Sweet Time

by Weng Pixin

Vibrant swatches of paint build resonant portraits of heartache, childhood memories, and loneliness

Sweet Time is an intimate rumination on love, empathy, and confidence. Singaporean cartoonist Weng Pixin delicately explores strained relationships with a kind of hopefulness while acknowledging their inevitable collapse. Her stories are like a series of snapshots in a photo album or the brightest highlights from an Instagram profile.

Gorgeous image follows gorgeous image in a delicate quest to find connection. A night out turns into a chance encounter that is at first ecstatic and then quickly descends into awkwardness. A round of “he loves me, he loves me not” becomes a way of reading every action taken by a distant love interest. A couple find themselves in an artificially beautiful landscape, but the relationship can’t survive their difference of opinion on the illusion of its beauty. In Sweet Time, thick and bold strokes of color mingle with delicate lines. Weng combines colorful realism with a gentle wit and introspection, crafting infinitely relatable stories of everyday life and love now.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Short Stories, Art, Bande Dessinée, Graphic Novels Comics

160 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2020

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could this be my very first Singaporan book of comics? A collection by Pix Weng, some narratives that focus on struggles with relationships, some wordless, a series of images, more "poetic" (the event of the piece moved forward through images than narrative) or lyrical. Lots of rich color and images contrast with quick sketchbook quality panels. Thoughtful, reflective, whimsical. I like it a lot though it is a collection of disparate pieces and not actual "coherent" in any obvious way. Maybe it's the mood, the tone that attracts, and the colorful painting.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is no full picture of the future. Just dots on paper."

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Between some travel diaries to New York, Argentina, and Sumatra with random moments of tourist-y stuff and some disjointed short stories about love and heartbreak are some entirely nonsensical words and slushy images. It's art or its just pages to turn depending on your level of patience I suppose.

[Loz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting meander through a myriad of interconnected stories. I loved the color choices and the art style is very distinct and striking. Some of the stories resonated more with me than others. Overall pretty good.

[aqilahreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love pixin’s illustrations but story wise is just too complex for my simple mind!! hahahaha i don’t get it but i guess that’s also the beauty of art :’) sometimes art is not meant to be understood at first but eventually comes with personal interpretations or to read/find out from the artist itself if theres an opportunity. guess its just her style of writing & penning down her own thoughts though – its so interesting to see the artist’s artistic approach and expression, really truly inspiring i shall say. if someone was to point out her artworks, its easy to be able to identify that its pixin’s works as its really that unique. ✨

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty book make brain go brrr.

[Gabi Portillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

La transición en las últimas dos páginas es la mejor que he visto nunca en un cómic !! *reverencia*

[Rohan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Abandoned around 60% of the way through because of lack of interest. The art is painterly and powerful in its childlike simplicity. The text is mostly short, disconnected musings and anecdotes about love and falling out of love. There wasn't enough to keep me hooked. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind to process it. As it stands, I would recommend skimming through it for the beautiful art at the very least.

[Devon Ashby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wrenching and soothing. Just what my soul needed.

[Anastasia MacKenzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the art to the story, this book was a whole lot of nothing.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant, intimate and beautiful

[Cherlynn | cherreading · Rating 1 out of 5]

Take my opinion and rating with a pinch of salt, because I'm definitely not the right audience for this book. In fact, I don't think anyone is the audience at all other than the author, whom I'm sure created this book mainly for herself.

My mistake for thinking it's a graphic novel when it's actually part collection of reflections and part travel diary of sorts. I did not understand the book at all; the more I read, the more lost I was. The confusion kept me from enjoying or appreciating the book.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, the paintings in the book are beautiful. Pixin does an amazing job of weaving layers of colours and emotions to create a series of short stories and observations. While some reviewers have pointed out that this book isn’t a traditional narrative graphic novel, I found that her stories of human connection is the main running theme in this book, revealed in thoughtful vignettes and snapshots between lovers and strangers and how one can easily become the other from one moment to the next.

[Kg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how Pixin's art normalises quirks and idiosyncrasies. In Sweet Time, her pictures and characters are fragments speaking the mind of a person who is coming-of-age; seeing your thoughts out on print takes your weirdness out of the cupboard and allows them to air. I have had this book since 2020, and every now and then, I would flip through the colourful pages, settle on a short sequence, to take a little detour from my day-to-day. Looking forward to see where she has taken her painterly style and point-of-view.

[Lisa]

Overall, this was not really for me, although I liked some of the artwork/paintings quite a bit, and enjoyed them more as the book went along (either because the style developed or it just grew on me).

[Jerome · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its a good book but rather uneven in quality.

Some of the artwork is very beautiful, some of it feels clumsy. A lot of the stories are personal and interesting, I like the simple observations but other stories feel a bit too self-absorbed.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the drawings/paintings, but the stories were not my favorite thing to read. Also, I was not prepared for some pretty explicit pictures in a few of the stories, which I did not enjoy. Overall this was a miss for me.

[Melina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the oftentimes painful ruminations on how relationships take a toll on a person. Related a lot to one story in particular.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely artwork with some moments of poignancy, insight, and humor in both the small and large moments of life.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous artwork with spot-on pacing in these vignettes about connection, depression, travel and more. One of the books that has resonated strongly with me this year.

[Lokman Yusof · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful child-like illustrations and intimate rumination on love, loss and wonder.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sketchbooks - enjoyed the use of color, but most sections are barely musings/observations, let alone stories.

[CyGrrl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but not extraordinary. Adult themes. Suitable for mature audience.

[Irene Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories were abstract and intriguing, some beautiful art, really mostly art and musings and journal entry kinda pages. I liked "Rose."

[megan]

only read "Infatuation"

[Ashmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations, but the narrative is lacking.

[Eszter Szép · Rating 4 out of 5]

Passive-agressive love stories beutifully painted.

[lilin23 · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual, v v beautiful palette and illustrations from Pix. But leans towards more abstract art that I couldn't really appreciate - so perhaps not for me!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

yearning for an escape that never lasts
i miss the moon

[Sonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal