Looming milestones, and missed connections. Resisting mainstream expectations, and doing life at your own pace. What does DELAY mean to you? 

Writers and illustrators from all around Southeast Asia take on this theme in an anthology, DELAY: A Comics Anthology. It’s curated by guest editors Charis Loke and Paolo Chikiamco, telling stories close to their hearts while exploring the potential of the comics medium to depict the passage of time.

Charis Loke has been found drawing book covers, fantasy maps, board games, street protests, in the jungle, on a boat, and by a glacier. As an editor and curator, she’s worked with close to a hundred Southeast Asian comic creators and artists, including co-editing Sound: A Comics Anthology, published by Difference Engine. She’s illustrated for Netflix, Orbit, Macmillan, Subterranean Press, and Mekong Review, among others, and has an MA in Visual Sociology with an interest in mapping as arts research.

Paolo Chikiamco, from the Philippines, is a lawyer and writer of prose, comics, and interactive fiction. His prose has been published in anthologies such as The Sea is Ours and The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction, and his interactive wrestling novel Slammed! was released by Choice of Games. As an editor, he put together Alternative Alamat, an anthology of stories that reimagine Philippine myth and folklore. As a comics writer, he has collaborated with some of the country’s most talented artists.

Creative Teams

• A Day in the Life by Cesar Miguel Escaño (PH) & Ferdee Bambico (PH)
• Ad Astra by Nicolette “Wanlingnic” Lee (SG)
• Astray by Farid Nad (MY)
• DELAYED by Peter Lin (SG) & Angela Wu (SG)
• Fish Curry Tastes Better the Next Day by Paati/பாட்டி Philosophy (SG)
• Limerence Station by Eliot Lime (SG)
• Ma, Pa, Delayed Ako by Hansel Dimapilis (PH)
• Syncopation by Aime Marisa (MY) & Bonnibel Rambatan (ID)
• The Adventures of Sunday Domingo feat. Yaya Precy by Julius Villanueva (PH)
• The Other World by Cathlyn Vania (ID)
• Time For That Later by Wayne Rée (SG), Nadia Daeng (SG), & Abigail Goh Tian-I (MY)

DELAY: A Comics Anthology is out April 2026 from Difference Engine. You can pre-order it now on Bookshop, Amazon, from Difference Engine, or your local comic shop or bookstore.

We have an exclusive preview of “Syncopation” by Aime Marisa and Bonnibel Rambatan from the comics anthology.