Kampung Boy alterations, insane comic book covers and why I hate the Internet

Kampung Boy, Lat's critically-acclaimed, autobiographical masterpiece was released in the United States last year under American publisher First Second Books. I reacquainted myself with it at the campus library, and found a couple of differences between the American version and the original Malaysian one. The obvious would be the much smaller size; presumably it's to accommodate the realities of American book publishing and marketing, but the art does lose a little something in its scaled-down form.

More troubling are certain pages that have obviously been redrawn; Lat's art has constantly changed and evolved throughout his career, and he's clearly unable to mimic his old style. It's been at least a decade since I read the original, so I can't remember what exactly has been changed.

Except for one scene, where young Lat illegally pans tin and excitedly shows off to his generally amiable father, expecting praise. In the original, his father slaps him, resulting in the most shocking scene in the book, considering that the father has, up till now, been portrayed as an easy-going jokester next to Lat's strict mother. In the American version, however, the scene is removed, replaced instead by comical scenes of his father angrily chasing him around the village. You're supposed to laugh along with it now.

Maybe the publisher feared how an American audience might react to the original scene. Maybe Lat was worried about how cries of "CHILD ABUSE" might sound, and how his father might be perceived. Either way, it's a shame that the publisher felt that it had to gloss over this key moment in the narrator's life. The narration does make it explicit that Lat received a good "thrashing" by the end of the day, to the extent that his father feels guilty about it afterwards, but it's not enough. The emotional honesty of the original is diminished, and you lose a powerful, memorable scene in the process.

Even so, it's still a damn good book that's received plenty of praise in the Western media, which is always great to see. The problems I mentioned will only affect those who have already read the original, and this version is clearly aimed at a wider audience than that. Lat should rightfully be recognised as not just a great Malaysian cartoonist, but as one of the great cartoonists in history. This new edition, as well as the upcoming American edition of Town Boy, might finally do that.

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Like many bloggers, I've had my share of dodgy search terms leading to my blog. There's been quite a few memorably icky ones since then, but "Superman character weakened by Kryptonite as the subject of sexual torture" so far is the only one that makes me want to have many, many showers. Also, check out the hideous sentence structure; is "Superman" the subject of sexual torture here, or is it "Kryptonite"?

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Why am I even asking this?

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OH YES.

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Collected editions/graphic novels that I'll be picking up this week:

• Death Note vol.10 - I'm actually starting to grow a little fatigued by this series, so it's a good thing that there are only two or three more books to go. Still, this remains a gloriously over-the-top series, filled with many great can-you-top-this moments and killer cliffhangers.
• Ex Machina vol.5: Smoke Smoke - The premise: the world's only superhero becomes an American icon after saving the second tower during 9/11, and rides the groundswell of popularity all the way to the mayor's office. Now though, reality sets back in, and he has to deal with actually running an entire city, which is easier said than done. It's an excellent, intelligent series, ably mixing politics with science fiction. But check out the insane cover for the latest volume that's worth the price of admission by itself:

Holy shit.