, easing his traditional readers into what is otherwise a jarring change.

Fans who may prefer the traditional sketchy style seen in his first book may also appreciate the artistic techniques applied in book 10, where some pages involve a combination of traditional and digital techniques.

Along with a stylistic nod to Japanese manga, readers are in for a refreshing take on the Mr. Kiasu series.

Lau shares that he is thankful that Mr. Kiasu's concept is versatile and adaptable enough that he is able to evolve it in this manner, to keep him up with the times.

Social commentary

Readers might recall Mr. Kiasu for his hilarious gags, and these do still exist in his new books, but more importantly, then and now, his stories always carried some form of social commentary pertinent to its time.

And that was part of Lau's vision for Mr. Kiasu — to not be 100 per cent about the funny stuff, but to eventually make you think.

"You think Mr. Kiasu is quite shallow, but that’s what I’ve been trying to do since book 1. In book 1, chapter 3, Mr. Kiasu was abducted by aliens, in the end the aliens let him go because why? 'cause even the aliens can’t stand him, they’re like 'walau, you so kiasu.'

Even that time, I wanted it to be more than a punchline driven kind of thing lah. But I also understand that we need to bring readers in, so chapter 1 is always about gags. I pull you in with shallow gags and stuff. Slowly build deeper meaning to it... I feel our readers appreciate that."

His new book follows that closely: as you flip through the pages, you'll find Easter-egg references to current events and his own social commentary — Lau, for instance, pitches an idea where people live underground and near the airport in a "city" that gives them free accommodation, food and shared resources, as long as they contribute meaningfully to its operations.

However, how it assigns value to people with various skills becomes an issue to Mr Kiasu, a reflection of how society is today.

Beyond the 10th book

Just like comic superheroes who go through countless artists and authors, but yet keeping to their essence, Lau hopes the next incarnation of Mr. Kiasu will take on a different form, be it through a hybrid of digital and physical media, or passing the torch to another artist, group of artists, or author.

"After this tenth book I’m actually not very sure if I will still do Mr. Kiasu in this format... we need to address the way media is being distributed. Whether a book form or this type of book or hybrid of book and digital is the way to go, I think that’s something for me to discuss with the publisher and some of my associates.

(My return was) not just to complete this book 10, but I felt that after book 10, I would like Mr. Kiasu as a concept to be continued and sustained, but not necessarily through me."

Life beyond Mr. Kiasu

Even though he's back with Mr. Kiasu, Lau is still busy with numerous other projects — both in the comic world and outside it.

His lesser-known sleeper hit Roti, Kaya and Guyou, for instance, has a sequel that will be published soon.

The "intimate" project is adored by those who know it — something that greatly surprised him given how Mr. Kiasu did so much better commercially. In fact, he says he is often told that's his best work.

The intensity of the story (three retired superheroes who work in a kopitiam by day and wage battles against fast-food stores by night) and its strong emotional and social commentary is something that he can't really tell through Mr. Kiasu, and that's what makes Roti, Kaya and Guyou special.

"I was trying to reflect that the youth then didn’t have a sense of things that would endanger our environment or surroundings, because we live in a place that has hardly any natural disaster and they were contented, the end of book one story is a tsunami actually came towards Singapore, and all of them had to come out to fight.

I guess some of those things struck a chord, and I was quite happy in a way — it was a small little project that was quite intimate."

He's also on the board of directors for a creative, open-concept pre-school in Jurong called Creative O Preschoolers' Bay, which teaches kids skills and ideas beyond that of a normal preschool, modelled after the ones seen in Taiwan and Europe.

Currently, he also runs an incubation programme in the form of a club known as Comix Club AX at Singapore Polytechnic, grooming a group of budding student comic artists, and maybe one day carry the torch for Mr. Kiasu, but that's a secondary priority for Lau.

They work on ideas, solidifying concepts into small strips that are presented in a "newspaper" called AXP that is published every four months, and he challenges them to sell it for S$2 at STGCC and other events — not just to earn money from printing it, but for the experience of feeling the hustle of selling their ideas.

"I’m not there to teach them how to draw, but I’m there to try to help them to find stories that they want to tell, and take these stories and try to make them into more concrete concepts."

He is so captured by good ideas that he weaves it into his teaching — at a particular older class he had, he used his own money to reward good ideas from his students, teaching them the value of their ideas and how to sell them... to the amusing, but reasonable dismay of the school's principal.

Going digital

Of course, if only the real world was as lucrative for his students. Lau sees the digital space as something that is wonderful, but very unforgiving for young comic artists, given how fast it moves.

"I think it’s a fantastic way... very economic way and fast way to get yourself known. But... it’s like today you’re hot, tomorrow sorry who are you ah? Because tomorrow there’s 10 more coming. So I’m not against it, but I think we should work along with it, should integrate with it."

So should they try to spread all their material on all platforms, where possible? Lau advises against that, as he feels that one should get to know a medium and how they can adapt their work, value-adding to their craft and how it appears to the reader on different platforms.

But interestingly, he observes a growing interest in print from youth. When he asked his students if they would rather see their work in a digital medium or on paper, a majority of them wanted to see their work on paper.

Lau has an explanation for it though.

"You see this cycle coming back because probably because they’ve been digital for the past 10 years and they want something different. Then paper is something different. Just like Amazon, they have their own bookshops now. Crazy right, because they’re the one who killed bookshops in the first place. Now they’re going into physical bookshops, just that now they’re integrating the digital with the physical, which is different."

For many Singaporeans, Mr. Kiasu is a childhood memory, a sort of intangible nostalgia. But perhaps what's more inspiring is how it became a springboard of sorts, launching Lau into a place where he can nurture budding talents in unique ways relevant to the industry today.

Mr. Kiasu can and should be more than a 90's icon. This idea is of even greater importance now that his creator seeks to evolve him further.

He's happy to witness the recent revival of interest in local comics, with the likes of Sonny Liew, Dan Wong and other digital artists coming to the fore, and he's hopeful for even more young talent to come.

And also, hopefully, somebody who will make Mr. Kiasu be kia su. 

Top photo by Jeanette Tan