Virus Vanguard saga is probably the biggest saga in the Singapore art industry since NAC revoked the grant for Sonny Liew's comic.

Here's the news and context if you want to read more:
news article 1 | news article 2

The short story is, the government of Singapore shared the Virus Vanguard superhero characters created by Band of Doodler's, more specifically by founder Mas Shafreen. These characters are supposed to raise awareness for the Circuit Breaker (aka partial lockdown) measures in Singapore.

One of the superheroes was called MAWA Man, aka Must Always Walk Alone Man. That riled up Liverpool fans so much that they started a petition to remove MAWA. Virus Vanguard also had plenty of negative publicity, locally and around the world with soccer fans.

A day after the criticism, Virus Vanguard superheroes have disappeared, and Mas Shafreen has decided to step down as founder of Band of Doodlers.

Here's my take of the whole situation.

Virus Vanguard wasn't really necessary considering the media has been playing up all those who are dealing with pandemic as heroes. Nurses, doctors and all the workers who are working to fight the pandemic are all heroes.

The criticism were harsh, as if the critics have their family members burned on stakes. Some even said the superhero poses were copied from other drawings. Seriously, those are the most generic superhero poses you can find. I know it sounds bad but that's just the way it is with superhero comic saturation. Mas Shafreen did said he used references.

Anyway...

Here are few things you should know about criticism.
1. The random person who criticised you will not even remember who you are the next day. But you'll remember the brutal criticism for a long time.
2. You don't have to give a shit about people who don't give a shit about you.
3. Why value someone's opinion of you more than your opinion of yourself?

Mas Shafreen took it too hard. It's just a bad move that you can laugh off in the future.