Town Boy is a graphic novel by Lat that revolves on Lat's teenage years in Ipoh during the 1960s, including his school days, his friendship with Frankie, a Chinese boy who lives in a shop house, as well as the search for his love as the book's main themes which ends with Lat's last meeting with Frankie at the Ipoh railway before the latter fled to United Kingdom to pursue his A-Level.
Front cover of the eleventh reprint (1997)
| |
| Author | Lat |
|---|---|
| Language | English, with a little bit of Malay, Cantonese and Tamil |
| Genre | Autobiographical comic |
| Publisher | Berita Publishing |
Publication date | August 1981 |
| Publication place | Malaysia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 190 pp (first edition) |
| ISBN | 967-969-402-X |
| OCLC | 849821079 |
| 741.59595 | |
| Preceded by | The Kampung Boy |
| Followed by | Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today |
Published in August 1981 by Berita Publishing, it is a sequel to The Kampung Boy (1979) and was a commercial and critical success. Narrated in English with a smattering of Malay, Cantonese and Tamil, the book has been translated into other languages, such as Japanese and French, and sold abroad. This book along with its prequel, The Kampung Boy, has been reprinted many times in the country and abroad, it was then followed by its spin-off, Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today (1993).
Town Boy tells the story about Mat who continued his studies at a full boarding school in Ipoh in the 1960s and acknowledge with his status as a town boy at the age of 10, only having time to study at a full boarding school for one year. He left boarding school when his family moved to Ipoh and occupied a low-cost housing estate in Sungai Rokam. He took his younger brother, Rahman to hanging around in the city of Ipoh which he described it as the cleanest city and admitted to being excited by the hustle and bustle of the city. At the age of 13, Mat continued his secondary school studies in Ipoh and met a Chinese boy named Frankie. They each other share stories about their lives and interests.[1]
After the school session, Mat and Frankie head to the town where the latter's family owns a coffee shop and lives in a house located on the 1st floor of their shop. Frankie shows him his family's vinyl record and listens to the song playing while enjoying the dumplings. After spending his time at Frankie's house, Mat decided to go home. During dinner, Mat told his father that he heard a gramophone belongs to his friend's family, his father then said that the gramophone was very expensive. The next day, Mat and Frankie go out together ostensibly to go to the library, but actually they are headed to Jubilee Park where they watch the womens dancing in a vending machine, but are chased away by the security guard. Not long after, Mat and Frankie get involved in a cross-country event, but they are arrested by the headmaster and discipline teacher for breaking the rules of the event due to their actions of running using the bridge instead heading to Kinta River.[2][3][4]
While walking around in Ipoh, Mat and Frankie encountered with Normah. The two of them, along with their other friends, headed into town to watch a movie. However, they realize that they get less attention. After that, they attended an art education class under the guidance of Mr. Lee. Mat and Frankie and the other students drew pictures of naked women. Not long after, they had a drink at a coffee shop in town and saw Normah again. Frankie tries to talking to Normah and her friend, but they ignored, then laughed at by his friends. Mat and another friend, Lingam joined the school cadet band where Mat played the flute. They played two songs, "Sedia Berkhidmat" and "Obla Di Obla Da".[5]
Mat and Frankie then attend a youth party and dance with the guests present including their friends. A few days later, Mat joined the school band. The Minister of Education was also present to witness the performance of the school band. Normah meets with Mat to ask for his help to teach her to improve her painting technique, they then eat together at a restaurant. After eating, Mat and Normah took a walk while sharing their opinions. They was observed from a distance by Frankie and their friends. Mat and Frankie then watch a movie together. One day, Mat read a letter sent to him by Frankie. Mat was surprised to know that Frankie was going to London, England to continue his studies in A-Level. He then headed to the Ipoh railway station and met Frankie for the last time. Mat then said goodbye to Frankie as soon as the train started to depart. Realizing that he has lost a friend he has known since his boarding school days, Mat decides to return to his home.[6]
Like The Kampung Boy, Town Boy is also an autobiography.[7][8] The stories in the book are a collection of memories of the author, Lat about his teenage years in Ipoh, about the "days before [he] moved to the capital city to venture into life as an adult....and later a professional doodler".[9][10] Lat grew up in a kampung and moved to the city after graduating from high school.[11] He worked there as a crime reporter and drew cartoons to supplement his income—a hobby he had started at the age of nine.[12] He was sent to the "Special Malay Class" program where he learned to read and write in English.[4] He established close relationships with children of his age from different races and has celebrated the most significant period of his life, which led him to wrote Town Boy.[4] According to Lat, he completed the book's first page on 2 February 1981 by writing "I became a town boy at the age of 10" and he uses his free time and worked hard to completed the book after The Kampung Boy. On 16 February, he has completed 45 pages of the book and submitted them to the then-New Straits Times editor-in-chief, Tan Sri Lee Siew Yee.[13]
