08 Jun 2008 10:05 am
I wanna be a mangaka
I just finished volume one. Finally. Its been five years...and the final draft is finished at last. I have never been so happy.
Ahem.
Please allow me to explain. When I was a lonely little twelve year old, all I did all day was draw and read. I only had a handful of friends and they did the same thing I did. Draw and read. Perhaps I better start at the very beginning...
Poke`mon. Thats right. PKMN. It was the big bang of anime in america. It lead anime and manga straight to the pearly gates. And its what got me started.
When I was a little kid, I couldnt draw...not at all. No skill or talent...and dont even get me started on painting.....><
Well, that all changed one day...in the Wal Mart parking lot. I was six. I got out of the car as usual...pushed the lock button on the door as usual...shut the door as usual....it was all a routine kind of thing, but....that day....I had locked my right hand in the door of the car when I had shut it. I must have been in a rush. So I was trapped for several moments, my mother scrambling...she had left her keys in the car...my hand was STUCK! Luckily a cop was nearby and he broke it open. My hand was broken. Busted up BAD. I had to wear this big heavy cast...no fun. The doctor said I might recover quicker if I stretch my hand a little. She suggested drawing and writing and such...so I started drawing. Then I drew more...and more....and more......and suddenly started to get a little good at it...when my cast came off, I kept drawing. And drawing. And drawing.
5th grade. I was 10 years old. My hand was, of course by now, fine. Better than fine. It was precious. I had gotten very good for my age. I had an eye for detail in all of my artwork. Plus I whooped butt in pictionary. Up till then, all I had drawn was animals. I was good at them too. Mostly wolves, they are still my favorite. By this age, I already had a gameboy with two or three pkmn games to go with it, plus a deck of pkmn cards, blah blah etc. But I never really got into drawing it...
My friend Megan, who I hadnt seen in a year, was in my class that year. We were sat at the same table at the beginning of the year. One time, in library, I leaned over to see what she was drawing...it was...a person. I was never good at people....It was a pokemon trainer, she told me, she learned from her friend Tiana, who is a year older. I was immediately fascinated...she could draw PEOPLE. Cartoon people, but still people. Better than I could. SO. I asked her to teach me. She taught me how to make their face and hair, and that was about it...I guessed with the rest. I drew out a vomit-inducing picture of two girls in witch costumes: Halloween. It was supposed to be me and Megan. I still have that drawing, to this day...
Soon I got better....no, faster than soon. I got better immediately. All I needed was that one little push. Little did I know, that little push would decide my fate. And boy did it.
No more realism for me! Realistic drawings are boring. There are rules...you have to get it just right....its different with cartoons. You can do anything with a cartoon. Anything you want. I needed that freedom. I still need it....I cant live without that freedom...
I started reading it. Manga. CLAMP's Cardcaptor Sakura was my first graphic novel. Read the whole series. loved it. My art was greatly influenced by CLAMP's. Then, I thought, I should make my own...how hard could it be? So comics were born. I had a few series; all short, no real meaning or depth. Some fan comics of Cardcaptors. I did a good job for back then, I think.
Anywho. The summer after sixth grade...back to where we started...I went on a plane to Seattle. On the plane I designed two characters...a black spikey haired guy named Rage and a brown haired guy named Aero....I liked the designs, so I kept them in case I wanted to make a comic about them later. I designed several more and they became a cast of characters for my new comic which I called "Mage Slayers". The plot was unclear, the characters were unoriginal...I wasnt satisfied. The only thing I liked about it was that it was based in another world with fairies and demons and magic--a world with no rules. I took that world and shaped it...completed it. It became Menophia, the place where "Rage" and "Aero" would dwell.
The first version of "Dragon Slayer" (DS for short) was proposterous. Crude. Badly written, badly drawn...badly thought through....just like Mage Slayers....it was a failure. But I didnt give up. I became attatched to Rage, Aero, and my newest character, Cyrus. I wanted them to be something more--more than characters. So, I wrote their whole backstories. Every moment in their life that they could remember, how it changed them, how it affected their choices and personalities. It was an intensive study. And while i did this, I worked on the comic...the comic was a test subject. When I felt ready, in 9th grade, when the first season of DS was almost finished in version one, I decied to start over. I got 18 pages into the first volume, then stopped. It wasn't ready. Version 2 of DS was deeper, made more sense...but it was too influenced by the artwork of others. I had to break myself away from my beloved anime and manga...I stopped watching it for a whole year. And finally, fell into my own style. Influenced by CLAMP and Final Fantasy with a touch of old english stylings (for instance in the clothing and setting of the manga), INFLUENCED, but not driven by. I have broken away from it and now have a style I am comfortable with.
I rewrote DS. All of it. Same basic ideas, made deeper. Made meaningful. Its no longer just an adventure. I gave life to a cast of 32 recurring characters, all of which I loved. By this point, I cared so much for my characters, it hurt when I knew I had to kill some off or even put them through something rough. I am an abusive writer...a lot of bad Shi--I mean stuff happens to all of them over the four 'seasons' of the manga. Finally, a year ago, I started planning to make the final draft of DS. I started in January of 2008, 4 and a half years after I drew "Rage" on that plane...Rage became Akio Mansai, my most treasured and beloved character. As complete as a real human being. And today, at around 4 in the morning, I finished his debut. After 5 years, I am finally able to give my characters to the world.
So you see, I have never ever ever in my entire life, felt so good as I do now. It may seem silly, but I have known since I created Akio or "Rage" that he would be my shining star--my partner in crime as I clamour to the top of the anime chain. Someday, Akio's face might be on the cover of a magazine, and the thought of that brings a huge smile to my face.
I realized when I finished volume one.
Its begun.
And I can do this. I can live my dream.
I want to be a mangaka.
--Blizzard Comics