The start of Madness

30 Aug 2016

It has been a somewhat random journey from moving to Singapore from the UK and ending up with a webcomic.

Me and Kat (Adam) moved to Singapore in April 2015 due to Kat getting a job as a researcher at NTU. It was a huge move but something that was just perfectly timed in our lives. It took me a while to set up as a freelance and just to generally feel more settled.

So with a very dear UK friend and her husband due at the con as guests (and how I heard about it in the first place), STGCC 2015 was a perfect way to get a taste of Singapore creativity. We decided to attend a talk of fantastic locally based comic people including Kelly Bender (comic writer) & CT Lim (Comic historian). Kelly suggested that I attend the 24hr Comic Day event that was due to happen a few weeks later.

You can find more photos and details from our Facebook STGCC – 12-13th Sept 2015 album.

After some umming, ahhing and reflectionI decided that I would brave the 24hr Comic Day event. A couple of days before, out of the blue, Kat said he was interested in writing a comic with me. I was very surprised but of course I welcomed the opportunity and the company on a long night.

You can find more photos and more details about our time at the even from our Facebook SG 24hr Comic Day 2015 – 4-5th Oct album.

It was not a huge leap for Kat to want a cat character that was a scientist/researcher and for me to want a panda. We grew up on newspaper comic strips so we felt that more stand alone strips would work best for us. So that was it, MSC started out as a crazy one-off idea we had for 24 hour comic day 2015. The more that we talked about it during those 24 hours and the more that we created, we realised this was something that we could continue properly.

I failed miserably at the 24hr event and only sketched 5 pages (most aim for 12-24 pages lolz). Thankfully Kat managed 24 scripts. We had enough to move forward with the project! The event meant a lot more to me than just drawing and staying awake, most importantly I was able to meet some amazing creatives and comic people based in Singapore. Very inspirational.

Dr Mad original character design

You can see more about the design process for the on the Character Development post.

We’ve always wanted to work on a project together and we’ve talked for years about what sort of project could marry art and research together. We’ve both always been interested in each others’ work. At one point I was going to do a PhD and Kat is surprisingly creative.

It’s very easy to work with Kat, we vibe well and enjoy joking around with our comic ideas. Even if this is a side project for us i’m thrilled i’ve been able to work with Kat on something so fun.

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