Eisner Award winner submitted her comic as practice

Erica Eng submitted her web comic Fried Rice for the Eisner Awards on a whim in 2020.

- Charmaine Lim

The 25-year-old never imagined she would become the first Malaysian and youngest winner for the Best Webcomic category, alongside notable previous winners such as New Zealand author/illustrator Kay O'Neill (The Tea Dragon Society, 2016 to 2017) and American cartoonist Rachel Smythe (Lore Olympus, 2018 to 2024).

Eng will be at Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) as a panellist on Nov 9 and 10 at The Arts House, talking about coming-of-age stories and being a female comic artist. It is her first time attending in person after an online appearance in 2020.

Over Zoom from her home in Batu Pahat, Malaysia, she tells The Straits Times she treated the submission like an exercise. "I made sure it fit the requirements like having its own URL and being in a certain format. But when I submitted it, Fried Rice had only 30 pages, so I really didn't think I would get it. I was like, 'I might as well try and have some practice submitting things.'"

That the nomination was accepted made her happy enough, but the win led the author to a deeper realisation.