Magazine Interviews.:)

As interviews go, no one was more relentless and meticulous in detail than SH Lim. He likes to come prepared, being the perfectionist journalist that he is. He was also gracious in sharing his thoughts about narrative to a newcomer like myself.




One for the album!


Interview & review by SH Lim for Time Out KL Magazine *August 2009*. Incidentally, this article turned out to be my favourite so far!


Another interview article by Quill magazine *July 2009*.

Tribute to Michael Jackson.

Wonder of wonders, I've never painted MJ before so when there was a request I jumped at the chance. Not many people may remember this MJ look from his Thriller days. This is the definitive MJ in my mind. In terms of satisfaction, I was really doing this for myself so it's sad that I'm going to have to say goodbye to it in a few days. But it was a blast creating it!

Newspaper Reviews! >_<

Finally, here's the review from the Business Times, Singapore by Christopher Lim (10th July 2009). He gave my book a rating of B-. Haha... Here's what it says:


"Malaysian John Ho has just published his first graphic novel, and Scary Ever After is a one-man affair, written and illustrated by Ho and no one else.

As you might gather from the title, this is a collection of seven horror stories, so, like Liquid City, it isn’t the kind of thing to use to cure your kid’s insomnia. Some of the stories, such as Fairyland, are full of macabre beauty, while others, like chalk ring, are a cross between H P Lovecraft and your average Asian horror movie.

Ho’s art style is black and white, and he likes to compose his scenes by getting friends to re-enact his storyboards and then take photographs of them. Then he puts the photos in front of him and lets his imagination take off. The style is reminiscent of artist and graphic novelist Dave McKean, who also draws in black and white, and this resemblance is reinforced by one of the two available covers for Scary Ever After, which shows a mixed-media tableau comprising a cat standing on a skull – something that could easily have been mistaken for a McKean creation.

The quality of Ho’s words isn’t as consistent as his artwork, and sometimes is a tad awkward, but it’s nothing that a stern copy editor couldn’t fix.

Scary Ever After originally started life on a website, which was taken down after Ho got a publishing deal, but it’s an interesting approach and gives fans some insight into a work in progress. Ho hopes to publish more graphic novels in the near future, and while he isn’t sure if he will start a website for the next project, hopefully he will decide to let the public into his mind."

Here's another one. This is a local review from The Star by Kaleon Rahan (17th July 2009) :)

Who will be the ZEN Star Chef?

My lunch at ZEN by Secret Recipe @ Sunway Pyramid turned out to be quite interesting. Apparently 2 of the 6 finalists of the ZEN Star Chef Competition were there to serve us. As soon as we were seated, an (albeit over) enthusiastic Alson Khor quickly made his pitch, introducing his creations to us.

Keeping it cool was Trevor Pang, who waited graciously for his competitor to finish before introducing his dishes to us.



I opted to try his main dish, the Roasted Moroccan Chicken with Harissa & Sambal, Curried Couscous and Mix Green Salads. Believe me, it was pretty good! I'm a meat person so this was an interesting blend of something substantial and aromatic.


For dessert I had the Black Sesame Oreo Cheesecake. It was tasty! Trevor struck me as the kind of chef who's not afraid to have fun with his creations. He definitely has my vote as the ZEN Star Chef! :)

MPH Mid Valley Booksigning *11th July*

MPH did allow me to keep that promotional display...>_<

Generally just trying to keep the introduction brief so that we can get to the fun part...lol

I did a Batman live drawing this time around...







A quick sketch for a friend :)

Borders Booksigning & Live Drawing *4th July*@ The Curve.

The moment i've been dreading...taking up the mike!


Drawing a Superman zombie...just one of the random things you do when faced with a crowd and a blank sheet of paper!

Classic signing pose...trying not to ruin the sketch and hoping to spell the person's name correctly!

I just love the kids who crowd around you. They're so unselfconscious...


Me with the lead actress from 'The Chalk Ring'! >_<
By the time i reached the 15th book i was sketching zombies all the way.

