Book description:
● Special Award in the 1st HK Comics Support Programme
Billie is an internet singer-songwriter who won a singing contest and felt that she could eventually become a professional singer someday. But then her popularity slid, and all the songs she wrote received bad reviews.
Billie’s father urges her to come to terms with her dream of becoming a singer. Feeling depressed and lost, Billie decided to run away from home. Three years later, Billie was found unconscious on the street while holding a sketchbook in her hand. With no recollection of what had happened, Billie realised that the sketchbook she was holding is full of drawings of streetscapes and places in Hong Kong, which may be the key to solving the mystery of her lost memory. Billie then decided to go on an otherworldly journey to retrieve her dream and memory.
The title has won the Silver Award in the 16th Japan International Manga Award.
【Comics Book under HK Comics Support Programme】
Author’s bio:
Pen So is an illustrator, comics artist and graphic designer from Hong Kong. In recent years, he participated in the work of comics creation and novel illustration. In 2013, he attended the Comics Master Class presented by Hong Kong Arts Centre (Comix Home Base). In 2014, he was a member of the elite team in the 3rd Hong Kong Comics Camp and won the First Prize of the illustration group in the 7th Original Comic Competition in 2015. In the same year, he organised the exhibition Memories of My Home, and presented a series of postcards under the same name that recall the sceneries of Hong Kong.
In 2016, he published his first individual illustration Hong Kong Havoc, and won the Best Illustrated Book in Hong Kong Golden Book Awards 2016, Distinguished Publishing Awards – The Best Publishing Concept of the 28th Hong Kong Print Awards 2016, and Publishing Awards in Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Awards 2017. In 2017, he published Kowloon Walled City Graphic Novel: A Romantic Escape with the original author Yu Yi, and won the Best Mono/ Duotone Colour Book of the 29th Hong Kong Print Awards. His works were serialised in Milk Magazine and City Magazine. In 2019, Pen So published a ghost-reasoning illustration book Trap, and was invited to participate in the group exhibition WALLS – an exhibition commemorating 30 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which held in Belgium and Berlin. In 2021, his works were presented in Amiens Comic Book Rendezvous in France. In the same year, he published After Havoc, a collection of works serialised in magazine's column, expanding the story of Hong Kong Havoc. In 2022, he was invited to participate in a mini solo exhibition Kowloon Walled City at Gallery IYN in Osaka, Japan.