Singapore's First Comics Conventions

An account of the first two comics conventions organized in Singapore in the 1980s by Robbie Poh. He posted this on sgcollect.com after hearing about the new comics convention that is coming up in Suntec City in June.

http://www.sgcollect.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=58086&st=30&p=1068747&#entry1068747

hello all

Just a bit of history here:


Singapore had already hosted 2 Comics Convention in The Past.

I was the Organiser of the 1st Singapore Comics Convention
held way back in 1986 at the President Merlin hotel on a sunday May 25 in Kitchener Road

We were expacting a crowd of between 500-1000 but in the end around 2500 showed up
due t o unexpected free publicity from Straits Times in their weekend section the day before.

There were people coming from all over asia, Malaysia, thailand and indonesia as well.


I think that convention may have "converted" over a lot of comic fans who are adults now
and also members of this forum.

The 2nd one was held at York Hotel and chaired by one of the committee members of the
1st Comicon, Lee Yen Peen.

He had the disctinction of bringing in both Mike Grell the the then fledgling new Marvel artist
Todd Mcfarlane who made guest appearances there and the various comics specialty shops.


It also attracted a very large crowd back then.

I tried to organise a 10th anniversary in 1996 in YMCA of Singapore but failed to get vendor
support and it was scrapped.

Now after 22 years... this comes about and it is truly nostalgic

I am now a 43 Year-old Lao Jiao.

I still am reading comics but also branched into toys, LDs, DVDs and radio control collectibles.


MY comics collection has since been "separated" from me for some hard cash to many
collectors over the past 2 years due to family committments but I still treasure the
pleasure of reading them.

Now we have many avenues to continue the comics reading passion thru library branches
and all the major bookshops have extensive comics section . Even the govt is encouraging
comics reading as they brought in Mark Waid and Gail Simone last year for the writers festival.

HOORAY for all this....


Long Live Comics and Toys Fans everwhere.

cheers