For the book, Lat wanted to spread his knowledge about music and writng stories about friendship. Frankie, a Chinese boy, represents Lat's friends that made at the time through sharing same interests in music.[14][15] Apart from that, he also included aspects and characters from his school days at Anderson School. Lat admits that he "feels nostalgic" at that time and the way he narrates also revolves around himself and his friends at that time when he wrote Town Boy. According to him, although Town Boy is based on real events, he refused to convey it specifically about his former alma mater.[13] On 25 June, Lat completed the inner page of Town Boy, followed by the book cover, which features two main characters - Mat and Frankie, standing behind the Tarzan movie poster.[16][nb 1]
The book's layout is more varied than The Kampung Boy's,[17] featuring "short multi-panel sequences with giant double-page-spread-drawings."[18] Comics artist Seth commented that Lat's drawings are filled with "vigor and raw energy", "entirely based on eccentric stylizations but grounded with an eye capable of wonderfully accurate observation of the real world."[18] At certain points, crowd scenes spread across the pages of the book,[17] filled with "Lat's broadly humorous and humane" characters.[19] Comics journalist Tom Spurgeon said after readings such scenes: "There are times when reading Town Boy feels like watching through a street fair after it rains, everyday existence altered by an event just enough to make everything stand out. You can get lost in the cityscapes."[19]
The Asian characters occasionally speak in their native tongues, their words rendered in ChineseorTamil glyphs without translations. Goldsmith and Ridzwan did not find the foreign words to be a hindrance in understanding and enjoying the work. Instead, they believed the non-English languages aided Lat's construction of his world as one different from a dominantly English-speaking world.[17][20] Lat's depiction of Mat's visit to Frankie's home transcends culture, portraying realistically the experiences most children feel when visiting the "foreign but familiar staleness" of their new friend's home.[18][19] Mat and Frankie's growing friendship is a central theme of the book,[21] and their bond as they enjoy rock-and-roll together in Frankie's house has become a notable scene for readers such as journalist Ridzwan A. Rahim.[20] Art historian, Redza Piyadasa found that "aesthetically, Town Boy is less stunning but it is not without depth and a very detailed observations of environments and character types".[22][23] Their friendship marks a shift in the story of Mat's life from a focus on his family in The Kampung Boy to a focus beyond.[17] As the book revolves around Mat's friendship with Frankie, it ends with the Chinese boy's departure to the United Kingdom from the Ipoh railway station.[18]
The United States adaptation of the book was published in 2007 by First Second Books.[24][25] Much like The Kampung Boy, it also published in smaller format (6 inches by 8 inches).[26]
The novel has been adapted into a theatre staging by renowned playwright Stella Koh and directed by former Anglo Chinese School (ACS) teacher, Ong-Su Ming, who also serves as a producer. The theatre was starring Afdlin Shauki as Lat and Sheila Majid as Normah with ensemble casts consists of ACS students. The music for the theatre was done by Fay Lee Ai Lin with lyrics by Fay and Koh and choreographed by Alan Bligh. Town Boy the Musical was staged from 28 to 30 August 1987.[27]
Town Boy was released in August 1981 to popular success.[28][29] In his memoir Lat: My Life and Cartoons, Lat said that he receives the first three copies of the book on 22 July 1981.[16] To promote the book, Lat goes to Singapore to attend the Singapore Book Fair 1981 at the Singapore World Trade Centre (WTC; now known as HarbourFront Centre) on the same date.[30] The book also made available at Platform One, Ipoh Railway Station on 29 August.[31][32] As of 2012, Town Boy had been reprinted 21 times.[nb 2] It has also been translated into French and Japanese.[33][34] The book alongside its prequel, The Kampung Boy was released in a special edition to coincide with the Lat Kampung Boy Sebuah Muzikal theatre staging at the Istana Budaya starting 16 March to 3 April 2011 and sold 1,000 copies.[35][36] Town Boy along with Kampung Boy and Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today was re-released in 2014 by MPH Publishing.[37]
Reviews of Town Boy were positive. Librarian George Galuschak liked the book for its detailed crowd scenes and its diverse cast of characters—both animal and human.[38] The "energy" in Lat's drawings reminded him of Sergio Aragonés and Matt Groening.[38] Laurel Maury, a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, likened the book to a Peanuts cartoon, but without the melancholy typical of Charles M. Schulz's work. She said that Lat delivered a "rollicking" world and that his characters' interactions made the story unpretentious and heart-warming.[39] Although Spurgeon believed any single scene in Town Boy was superior to any book from a lesser cartoonist, he preferred the narrower scope of The Kampung Boy; he felt the tighter focus of Lat's first book gave a more personal and deeper insight into the author's growth as a young boy. Town Boy, with its quicker pace, felt to him like a loose collection of heady first-time experiences that failed to explore all possibilities of the encounters.[19] Former New Nation journalist, Sylvia Toh noted that Town Boy is a "recounting of his adolescence in Ipoh" and saw that it "may not be hillarious as his subtitled collections from 1977 to 1978".[40]