Category Archives: Interviews

Interviews: SIN by Drake Tsui

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Drake Tsui, the creator of SIN

This is certainly long overdue, but it’s great to have you here, Drake! Thanks for talking with us!

No problemo!

You’ve been with MangaMagazine since the very beginning with your comic, SIN. How has your experience changed over the last couple of years?

I remember when Foster first contacted me asking if I was interested in having SIN sponsored from MM.net. At the time the entire thing was just this pet project for me to take a shot at sequential art so I was like, “Sure, why not? Getting paid to practice drawing? Awesome.”

Then somehow SIN actually started gaining popularity and so did my interest in storytelling/comics. Suddenly it became a part of my career and one of my most significant projects to date! It’s been a bewildering experience, one that I hope only gets bigger and better :]

Another beautiful illustration by Drake

I’ve seen your workload and it’s pretty intimidating! How do you manage to find the time to work on SIN while juggling all of your other illustration projects?

Oh you know that thing people call a social life? I sure as hell don’t :| Hahaha! But no seriously when you get into the freelance business one of the first things you have to tackle hard is time management. After graduating from Art College I somehow went from a lazy procrastinating teenager to a self-made businessman overnight.

It was a weird transition but being organized and self disciplined definitely has it’s perks. It’s rewarding to be able to tell people I make a good living at home drawing stuff on my computer without the creative constraints that normally comes with having a studio job.

SIN is a pretty unique comic, stylistically. You’ve flawlessly combined the dynamism of western comics with the pacing of eastern comics. Are there any particular works that influenced your storytelling style?

Yea, if there was a formula it’d look something like: Marvel/DC Comics + Shonen Manga = Drake’s lolwriting.

As far as “particular works” go anything with Brian Michael Bendis’s name on it has had a huge influence on my idea of what storytelling could look like. The titles that he writes for Marvel constantly hit a high note for me and in a lot of ways I try to emulate his ability to “entertain” through SIN.

From the East you can bet I read/watched a lot of Manga/Anime growing up. Notable works that have had a huge influence on the development of SIN are Battle Angel Alita (aka GUNNM), Ghost In the Shell (S.A.C. Series), Gundam (Universal Century titles) and probably a lot more I can’t think of at the moment!

Despite it being a classic sci-fy, post-apocalyptic, political battleground comic, SIN is a refreshing read. Where did the original idea come from?

One of the first things I learned as an artist is that there’s no such thing as originality, just an illusion created from careful rehash and remix. So to put a spin on a premise so terribly redundant you have to really identify the elements that make it feel overused and downplay them as much as possible to give other aspects more room to breath.

In SIN‘s case, I decided right off the bat that it had to be very character driven. Everything else about a post apocalyptic sci fi has been told a million times over but the one thing that never gets old is humanization. People will always connect with people.

So for all of it’s grandeur of the world ending, totalitarian governments, assassination, blah, blah, blah, blah… SIN really boils down to it’s characters and making them as authentic and relatable as possible.

SIN is full of wonderfully detailed machinery and backgrounds.

The level of detail present in all of your pages is stunning, especially when it comes to machines and weaponry! How do you go about designing these elements?

Is it? Haha thanks! A couple of my side jobs for the past couple of years consists of Sci Fi Concept Art and you’ll actually notice the earlier designs in SIN are pretty… terrible. As my conceptual skills evolved over the years from those particular jobs I was able to apply them to SIN, in fact you guys will probably notice me constantly redesigning things as the series progresses!

Thirty chapters in, and it feels like you’re just getting started with SIN‘s story. Do you have anything special in store for your readers?

You’re right! The first 30 or so chapters focused a lot on laying groundwork for the protagonists (Kaden & Zerus) now that it’s done I’ve got a ridiculous amount of story arc’s planned out that I can finally get started on. I don’t have anything special in store per-say but hopefully I’ll be able to start moving the plot a little faster for you guys. :]

You’re a pretty avid convention-goer! Is there anything in particular that you enjoy the most about conventions?

