22yo Msian Artist’s Comic Nominated For Prestigious Harvey Awards!

Main image via Fried Rice & Erica Eng / Twitter

Malaysia is definitely filled with talented people and one Malaysian artist’s webcomic was just nominated for a prestigious comic award!

Erica Eng, a 22-year-old Malaysian artist’s webcomic titled Fried Rice was just nominated for Digital Book of the Year for the 2020 Harvey Awards!

 

 

 

 

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It’s been a whole year since I posted the first page on Tumblr 🧁 This morning, I woke to the news that Fried Rice has just been nominated for Digital Book of the Year in the Harvey Awards; an event (usually) held in New York City, the city Min dreams of going to in the comic. It was a perfect full circle moment 🌕

A post shared by Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) on Aug 31, 2020 at 10:44pm PDT

The Harvey Awards are one of the comic industry's oldest and most prestigious awards, that recognises outstanding achievements in multiple categories and the awards has been a fixture of the comic industry since 1988!

The autobiographical fiction comic by Erica, was nominated and it is in the running against other comics from DC Comics, comiXology and more in the "Digital Book of the Year" category!

Fried Rice is now a Harvey nominee! pic.twitter.com/67XDZB4YS5

— Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) September 1, 2020

Her comic previously won Best Webcomic for the 2020 Eisner Award, which is considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry and it was nominated for several other prestigious awards too!

 

 

 

 

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Brought it home! 🏆 (Well, the trophy’s getting mailed to me but you know what I mean) Disclaimer: the name of my comic had an error. I told the admin about the mix-up before the press release, and tried again when I was notified of my win. Unfortunately, I didn’t inform them quickly enough. To set the record straight: it’s just Fried Rice. No comic at the end. 🍚

A post shared by Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) on Jul 24, 2020 at 8:26pm PDT

Set in 2015, Fried Rice tells a story of a girl named Min, a young artist from Batu Pahat, Johor who's visiting her cousin Lilly in Kuala Lumpur and both the young Malaysians plan to travel overseas to study, with Min hoping to leave the country forever.

 

 

 

 

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This story is largely autobiographical- Min (the main character) is a high school student who wants to study art. I remember feeling entirely lost during high school because I didn’t know how to go about my dreams. Graduating was scary, even though I’d done all I could to build a safety net for myself. I still feel lost sometimes, but in a less profound way since I’ve found that there are many others like me. Still, it’s difficult to be serious about art in the Malaysian public education system. I want to tell a story that I would have liked to exist when I was in high school (or primary school, for that matter). I don’t think it’s a story with wide appeal, but it’s important to me in that way. Thanks to everyone who keeps reading. I’m doing my best to crank out these pages 😤✍️

A post shared by Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) on Jan 9, 2020 at 4:47am PST

The comic is loosely based on Erica’s own experiences after graduating high school and was named Fried Rice because it was the name of all her files in the early stages and it’s also her comfort food and “has a home-y feeling” that she loves.

Every page of her comic is hand-drawn on paper with pencils and then painted with ink wash before being coloured and lettered digitally on top of the scanned pages and Malaysian readers may recognise many local scenes in the comic too!

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) on Mar 7, 2020 at 4:03pm PST

The comic is still ongoing and updated weekly and the expected length of the finished comic will be around 200 pages! You can read Fried Rice here.

Erica grew up in Batu Pahat and is currently taking her Bachelor's in Fine Arts at San Francisco's Academy of Art University remotely from her home in Johor.

 

 

 

 

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New page up! Link in bio. This one took a while to do. 📚 , , , #webcomic #comic #BD #drawing #art

A post shared by Erica Eng (@paprikapeprica) on Feb 22, 2020 at 4:42pm PST

She’s definitely making Malaysia proud! Congratulations on being nominated for the Harvey Awards and we hope you’ll win!

Info via Fried Rice , Erica Eng / Instagram