Sir Fong on National Library's Top Ten Most Borrowed chart!

 This is rather unexpected!

Sir Fong 2: Fur-o-cious, a Sir Fong book of student and teacher humour released in 2006, is the 7th Most Borrowed Book on the Young People English Title (Singapore Collection) chart!

Looking at a local chart dominated ghost stories and Ho Mingfong books (that's MOE appointed literature text), this is quite a happy achievement!

Especially if mine is the only comic book to break into that chart!

Word-of-mouth is very important in the National Library circuit. If someone likes your book, he/she will recommend it to others. Since Fur-o-cious was released in 2006, that means readers have been recommending my book to friends slowly but surely for the last 3  years plus!

I am also surprised because based on my regular visits to National Library's online on-loan site, "Sir Fong's Adventures In Science Book 1" is clearly more popular than "Fur-o-cious". I have several theories as to why "Book 1" haven't yet made it but "Fur-o-cious" did, including the fact that "Book 1" is only available in the library for less than 1.5 years while "Fur-o-cious" was there for 3+ years. But those are just theories and not worth dwelling over without facts!

Nevertheless, this is a piece of wonderful and encouraging news! And I can do a Happy Countdown tonight!

Happy New Year!

One more piece of good news before I join my friends for the Countdown to 2010:

Malaysia's China Press ran a story of Sir Fong on 29th Dec 2009! China Press's "U Edu" section runs stories for students and education, and the front page headlines "Looking Forward to Local Pictorial Books". Sir Fong shares the center spread with Malaysian comic book "Sea Turtle Here We Come"!

If you can read Mandarin, and click on the photo below, you can read the detailed page:

( Click on image above to see full page of article! )

Another piece of good news is that I did very well at the Popular Book Fest! I was given 30-mins stage time, but made the most of it and engaged families and parents fully about the benefits of Sir Fong books.

The Book Fest visitors were very supportive after they saw how important a good comic is in their kids' understanding of Science. So I sold a healthy amount of books there! XD

I also made two standees for visitors to pose with:

2009 has not been an easy year - H1N1 and poor economy - and I am so grateful for those of you who believe in the work I am doing, and gave me your support, time and love!

So, as I take a day off to tend to my fish tank, walk my dog and get ready for countdown to 2010 with my good friends, I would like to thank you. I'd also like to say "Happy New Year!" to you, and may we all have a better year in 2010! 

Thank you! Otto

Sir Fong's first appearance in Malaysia's newspaper!

"Singaporean Comic Artist Otto Fong: Giving Out Light at Every Turn of His Life" - Kum Ying Zi, Oriental Daily News, Malaysia

On 18th December 2009, Friday, Sir Fong and Totto the bunny made it to a newspaper in Malaysia.

This marks another milestone in the journey of my comic book series. Reporter Kum Ying Zi spent several hours interviewing me in Kuala Lumpur, and the headline she chose was poetic and beautiful. I never saw my life in that light - all I knew was I made some strange turns in life. I was an engineer, teacher and video editor. I worked in film and theatre, before I finally became a full-time publisher and comic artist.

Ms Kum generously saw it as my contributions. She gave me a great new point of view!

Indeed, in life, we take turns which were sometimes necessary and unexpected. In these twists and turns, our plans were often thrown into disarray. But wherever life puts us (or our own decisions land ourselves), we have a choice: a choice to shine or shrink into our shells feeling sorry for ourselves.

Take the example of a great scientist Stephen Hawking:

Hawkings have Lou Gehrig's disease. The disease took away most of his motor skills, including the use of his hands, his body and most of his speech. It did not stop him from writing one of the most popular bestseller in science "A Brief History of Time", and being hailed as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein.

As 2010 comes closer, it marks the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. For you, my readers, and for myself, it is simply the beginning of our choice to shine. Or shrink. The choice is always ours. May we all choose powerfully!