‘Good Taste’, Sundae Kids.
Thai graphic artists have carved out their share of fame, and new creators keep cropping up now that they can test the popularity of their craft online. Illustrators and witty individuals begin by showcasing their works, jokes and ideas on Facebook, achieving substantial commercial success in the process. Notable success stories of the past few years include Bear Girlfriend, Jay The Rabbit, Maa Jaa (Dog Please), Manee Mee Share and Money Fighter, with each page amassing hundreds of thousands, even millions, of likes.
So far, these pages have catered mostly to a Thai sensibility, but two young artists have been conspicuous for their more Western style of narrative and jokes, and for their use of the English language.
Tuna Dunn by Tunlaya “Tun” Dunnvatanachit and Sundae Kids by Pratchaya “Poysian” Mahapauraya have been building a steady fan base with their clever strips and illustrations.
Both 23 years old, their work is full of visual and verbal puns, observing easily relatable moments in everything from profound human relationships to the everyday lives of young adults. Though both graduated from the same graphic-design programme at Chulalongkorn University, they go about creating their comics in very different ways.
‘Find’, Sundae Kids.
Tuna Dunn
There’s something strikingly sombre and bittersweet about Tuna Dunn’s comics. Her images are simple and subtle but pack a huge punch. They’re clever and full of dark humour, of heart-wrenching themes such as love and relationships. If one is in a sensitive and vulnerable state, her works could easily make one shed a tear.
Self-proclaimed as a fairly dark and sombre person, Tun created her Facebook page three years ago with the encouragement of her senior from university. Now with around 22,000 page followers, three published graphic novels, a full-time job as a visual designer and part-time jobs as an illustrator and comic artist, she’s an artist worth keeping your eyes on.
Known for her simple lines and minimal use of muted colours, her style only began to stabilise to what it is today when she started seriously studying design. Having been taught about the foundations of communication and taste, Tun’s works don’t need much detail to explain what’s going on in her panels — true to the philosophy that a little goes a long way. Her comics and illustrations, which feature bittersweet love stories and witty illustrations, are so emotion-packed and personal that they may seem manifested from her own life. But that isn’t the case at all.
“The stories mostly aren’t from my own experiences, but they’re from the films and songs I consume,” she says. “They accumulate and turn into the stories I write.” And why are the comics written in English?
“I feel like it flows more in English,” she explains. “It’s much simpler. Thai can sometimes be complicated. If I use a certain word wrong, then the whole meaning changes. For example, with pronouns. There’s only I and you in English. But in Thai, there’s chan, pom, deechan, khao. It makes things that should be simple sentences like ‘I love you’ become complicated, and the emotions completely change. So English makes it easier for communication — it’s more straightforward, and some sentences are much more romantic.”
As a seemingly natural storyteller — or “chimerical”, as she describes herself — her comics quickly caught the eyes of Salmon Books. She published her first graphic novel, I Like Like You, at only 20 years of age. Now, at 23, she has a total of three graphic novels, all praised for their heart-wrenching storylines.
“I don’t like giving readers a happy ending,” she says with a chuckle. “I believe that real life doesn’t really have happy endings.” Having a certain amount of success at a young age also has its challenges for Tun. She’s starting to get bored with drawing the relationship comics she’s best known for.
“So I have to balance it out,” she says. “I have to nurture the fans on the page, and I don’t want to be pinned down in the same place. So it’s a challenge in figuring out how I can change. I want to do other types of illustrations and expand my technique and skills even more. [In the future] I’d like to still create artwork. I would like to work in an area that’s heavy on design, and there’s a chance that I might not draw what I’ve been drawing during the first period anymore.”
‘I Hate Losing’, Sundae Kids.
Sundae Kids
Readers can guess what Pratchaya “Poysian” Mahapauraya’s comics are like just by her pen name alone. Sundae Kids comics are sweet, lively, youthful, heart-melting. Her artwork is filled with visual and verbal puns, and fun concepts of relationships, food and everyday life that draw plenty of laughs and pleasant nods of agreement. Most of the strips draw from her real-life experiences, resulting in comical and easily relatable narratives.
Launching her page only last year as a place to gather all her unused ideas from university, Sundae Kids now has more than 30,000 followers on Facebook, with her works featured in Sook Magazine, Morning Journal Zine, Central Embassy and a number of book covers for Salmon Books.
Now working as a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and comics artist, she’s living the good life — doing what she loves and has planned to do since childhood.
‘Locked’, Tuna Dunn.
“I’m not that skilled in communicating through spoken words,” Poysian says. “But once it’s drawn into an image, I feel I can communicate better than when I talk.”
Poysian’s style varies greatly depending on the assignment she’s given, but for her Facebook page, she tries to keep it as consistent and true to herself as possible.
“My style isn’t very stable as of now,” she explains. “It keeps changing as I grow up. But there are characteristics like how I use colours, lines and gimmicks in the images. When you look at the work, you know it’s the same person that’s drawing it. But I’m still developing my style until I’m satisfied with it.” Noted for her clever images, use of pastel colours, and crayon-textured lines, the stories that she features on her Facebook page offer a view into her life and personality.
“The pastel colours reflect my emotions — as I’m quite a kid at heart. Yes, we have to mature as we grow older, but I still retain my inner child, and it comes out in my work through the colours, lines, and small details that make it playful. I like creating images with dialogue that makes people go, ‘Hm?’.” Her comic and jokes are all in English, for the chance to communicate her ideas to a wider audience abroad.
“It’s not that I’m better at English than I am at Thai,” she says. “But I want to communicate more. Facebook is a worldwide online platform, so I want foreigners to be able to read and understand my comics. I also like watching English movies and I like their gags and jokes. I prefer their jokes to Thai jokes, where they play with a lot of puns.”
Luckily so far, Poysian hasn’t met any challenges with her work or Facebook page. She plans to continue working as a freelance illustrator, and hoping to create more content, with plans to publish a long graphic novel in the future.
“I do have plans to go abroad. Maybe next year or after that I might continue my studies,” she says. “I do want to increase my skills. Right now I’m just in Thailand, and I want to know if other countries will accept me or think like me, and how far my style will go.”
‘Squeezing’, Tuna Dunn.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.