Furrie and Shortie 毛毛与矮矮

It’s been a busy week and so #Furrieandshortie took a little backseat. Installment 12 therefore reflects the slooooww and somewhat meh mood outside of work. It is a kind of prelude to the end. I am looking forward to drawing Installment 13’s sequences instead.

The photo at the end is of J and I with friends YL and A in Hualien in late Nov 2017. While I’ve never cycled on the roads in Singapore, it somehow didn’t feel that dangerous in the sleepy township, even with our creaky rental bikes. The cars avoided us. It was a carefree day. J was happy as a bird, I think, his classic grouchy expression notwithstanding. It felt like we were going on a Goonies kind of adventure. YL cycled in front cos she’s the boss and J cycled at the back to keep an eye out for us. I wouldn’t dare dream of another day like that.

Furrie and Shortie finally reach the east coast of Taiwan and stay at an inn by the sea. I had booked us both a 4 day stay by such an inn in November 2018, but we never got there. This therefore remains a kind of "wish fulfilment" fantasy! For Furrie and Shortie, they have a load of lazy fun during their stay, listening to the waves, reading, feeling the salty breeze, drinking beer under the stars and watching the night sky.

The north coast of Taiwan receives lots of tourists because of its proximity to Taipei.  Also because its quaint mining villages have been the stuff of movies. We first visited JiuFen, arguably the most popular of these stops in the North, in 2005 when tourists have not yet descended in bus loads. We had so much fun in quiet Jiu Fen, walking up and down the old streets, and wandering into the quiet deserted residential areas from Jiufen to Jinguashan. Many places have been preserved, renovated and turned into proper tourist stops now. We have returned a couple more times since, but nothing has topped that magical first visit.

The banner artwork for the ampulets blog (an image we made for our wedding) was a composite of drawings,  digital painting/design and photographs we took of each other that day in Jiu Fen. I share this image and a very rare selfie (back in the days before mobile phone selfies) we took outside Yiping Cinema in Jiufen when it hasn't been restored and opened to …

Are you the kind of person who can't wait and reads the last page of the novel? Or do you fast-forward through most of the series episodes just to get to the season finale? Most of us can't wait to reach the destination when we are on a journey. But once we are there we lament that it is either not what we expect or if only we could start all over again. The end excites us. The end frightens us.
We're back with Instalment 9 after a break! Instalment begins the second half of Issue 3. I have said before that Issue 3 will be the last for Furrie and Shortie. So in this beginning of the end, Furrie and Shorties start on a journey within a journey as DianDian and DiDi take them on train rides from the city of Taipei to their home.

With a train, you have absolute certainty of the journey. It starts and stops where it says it will, when it says it will. Trains can run for decades. And even when engines or carriages change, the tracks somehow remain. The train driver follows the …

Installment 8!!!! Today’s pages round up the first half of #furrieandshortie  Issue 3. The second half takes place outside of Taipei city as DianDian and DiDi take Furrie and Shortie on little train excursions until they arrive at the east coast of Taiwan.⁣ ⁣ I have been struggling with the second half. Each time I settle down to draw, I get distracted looking at the photographs from our trips that I use as a reference and end up spending the next hour just browsing the photos, at the end of which I feel too exhausted to continue.  The trouble with having such a clear idea of the ending is that the mind grows lazy and desires shortcuts to get there. But since this will be the last issue of Furrie and Shortie, I should probably really take my time and enjoy what’s left. So that there will be no regrets. ⁣ ⁣ After today’s instalment, we will take a short break - but look out for the return of the second half in July!

History lessons. This term suggests that we do learn from history. But we do not. Our memories are short. Our vision is blinkered. Taiwan's history is not unique. Indigenous peoples around the world have been colonised. There are often successive periods of colonisation. The liberators oppress. Seemingly inconsequential incidents unplug society's pent-up anger. Revolutions seem to happen. They may. Some re-balance may happen. People suffer. We make monuments. We tell stories. We teach "history lessons'. The last 4 pages are meant, in the physical book, to be a pull-out timeline. Both the Chinese and English texts are taken from the monument at the 228 Peace Park in Taipei.
On our first trip to Taipei, I made J go with me to all these spots that were linked to my cinema favourites. This included, of course, Gu Ling Street of Edward Yang's "A Brighter Summer Day". In the film, the protagonist's intellectual father is taken away for interrogation under…