Book Reviews & Interviews!

Special thanks to Rizal Solomon for his kind words in the June 27th NST book review! >_<

Me with Christopher Lim, the Editor from the Business Times Singapore.

Being interviewed by Christopher Lim. 'Live' interviews are awkward ... just when you are getting warmed up, it's already over!

I'm very excited to see how the article turns out! (fingers crossed) :)

Scary Ever After now available in MPH bookstores!

It's a wonderful feeling having your first book published. Kudos to the team at MPH for making Scary Ever After the classiest graphic novel (ever)!

A special invitation to all horror comics enthusiasts - I'll be making a book promotion appearance at Borders (4th July) and MPH Mid Valley(11th July) 3-4pm! Bring your friends for an autograph and sketch! Visit www.scaryeverafter.com


The red cover's my personal favourite. For some reason, i kind of like the japanesy and marvel comics feel of it..:)


The blue cover was a digital illustration i did using bits of random objects,acrylic and photoshop...which do you like best - the red or blue? >_<

My First Graphic Novel – A Journal of the Publishing Process!

I've gotten quite a few requests from friends. Everyone wants to know how it was done. During the 9 months of the publishing process I had pretty much kept a personal journal. In many ways it helped me keep things in perspective and kept me sane! So for those of you who are curious, here’s how it was like…

Sept 23, 2008 - After sending proposals to a few publications, I finally received an email from MPH Publishing. They had visited my free comics website and was very keen on publishing my work! I was ecstatic!

Sept 26, 2008 - We had our first meeting. I brought a rough mock-up of my comic to show them what I had in mind and I made my pitch. Meetings are strange things. You can tell a lot about a person by talking to them. The 2 editors seemed like enthusiastic and very sensible people although they hated the cover I had illustrated. They also felt my mock-up was too small. We both agreed that the graphic novel should be bigger. We also talked about releasing the book in January 2009!

Cover #1 which the editors hated.

Sept 27, 2008 - We were talking contract! A softcopy of the memorandom was sent to me. I have a love hate relationship with contracts. Mainly because it takes too much time to figure out the technical jargon. But it is absolutely necessary that we got this right.

Oct 8, 2008 - Our second meeting. At this point, it was more about working out the details of the contract. A lot of emailing back and forth. I also had to resize all my previous artwork to the agreed specifications as well as come up with 2 new stories for a total of 7 stories. There was still a lot of work to be done! A January release suddenly seemed impractical.

Nov, Dec 2008 & Jan 2009 – I was drawing ‘fast and furiously’ at this point. I would teach art in the day and only start working on my comics at 8.30pm everyday, finishing in the wee hours of the morning.

It was quite a tricky experience trying to get your book published. I don’t mean all the late nights. That’s the fun part actually. Mostly it was because the publishing world and I worked, I discovered, in completely opposite paces. Coming from the advertising line, I am used to rushing deadlines (we could shoot, edit and finish a TV commercial in 5days! * fingers snapping *).

The publishing world however, moves at a gentle pace. This was frustrating because weeks would just go by where nothing happened. “When can the book be released?” I’d ask. Nobody ever seemed quite sure. But still I was hopeful…

Feb 5, 2009 - The fateful day arrived and I finally signed the contract! I also delivered the final manuscript to the editors. We talked about finding a prominent writer to do an endorsement for the book. I also had to create acknowledgement, contents and ‘about the author’ pages. “I’m sure we can anticipate an April/May release,” somebody said. By this point I was rather skeptic.

Feb 24, 2009 - We still had no illustration for the cover! I knew I had to get it perfect. I remember the general comment on the rejected cover was that the illustration style was too painterly /realistic. “Perhaps the cover should reflect what is inside the book?” it was said.

I worked for 5days and came up with Cover #2. That night I emailed the cover to the editors with fingers crossed.

Cover #2.

