Courtesy Beng Rahadian / Google Translate:
When helping Bentara Budaya compile the material for the Graphic Memoir Indonesia comic exhibition, I set the initial period from 2004, when Tita Larasati’s sequentially illustrated diary was exhibited at Erasmus Huis. I don’t think I’ve found similar works in previous years. Tita’s style then developed through the publisher Curhat Anak Bangsa which created the Graphic Diary and Graphic Travelogue lines (both are sub-topics of graphic memoir).
Then a few days ago when visiting the Matawaktu library, I found new data, that there was a journalist from the old order era (with a film background) who made a unique graphic memoir because it was shaped like a storyboard for a film, maybe this will be made into a film one day – but the work is very sequential (I hope to get confirmation regarding this, for friends who know). These images are one of the works saved from the confiscation of archives (which were later destroyed) by the Japanese army at that time. (The original archive belongs to B.Beem which was handed over to the collection of the Bronbeek Museum, Arnhem, the Netherlands). He is H. B. Angin (Hajopan Bejo Angin 1910 – 1958).
Seeing his background, he had studied film at the Film Department (Univ of California) and worked at Java Industrial Film as an artistic director, after previously H. B. Angin worked as an illustrator and cartoonist at the Bintang Timoer newspaper (closed after the 65 incident) — then his drawings are very exciting and very dynamic (carrying the idea of revolution). There are several other things that are equally exciting in this exhibition. Please come.