Blyu asks: Pow Pow! What pen sizes do you use? Do you alternate pens a lot or do you tend to stick with one? ALSO- what character is your favorite to draw? :"3c

I use mainly three pens in inking my comics.  The pen on the left is the one I use to do the linework.  It is called a Falcon pen and is no longer in production, but it has similiar qualities to current G pens.  

The middle pen is called a Bank pen.  It is actually virtually identical to current G pens in writing characteristics, but I use these because I have hundreds of them already.  This is the pen I use for panel borders, speedlines, and when I need to do very fine lines or hatching.  It is very flexible and produce ultra fine as well as ultra thick lines.

The last pen is a spoon tip which I use for lettering, speech bubbles, and filling in black spots.  Although I have been thinking of looking for something to replace it for lettering and bubbles to get a more consistent line.

_(:3 」∠)_

What is my favorite character to draw?  I think either 117, or 111, their designs are cool without being too tedious to draw.  108 is all black which makes him a bit of a pain to ink, and Lawson and Stan are pretty simple to draw - so 117 and 111 have a good mix of being cool looking, but also easy to draw.

Ashikai asks: Do you make a living off of your comic works?

The simple answer is no.  The complicated answer is "kind of" but the details are tedious and boring.  Let's just say that there isn't very much money in comics unless you work for a big huge company (most of which dislike anything tinged with manga influence), but that if you also make and sell art that isn't comics you can increase your income.

Riem asks: What contributed to you having the simple yet complex style you do? It's very unique.
 

I guess by having a lot of influences.  I don't think I ever had a "idol" artist that I aspired to be like.  I've always been looking at lots of different artists in lots of different genres and looking for stuff that I like that inspires me.  I also know that anybody can make something complicated, but it takes a lot more genius to know when to hold back and not go too far. I don't know if I have that - but I aspire to have that sense! LOL

Matsuyama Takeshi 松山健 asks: Hey Pow-san! I have a couple actually if that's ok =]

1. What process do you use for making your chapters? I sketch out the name on regular paper first then ink on manga paper. What do you do? ^^

2. Do you get artist block? What do you do to get rid of it?

1: I jump into full sized pencils immediately.  Basically I have two ways of approaching this, I'll either pencil an entire chapter out and then make whatever changes I think will make it read better before inking, or I will pencil and ink two pages of a story at a time.  Two pages at a time which would be facing pages if the pages were in a book.  It's not the best way to make a comic, but it can break up the monotony of penciling 15-20 pages.  Sometimes when I get stuck on a page I just start inking and an idea for the page will come to me while I'm busy inking - so there's that too.

2: I do get artist block all the time.  I love drawing, and I always want to draw. But sometimes when I sit down to work I just can't get anything to work right, or I just don't feel like drawing what I'm working on.

When this happens I think "what is it that I really want to draw?" - because if you can think of something that you really want to draw and then you draw it it gets you back in the mood to make art.

So sometimes when I get stuck on a comic or a commission or something - I stop and I just start sketching something else that I have been thinking about.  I might sketch a page of cars or bicycles, or even plants.  Then once I'm drawing again I'm not frustrated anymore and I can go back to work.

Thank you everybody for you questions!  I hope you enjoyed my answers.