Feb 25, 2009 – I received an email. Would you believe it, the cover was rejected, yet again. The general consensus was that it looked a bit too "cartoon-ish". They felt my illustration style should be more “serious”. Whatever happened to “reflecting what was inside the book?” I decided to argue my case.

I had an email discussion with the main editor I was working with. She was, above all an incredibly understanding and diplomatic editor. I presented my case. She, hers. I realized book editors are amazingly efficient politicians, able to convince you of anything, even to convince you that it was your idea in the first place. I found myself saying, “Wow, how did she do that?”

So, over the weekend I got bits of newspaper, masking tape and acrylic paint, knocked it together, scanned the whole thing and edited it in Photoshop.

Cover #3 was completed on a Sunday night! I emailed it to the editors and waited.

Cover #3.

March 2, 2009 – I received an email. “The cover looks great.” I sighed in relief.

March 3, 2009 – Lo and behold! I received an email from the editors saying they weren’t sure if they were going with Cover #2 or Cover #3? Apparently they had a meeting about the covers and everybody gave their two cents. The in-house Creative Director opted for Cover #2 but the editors preferred Cover #3. “Why not print BOTH covers?” I suggested.

March 19, 2009 – To my surprise, the idea of going with both covers was very likely to happen!

March 27, 2009 – It was suggested that it would be nice to have some pages in color. But were we going to color certain big scenes only? That would be odd. Perhaps only the opening and closing stories? Nope. Finally, we decided to keep the pages black and white. However, we would close the book with some bonus full color ‘behind the scenes’ sketches and illustrations!

April 1, 2009 – I received the edit revisions and worked on them through the night. My editor told me a reviewer from NST (Rizal Solomon) has agreed to do an advance review! They’re also trying to see if there's someone (Kaleon Rahan perhaps) from The Star who's willing to do the same.

April 2, 2009 – My editor wrote a fantastic description for the back cover! She took the basis of something I had written earlier and made it her own. Actually, it’s the one bit on the book that's entirely hers. I think she quite enjoyed that.

The actual size mock-up.

April 11, 2009 – The first actual sized mock-up was dispatched to me today. I looked at the crudely bound book with yellow sticky notes jutting out from the sides and started to see the book take shape. It was also a good way to get a feel of how the pages interacted. “Now this looks like a graphic novel,” I thought.

April 21, 2009 - Murphy’s law : "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." My computer experienced a bad sector problem today and crashed on me. Everything may be lost. Why didn’t I back it up, you ask? Who can say why I experienced a lapse in practical sensibility at the worst possible moment? My editor also tells me the printers just found out the paper we chose would result in wastage. So I had to either reduce the size of our book or wait for a new batch of paper to come in. Definitely a low point!

April 29, 2009 - It’s funny how much better things can seem after a week. I was able to recover most of my files and just in time, too! The endorsements came in today. A special thanks to Kaleon Rahan of The Star and Rizal Solomon of The New Straits Times for writing such fantastic blurbs for the book!

May 15, 2009 - After a lot of waiting, the new paper stocks were finally coming in. Just when I thought we could start printing, another issue pops up! I didn't even see this one coming...

At the eleventh hour, a last minute decision was made to bring the cost of the book down! I waited, nervously as ideas were thrown around. Our hands were tied until this issue was resolved.

May 18, 2009 – Fortunately, my editor was able to defend many aspects of the book, including the size. The only sacrifice was the 'behind the scenes' section, which was now going to be in black and white. A sensible decision, I thought. Things could have been worse.

May 19, 2009 - More or less to my surprise and relief, we started printing! Looks like it was going to be a June release after all!

June 1, 2009 – Two weeks had passed with nary a word from the printers. Apparently, no news is good news when it comes to printing. I waited as patiently I could, hearing the drumbeat all the while…

June 2, 2009 – It’s finally OUT! I almost can’t believe I’m holding my first graphic novel in my hands. My life long dream has finally come true! (sure, there’s the small issue of the missing blurbs on the covers but hey! I love those printers anyway!)

It’s been a challenging 9 months but also the most rewarding! >_<