Penang’s comic museum to fold

 

The comic museum had come under fire when it was revealed that it received public money for its upkeep.

GEORGE TOWN: A private comic museum that has set tongues wagging after it was revealed that tourism tax money was used to fund it, has announced it would close on March 1 due to a dearth of visitors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a lack of sponsorship.

The Asia Comic Cultural Museum in Komtar has been the subject of hot debate after MCA and other state opposition politicians questioned RM413,490 allocated to the museum by the state government.

The allocation was revealed as part of a reply in the Penang assembly on the breakdown of how the state spent the RM20.1 million federal tourism taxes it had obtained. In a response then, the museum clarified that the amount was used to pay for rent while other costs were covered by sponsors.

In a statement on Facebook, the museum’s founder and curator Hew Kuan Yau said the movement control order had caused the number of visitors to drop drastically and even when restrictions were loosened, there were very few walk-ins, let alone tour groups.

He said there were 35,000 visitors in its four years of operation since March 2016. He said the museum’s staff had taken a drastic pay cut and with the Covid-19 situation not abating at least “until 2022”, he said it was not worth running the place any more.

Hew said that in the next few months, the museum would return artworks to their owners.

“We are taking a break in accomplishing a longer journey,” he said, hinting that a similar museum may be opened in a city in China.

Last November, when MCA launched a broadside against the museum, it said the place was largely privately funded by entrepreneurs and had an important role in promoting comic art in various languages such as Malay, Mandarin, English and Tamil.

The museum also touts itself to be the first professional museum in Asia featuring works of 280 famous cartoonists, including their manuscripts and original copies, among others.

It said besides new comics collections, it had published an annual, featuring activities carried out by the museum each year in a bid to be transparent and credible. - FMT