Conventions are business trips for me but materialistic gains aside it’s incredibly uplifting to be surrounded by people who enjoy your work. I go to about 10 of these things a year and after awhile you grow numb to the celebrities, panels, merchandise, cosplays etc. but the one thing that never gets old is catching a smile or laugh from someone looking at your work.

I know it’s a whole lot of cheese, but celebrating a fandom I belong to with others is a pretty heart warming experience.

Enyo and Zerus from SIN are featured on the cover of Chapter 30

Is it just me, or would SIN make an awesome video game? I would love to play that game! Any chance one of your video game clients would be interested?

If SIN ever gets popular enough for a video game the first I’d like to see is a Fighting Game! There was a series of games called “Narutimate Hero” on the Playstation 2 for NARUTO, I’d want it to be pretty much exactly like that gameplay/style-wise. At the moment though, SIN doesn’t nearly have enough content/characters for that sort of thing though, haha.

I don’t think a lot of my video game clients even know I’m a comic/manga artist. I might build the confidence to pitch the idea someday, who knows!

It’s been a pleasure talking with you and I’m really looking forward to seeing more from you!

Hey, the pleasure was all mine! Thanks for the interview and I hope my work in the future doesn’t disappoint ;]

ashikai

About ashikai

Ashikai is a Community Manager for MM.net, Co-founder of the resource group Manga-Apps, and artist for the original series, Shamrock. Interested in contributing to the blog? have feedback or comments about MM.net? Send her an email!

Interviews: MYth by Zelda

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Zelda Wang is the creator of the original series, MYth. MYth is available to read in the premium section of MangaMagazine.

 

MYth: A Promise

Before we start, allow me to congratulate you on your promotion to the Premium tier of MangaMagazine! I think I speak for a lot of avid readers when I say that this promotion is very exciting!

Thanks you! I want to apologize for putting it off for so long. I was actually afraid of taking on the responsibility and the fixed monthly updates due to my messy schedule as a freelance artist while having to babysit my little niece and nephew full-time. I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle the work load… but now I’m just glad that I have finally dedicated a fair amount of my time to what I love to do and committed myself to MangaMagazine as a premium creator.

MYth isn’t your only comic. Tell us a little about some of the other series you’ve written.

MYth was actually the very first (therefore highly immature). I used to draw comic pages in my math homework books (because they were all blank!) when I was little. So the very first MYth was over 15 years ago. The other stories that I put in enough effort to develop seriously are Rain of Flowers (2002) and Record of Time (2000). You can find the first chapter of the 2009 revised version of Rain of Flowers online, but that will be scrapped as well for I plan on re-writing its opening entirely.

You have quite the impressive resumé! You won the People’s Choice Award in Tokyopop’s RSOM 8 with Moonless, your comic MADAM had a run on Wirepop, and you’ve self-published several issues of MYth on your own! How do those past experiences compare with the experiences you’ve had on MangaMagazine thus far?

It was Tokyopop’s RSOM which made me consider being a web-comic artist seriously (it was only for fun before). I needed an idea for a short story so I created Moonless by taking the rough idea I had from a childhood art project. Even though I won the contest, I soon realized I still have a lot of room for improvement, and so I did MYth: My Seasons as a panel layout practice. I didn’t intend it to be more than 20 pages, but things went out of hand after I posted it on Smackjeeves…it got quite popular and gathered a huge amount of feedback to my surprise. Self-publishing took a lot of time and effort. I often wish someone would help me take care of everything so I only need to focus on drawing :D

MangaMagazine makes me feel like it’s really worth it to be a web-comic artist. There is only one thing I miss from my previous web-comic hosting site and that’s all the reader’s comments. I enjoy reading my reader’s comments a lot. It makes me feel motivated to keep drawing, and all the comments made clear to me that people were really reading my work. So far there’s not as much on MangaMagazine, but I really hope to see more feedback soon. Hopefully that’s not asking too much…T__T

Zelda illustrates one of the deities from MYth

MYth has a very unique story format. Instead of having one continuous story, this series is more a compilation of separate but related stories revolving around Greek mythology. Why did you choose this story model?

