| Scenes of Malaysian Life | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lat |
| Current status/schedule | Ended |
| Launch date | 1974 |
| End date | 2014 |
| Alternate name | Lat & Easy |
| Publisher | New Straits Times |
| Genre | Humour |
Scenes of Malaysian Life (also known as Lat & Easy from 2002 to 2014) is a comic strip series by Malaysian cartoonist, Mohammad Nor Khalid, better known as Lat and published in the Malaysian English-language daily newspaper, the New Straits Times . [1] [2] The comic strip, which ran for 40 years, from 1974 to 2014, [3] illustrated the common way of life of the multicultural Malaysia. [4] Some of his cartoons in the series also compiled in his comic books.
In 1973, Lat, who was then a crime reporter at the New Straits Times , [5] submitted his comic strip for the Hong Kong-based Asia Magazine with the traditional life culture as the main subject where he drews a cartoon and provide the dialogues about a traditional Malay Muslim ritual, the circumcision. [6] [7] [8] It drews attention from the-then New Straits Times editor-in-chief, Lee Siew Yee, who later offered him a permanent column cartoonist role in the newspaper. [9] [10] Lat then taking that position specially created for him by the newspaper's then editor, Abdul Samad Ismail. [11] [12] This gave birth to the Scenes of Malaysian Life series where his first job is to highlighted the daily lives of Malaysian multiracial culture and current affairs. [9] [13] [14] He described it as a "something very innovative at the time". [9]
The first cartoon that Lat drew in the series is the "Perak Wedding", which was published in March 1974. [2] [15] After returned to Malaysia from his 4-month study at the St Martin's School of Art in London, [16] Lat changed the format of Scenes of Malaysian Life into an editorial cartoon series. In 1984, partly from a desire to step away from the public limelight, Lat resigned from the New Straits Times to become a freelancer, [17] [18] [19] but continued to draw Scenes of Malaysian Life for the newspaper. [20] In 1995, Scenes of Malaysian Life absent briefly from the New Straits Times as Lat decided to take a sabbatical for a year. The series resumed publication the following year [21] until it finally ended in 2014. [3]
The comic strip was well-received [22] [23] and propelled Lat's work to a greater heights. [24] In the 2000s, the series ran three times per week in the New Straits Times. [25] Some of his works in Scenes of Malaysian Life also have been compiled into comic books which proven to be successful and well-received.
Ilham Gallery describe the series as "a truly Malaysian narrative and perfectly pictured the life of a nation". [26]
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