Sir Fong 2 – Fur-O-Cious
by Otto Fong
Following the success of book one, Sir Fong, the second book of the Sir Fong comic book series, titled Sir Fong 2: Fur-O-Cious, continues to inject even more laughter to its predecessor.
Being Sir Fong, an ordinary teacher without any super powers, he must guide his bunny students through the daily dangers in school corners. Be it pirated-CD-selling crows, cells which do not take kindly to being scrutinized under a microscope or a tribe of violent and excited electrons, every incident is a lesson, every lesson an adventure, or simply an excuse for a lame joke.
When he is not teaching, Sir Fong is still serving his nation. Unfortunately, even out of school and back in camouflage, he cannot escape the indignities of life. Army, afterall, is simply full of boys with bigger toys. Finally when he’s totally out of the action and hospitalised, this brave teacher cannot help but land in situations that are logic – defying or just plain rude…
For those of you who are still schooling, read this book, and discover the secrets of surviving your own ‘miserable’ life as a student! For our dear teachers, read this book, and discover the best way to deal with your ‘ridiculous’ job is to laugh like a maniac!
Have a peek at some of the pages in the book here.
About Otto Fong
When Otto was a baby, he fell from his father’s motorbike during a kampong joyride. Since then, he suffered from delusions that he was actually a Batman-type hero: insane teacher by day, mild-mannered playwright by night.
Up till now, Otto has written several plays, including Another Tribe in 1992 and Cetacea in 1993, in which he won a 1996 Book Award and was re-staged in NTU in 2002.
His third play, We Are Family, was about a part of Sir Stamford Raffles statue gone missing. It was restaged by a bunch of RI students almost eight years later. Mind you, that was also long before he became a teacher in RI. Oh how strange life is indeed.
In 1999, Otto wrote Mr Beng (The Trilingual Musical) for the Singapore Arts Festival, which played to full houses in Victoria Theatre, and was restaged in 2000. He continued to inflict harm to local theatre by dissecting other people’s plays on the absolutely fantastic Art Magazine.
In the recent Singapore Arts Festival 2011, Otto once again teamed up with renowned Director Kok Heng Luen to stage a play, HERstory. It is a tribute to Singapore’s forgotten women in the 50s and 60s. Inspired by the women of that generation, Otto tells the story of a tenacious woman with an unfulfilled dream.
In the mid-90s, Otto went to Beijing to study film at the prestigious Beijing Film Factory. He was a director’s assistant in a production of the Monkey King – talk about monkeying around – Otto rediscovered his love for drawing. The birth of a nephew inspired him to spend four months drawing a comic book Buddy Buddy. To his surprise, it got published in Beijing, China, in 1998.
In 2000, Singapore held its first nationwide comic drawing competition. Otto won first and third in the adult category. The judges – all prominent cartoonists from Singapore Press Holdings – had a good laugh at the sight of his name.
The SPH artists generously included Otto in Cartoon Central, a collection of comics published by CDC Central in 2002. Since then, Otto have conducted cartooning workshops for the Museum of Art, National Museum, Singapore Discovery Centre, the annual Gifted Education Programme camp, CDC online and have confused quite a few budding doodlers. Once, Otto gave a talk to 68 Science teachers for Singapore Teachers Association of Singapore at Singapore Science Centre, promoting the use of comics in teaching. That was one very proud moment for him!
In 2005, Otto created a new comic “Sir Fong”, inspired by his first batch of RI students. They were born in the year of the Rabbit, hence the students are all portrayed as bunnies. The comic was named one of the “Ten Good Local Reads” of the year by Straits Times. Miel, a prominent international cartoonist, called it “a labour of laughs” in his ST review and gave it an “A+”.
The success spawned a sequel: “Sir Fong 2: Fur-o-cious” was published in 2006. It was featured in National Museum’s grand re-opening, and enjoyed a successful run at Singapore Discovery Centre’s big-scale comic exhibition “So Singapore Toons” in 2007.
In 2008, Otto decided that he must take the leap and give his first love full attention. He left RI and worked fulltime on “Sir Fong’s Adventures In Science”, using the lovable characters as a tool to make Asian kids love Science more. He hopes that the series will inspire more Asian kids to become Scientists and Researchers. He has published 3 books since! Books 1 and 2 have even gone into its 3rd and 2nd reprint respectively!
If Otto could go back to that fateful day when he fell from dad’s bike and change anything, he wouldn’t. Partly because he’s glad the long, winding road took him to “Sir Fong”. Mostly because noone has figured out time travel yet.
Here’s a little footage about Otto Fong and his relationship with science & comics!