I’d say because that’s how I saw classic Greek mythology. There were all these separate little stories involving the gods and goddesses. Naturally, that’s how I’ll go about drawing them.

Since all of the stories in MYth take place in the same world and many characters from one story make appearances in others, do you have plans for intertwining each story’s plot with a larger one?

That sounds like a challenge…Orz

It’d be awesome and epic if I managed to do that eventually, but so far I have no such intention. I’m really just taking it easy with MYth…whatever/whenever inspiration comes to me, I’ll create accordingly.

How faithful do you consider yourself to be in regards to the original Greek mythology when working on MYth?

I’ve told my reader before, and I have a little statement at the beginning of each short story saying how it is going to be different from the classic Greek myth. Many times I say the only thing I take from classic Greek myth is the deities’ names and duties/ powers. XD

Apollo and Artemis

Your artwork is absolutely stunning and seamless! Is there anything you have a problem with illustrating?

….Yes. Uh…do I have to say it…*guilty*

To be honest, I’m not all that great with anatomy. (Darn it, now that I’ve said it, people are going to look for that in my drawings…Orz ) Just kidding. Actually it’s okay to point out my problems to me. It’s a lot of help.

Example, for the longest time I never knew or saw that my drawings of male chest were way too low. I still appreciate that one critical comment which helped me correct that terrifying flaw today…

Another painful flaw that no one pointed out to me, and took me few years to notice by myself, was the fact that I used to draw characters with really low/long noses…O__O when I finally realized that, I was like: “how come NO ONE told me that!?” (that’s part of the reason why I can’t bear to look at My Seasons anymore…Orz)

Comicking is not an easy career path. What made you choose it?

It’s just the most natural thing for me because I grew up with it and I’ve been drawing comic since I was about eight years old… It’s the one thing I want to do. After going through college, trying various possibilities such as animation and illustration, I’m still certain comic making is what I want to do the most.

What are your goals as a comic artist, and for MYth?

I wish more and more people would enjoy and follow my work.

As for MYth, I initially had the goal of making people picturing my version of the gods/ goddesses whenever they read about Greek mythology, and I think it’s slowly getting there…^w^

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us. I wish you the best of luck with your current and future works!

Thank you for this interview. OwO

Ah..and I apologize for any grammatical errors in my answers… Orz

Hopefully my answers weren’t too difficult to understand.

Best Wishes to all of you!

from Zelda C. Wang

ashikai

About ashikai

Ashikai is a Community Manager for MM.net, Co-founder of the resource group Manga-Apps, and artist for the original series, Shamrock. Interested in contributing to the blog? have feedback or comments about MM.net? Send her an email!

Interviews: Carciphona by Shilin Huang

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Shilin is a premium artist for MangaMagazine. She writes and illustrates the fantasy epic, Carciphona.

Hi Shilin. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule for this interview!

Hello ^^ Thank you for the opportunity!

For some time now, a lot of readers have been looking forward to Carciphona becoming a premium title. How has the experience been this first weeks?

It was great! I saw a quick increase of readership, fans and comments in comparison to my previous feature status. I am very grateful as my biggest goal is always to bring Carciphona to a wider public. Thank you guys so much again for the privilege (:

Shilin’s unique use of two-page displays gives her manga a very authentic feel.

Among the series here at MangaMagazine, Carciphona is the only title that uses 2-page spreads all the time. To clarify, these are 2 separate pages set side by side and not one giant landscape page. This set up cleverly mimics a real book reading experience. Can you tell us more about this unique presentation?

When I began drawing the series, I did not have any plans to print as I see it to be impossible and impractical, so this stunt was to entertain my own fantasies about seeing Carciphona in print :D ;;; Later I felt that it helped the flow of the story by minimizing interruptions, such as page turns, and draw out the breath of story sequences!

Some words in the story look foreign to English. For example, the main character’s name Veloce, is pronounced as VEL-los, and the title itself - Carciphona. Where did the inspiration come from?

