Brunei Heroes to Come Back to Life in Comics

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam - Do we know who the legends of Brunei such as Awang Alak Betatar, Awang Semaun or Awang Kamaruddin are? These legendary figures along with their stories have created the foundation of the Bruneian identity. However, despite their greatness, today's children and youth lack recognition of these heroes.

According to Hjh Aminah Hj Momin, acting director of the Language and Literature Bureau (DBP) , children now are not interested in history and feel reading history texts is "too heavy".

To nurture the interest of the youth in Bruneian history, the DBP started a project to publish comics based on Brunei's history. Yesterday, the bureau held a dialogue session to discuss the development of the comics aimed at promoting Brunei's history through legendary characters.

The dialogue session was attended by Bruneian comic artists and was held at the Saryamuda Hall of the DBP building in Berakas.

During the discussion it was highlighted that the Language and Literature Bureau would be organising a workshop for comic artists some time after the Brunei Book Fair, which will take place in February next year.

Hjh Aminah said the workshop is to discuss the format of the comics and their characters.

Hjh Aminah said that it is important that the comic artists who register for the workshop prepare well. She suggested that the artists do enough research on the characters they want to feature in their comics by referring to historical literature that will be provided by Brunei's Historical Centre.

To give the artists who were present yesterday a brief guideline how the comics should turn out, Hjh Aminah said that they should capture the role and character of the person featured by giving the character a "Bruneian face".

Hjh Aminah mentioned this because recent drawings received by the bureau show the characters as having features akin to Japanese animation (anime), which is not representative of the characters in Brunei's history.

Hjh Aminah also said comic artists should not turn the legendary figures into "funny characters" in order not to cause any disrespect towards them.

However for the purpose of light humour, minor characters such as the comrades of the major can be made funny, Hjh Aminah added.

The publication date for the comics has not yet been set as "we (the DBP) do not want to rush the deadline because we want quality work from the artists", Hjh Aminah said.

Source: http://www.brudirect.com
Photo Source: http://dastarofbrunei.blogspot.com

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