Slightly Interesting Cambodian Facts (23) First Cambodian Comic

A 1966 Cambodian Comic

Cambodia's first comic book- Neytung Neysang- was published in 1964. It was written and drawn by Uth Roeun.

Early signs for the comic weren't good:

"Frankly the illustrations weren't beautiful. I had no idea how to draw properly. When I’d finished illustrating the first one, no printers wanted to take it,” said Uth Roeun.

However once printed in was immediately successful, one run followed another, and Uth Roeun became wealthy.

 Others followed, as comics became hugely popular in Cambodia.

Their popularity fizzled out in the 1980s, though, as television quickly hooked the kids and plagiarism and illegal copying clawed at artists incomes.

Coming Home

By TOM MASHBERG and RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: May 3, 2013

'Six weeks ago the Metropolitan Museum of Art sent two of its top executives to Cambodia to resolve a thorny dispute: whether two pieces of ancient Khmer art that the museum has long prominently exhibited were the product of looting.

On Friday the museum said it would repatriate the life-size sandstone masterworks, known as the Kneeling Attendants, which have guarded the doorway to the Met’s Southeast Asian galleries since they opened in 1994.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/arts/design/the-met-to-return-statues-to-cambodia.html?_r=0