005: Worlds Apart and Closer Together
Apologies. I'm two days late with this edition. However, we're back with some big news again. You know the drill though: before anything else...
Support my work
Work-Life Balance – the multi-award-winning prose/comics hybrid co-created with Benjamin Chee
You can also get the Work-Life Balance bundle, which comes with the book, a mug, washi tape and more
Worlds Apart: A Conversation About Mental Health – a comic co-created with Nurjannah Suhaimi
HANTU – Spotify channel for the award-winning narrative series, Ghost Maps, and the talk show, Dead Air, both of which were co-created with Kyle Ong
They call them the Diamond Dogs
Difference Engine recently signed a deal with Diamond Comics to distribute their catalogue internationally. That means you'll be seeing Work-Life Balance and Worlds Apart in comic stores around the world from 2024.
This is, of course, wonderful. While the Difference Engine web store ships overseas, it's a whole other ball game for the books to occupy physical shelf space in markets like America and the United Kingdom.
A couple of you are based outside of Singapore, so if you were looking for a chance to pick up my books, I promise I'll let you know immediately when to pester your local comic shops next year.
There's no official press release just yet, though, yes, I checked and I'm not talking out of school by letting you know all of this.
Paint the (George) Town Re(a)d
Ben and I are going to be at this year's George Town Literary Festival! This is, as mentioned in an earlier edition, my first in-person appearance at an international festival.
We'll be on the panel, The Visual’s A Vibe: The Magic of Illustrated Stories, together with Dinalie Dabarera and our moderator, Moe Nasrul.
The panel's happening on 26 November at 5pm at The Prestige Hotel's Angier & Borden Hall, but Ben and I'll be in town for all four days, so if you're heading to the festival too, give us a shout.
You can find out more about our panel and the other programmes here.
Around the worlds and back again
There's been a lot of attention on Work-Life Balance since the Singapore Book Awards and, while I'm absolutely thrilled about that, the other project I worked on last year doesn't get as much time in the spotlight.
So, in this edition, I wanna talk about Worlds Apart.
Worlds Apart, for those of you who don't know, is a comic where a woman named Charissa speaks with her friend about the misconceptions and stigmatisation of mental health. The twist here is that the friend in question is you, the reader.
Charissa also uses sci-fi, fantasy and superhero tropes as metaphors to dispel these misconceptions.
When Difference Engine and I were building up the hype trains for 2022, I had said that Work-Life Balance was going to be the biggest project I'd ever been a part of—but Worlds Apart was going to be the most important. And I still stand by that.
Worlds Apart was designed as a solid one-issue story—but also as a tool. If you ever had to sit through well-meaning, but tiresomely uninformed questions about mental health from family, friends and co-workers, Worlds Apart is something that you could pass to them, a conversation starter for what's already a very difficult conversation.
On a more personal note, Worlds Apart is also the first comic I've ever written. Sure, I'd worked on projects that have been—for lack of a better term—adjacent to the medium. However, there's no other way to describe Worlds Apart: it simply is a comic.
And that allowed me to finally use everything I've ever learned about what makes a good comic—from how many words there should be in a panel to the effectiveness of page-turns and even the importance of open conversations with your collaborators.
It's why I say this, not out of arrogance or because I feel like I have nothing more to learn, but out of sheer pride: I genuinely think Worlds Apart is excellent.
(And all of this doesn't even touch on what an absolute joy it was to work with those collaborators: visual storyteller, Jannah, and our editor, Sophia Susanto—though I do sing their praises in this interview.)
So, yeah, Work-Life Balance has received a decent amount of acclaim, but just know that if you have picked up—or, hopefully, will pick up—Worlds Apart, I really, really appreciate it.
You can get it directly from Difference Engine's web store, or from Closetful of Books and Wormhole. (It's currently sold out on Epigram's web store, but fingers crossed, they'll restock it soon.) If you're in Singapore and want to get it from a physical store, you can pop into Book Bar.
Not exactly a meme
A couple of friends suggested that Nadia and I should take have a photo of me crying and yelling, while she holds me back, to complement this shot of our little gremlin.
Links and things
Closing Time, a short film that Kyle and I made a while back, is part of the Viddsee Juree Awards Asia 2023. Give it a watch, and if you enjoy it, consider voting for it. All you have to do is sign up for a Viddsee account and click the little heart at the bottom left of the video.
I re-read Junji Ito's Uzumaki recently for an upcoming interview. After we recorded the interview, this great video showed up online breaking down why Ito's such a master of manga horror. Not only is the video worth a watch, but I'd recommend subscribing to that channel too.
Let's wrap this up
As always, don't forget to support my work:
See you in two weeks!