Fried Rice

This Eisner Award-winning webcomic is the "autobiographical fiction" of aspiring cartoonist/animator Min. Feeling boxed in by her Malaysian environment, she dreams of attending a famous American art college—but she learns lessons about making art that only her home, family, church, and friends can teach her.

Min, who lives in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia, is about to graduate from secondary school. Her dream is to be a cartoonist and an animator—and she applies to a famous American art college to achieve it. Like many people her age, she feels hemmed in by her small hometown, despite the support she gets from her loving, extended family, her church, and her friends. But when things don't turn out the way Min planned, she must find her own path and come to see her home from a new personal and artistic perspective.

In this Eisner Award-winning webcomic, now a graphic novel, Erica Eng, the first Malaysian to win that award, warmly immerses readers in a time, a place, and a country, filled with rich characters, detailed cityscapes, and lived-in houses. Fried Rice also includes Eng's notes about the creative process behind the comic, including sketches and drawings.