Gov.sg and artist of Virus Vanguard explain thought process behind comic

Less than 24 hours after introducing a five-member COVID-19 superhero team, Gov.sg has to take down the page due to the overwhelming negative feedback. The superhero team, called the Virus Vanguard, was fronted by characters such as “MAWA Man”, “Care-Leh Dee”, “Dr. Disinfector”, “Circuit Breaker” and “Fake News Buster”. Each with these heroes had their very own backstory and superpowers.

However, netizens were not impressed by Singapore's very own Marvel like characters. In a string of Facebook comments, several questioned Gov.sg on the concept and several deemed it “too playful and frivolous” during such a difficult period. Describing it a distasteful concept, other united in their demand for Gov.sg to trash the idea and focus on supporting frontliners and foreign workers who need the government’s help instead.

These comments were posted under Gov.sg’s post on Facebook, which said that the entity will be revewing the comments following the feedback. It added that this is the first time it is exploring this content format, and explained that the Virus Vanguard is a collaboration with local art group Band of Doodlers (BOD) to create a comic series to convey different aspects of the Circuit Breaker measures. Some netizens however took this information on collaboration as ‘throwing BOD under the bus’ given that the initial launch of Virus Vanguard on Gov.sg did not credit BOD.

BOD artist clarifies thought process behind work

In the same Facebook post, founder of BOD Mas Shafreen commented that he was the artist who created the superhero characters and apologised that the characters came across insensitive.

Clarifying that his apology and comment was his alone, and not requested by Gov.sg, Shafreen explained that the concept was merely about creating superhero characters to show appreciation for frontliners, and to rally the country together.

“It is also a way for us artists to collaborate together while practising social distancing. That was when I was approached to develop a comic series to help raise awareness on circuit breaker measures,” he added.

According to Shafreen, the MAWA Man character specifically was derived from his personal likes and dislikes. MAWA is an abbreviation for ‘Must Always Walk Alone’ which is a word play on Liverpool Football Club’s ‘You'll Never Walk Alone’ tagline.

“MAWA Man was more about how we should practice safe distancing but the [goal] is that he will realise that it takes all of us, regardless of which team we support, to pull through this together. And we cannot just do this alone,” Shafreen said.

He added that the current situation has been hard on artists and he was appreciative of the opportunity by Gov.sg.  “I am sorry for the trouble caused and I hope local artists can still be supported with creative projects,” he added. His comment was well received by netizens, with over 270 thumbs up reactions from Facebook users.

Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has not yet responded to Marketing’s queries.

Gov.sg is not the only one jumping on a cartoon/comic concept to deliver COVID-19 measures. Earlier in February, the Ministry of Education (MOE) unveiled five "soaperhero" mascots featured in its 'Bye Bye Virus' song to combat coronavirus and stay protected. The Soaper 5 - Wipe up Wilson, Super soaper Soffy, Virus screener Varun, Hands down Hana, Mask up Mei Mei - were part of MOE's measures in encouraging students to keep hygienic.

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