Myanmar: the last stand

In February 2021, Myanmar’s military shocked the world by staging a coup d’état on the pretext of the previous year’s election manipulation. The Burmese people had no idea that the democracy they had fought so hard for would be taken away from them again within such a short period of time. The younger Burmese generation, who grew up in a free environment, could not accept the repression in the country after the coup and therefore actively took up the struggle.

This documentary comic, edited and produced by Slowork Publishing, is set against the backdrop of the 2021 military coup in Myanmar. The project invited Frédéric Debomy, a French graphic-novel writer who has long been concerned with human rights issues in Myanmar, to write the script, and Hong Kong comic artist Lau Kwong Shing, who specializes in producing strongly nuanced narratives in pencil, to create the illustrations. The project gives voice to the Burmese people’s struggle for democracy through this creative medium, at the same time helping to bring this tragedy to the attention of more people in Taiwan and internationally.

In addition to completing the 63-page illustrated text, the project also collaborated with Taiwan’s leading Burmese cultural promoter, Mingalar Par, to record a podcast. Members of NGOs and creators concerned with Myanmar and Southeast Asian countries were invited to discuss the current social situation of Myanmar and the comic creation process online.