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Komik itu Baik traces Arswendo Atmowiloto’s legacy in Indonesian comics
The late literary figure Arswendo Atmowiloto could barely draw comics, but he was the one who worked tirelessly to shift Indonesian parents’ negative perceptions toward comic books.
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Local heroes: A visitor reads about the history of Indonesian comics in the Komik itu Baik
comic festival at the dia.lo.gue art space in South Jakarta. (JP/A. Kurniawan Ulung)
F
or the late literary figure and senior journalist Arswendo Atmowiloto, singing and drawing were two skills that he wanted to master but could not. He, therefore, often asked his cartoonist brother to illustrate stories that he wrote in the 1970s.
“He thought that if his stories had illustrations and he then sent them to news agencies in Jakarta, the chance for his work to get published was bigger,” said Arswendo’s son, Sony Wibisono.
Arswendo did not care much about textbooks that he read at school. What he cherished the most was turning the pages of comic books.
After learning that Arswendo liked renting comic books in the 1980s, his father visited a comic store near Sriwedari Cultural Park in Surakarta, Central Java, and bought his son a pile of used comic books, including the Ramayana series by RA Kosasih.
“Those books were, of course, paid in installments because his father did not have much money at that time,” Sony said.
Arswendo, who passed away in July at the age of 70 from prostate cancer, was not a comic artist, but his love for comics was unquestionable, said Sony during the opening of the comic festival, Komik Itu Baik: Tribute untuk Arswendo Atmowiloto (Comics are Good: Tribute to Arswendo Atmowiloto), on Sept. 28 in South Jakarta.
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