I named a lot of my characters based purely on the aesthetics of the letters of their names in a sequence, and since I am a great fan of European heritage, I went for spellings that resembled that of French and German, but still pronounceable in English. Sometimes, when I can, I make use of etymology. For example “Carciphona” came from Latin carcino- (cancer, which is similar to the incurable illness in the story where a soul is infected by demon spirits) and -phone (sound, which is the most common way to identify these infected souls, by the song of their souls). “Auresque”, the name of Veloce’s mother, came from aurora and the suffix -esque.

I also made some use of my Chinese descent to name people of an ancient culture in the story, such as Weirin, Sangyun Rae, and Rosien Keur. Their names were made in Chinese first (Sangyun Rae: “苍云 泪”, tears of white clouds; Rosien Keur: “堕星 河”, river of falling stars; Weirin: “薇莲”, name of 2 flowers) and then their pronunciation is mimicked in English with visually European spelling.

Do you think this has anything to do with your love of with music and talent in playing instruments?

My love for western, classical music most likely facilitated my interest in European heritage of many aspects. Naming is just one of the outlets of this fascination of mine; architecture and furnishing, world structure, culture of Carciphona are all heavily based on western ways.

Toccata, the cover illustration for Shilin’s personal artbook.

Aside from being musically inclined, you also design and maintain your own website, and do freelance illustrations. That is a lot of career options to choose from! What attracted you to telling stories with pictures and words that made you decide to give it a try?

I’ve always loved making up stories, I’m sure a lot of children did regardless of how much they actually invested in it, but the idea that I could create something of this magnitude where I can choose how everything will be was extremely attractive, enough for me to have invested a huge part of my time to this story over the span of my life. Story telling-the genuine act, as opposed to the business solution of creating something to cater to an audience-is a subjective act where I can pour all my thoughts into and express all that makes me who I am without intervention of objectivity. It is capable keeping me healthy and thinking. To me, other career options are not even close in terms of being things I want to do for my life, but most of the time I must consider them to ease worries of the elder generation and provide them with peace of mind.

Details set into the cover of Volume One of Carciphona are simply striking.

The interior pages and most especially the chapter covers carry a lot of detail. How do you manage this level of detail in your work? Are there stylistic decisions you strictly follow?

My own obsession over details contributed a lot to that look in my illustrations and my comic pages. There aren’t really any rules I follow to achieve certain looks as I rely almost entirely on instincts due to lack of education, but I do work on large canvases for illustrations at 50-100% zoom for details, and I consciously pay attention to details beyond foreground characters for manga pages in order to establish solid environments for readers to truly be in engulfed in.

There is also a lot of variety on character costumes and locations. What are your inspirations for these?

A lot of setting is heavily based on Renaissance/Baroque or later European culture as I mentioned before. Things I’ve seen and things I’ve dreamed contribute greatly to the creation of these settings.

We enjoy reading the carefree assassin named Blackbird in your story. She has a playful demeanor towards Veloce and we would like to know if we will ever see a different side to Blackbird’s personality later?

She is certainly much more than just fun and games, but that side is not for just anybody (: I, having spent the past many years doing so, will continue to spend the next many years wishing everyday that I could just share the entire back stories of all the main characters at once, sadly I cannot. However you will get a big glimpse into her background in the next volume!

Thanks Shilin! More power to Carciphona!

And more power to Powil and MM! Thanks again!

powil

About powil

Hi, I'm a community manager at Mangamagazine.net

MangaApps Invterviews MangaMagazine’s Co-founder Victor Chu

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You can also read this article on the MangaApps group page.

Interview with Victor Chu

 

In this new and exciting digital age, all sorts of interesting comic sites are springing up. Most of you are familiar with the gamut of hosting services, such as Smackjeeves, Comic Fury, and Drunk Duck. Today, we’re going to highlight an extra exciting community that focuses exclusively on comic creators as well as motivating young creators to get out and draw!

LOOM: Today, I have Victor Chu, the founder and CEO of MangaMagazine.net here with me. Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Victor. We know you’re a busy man! Let’s get on with the questions!

 

What is Mangamagazine.net?

 

LOOM: So, what exactly is MangaMagazine.net?

VICTOR: MangaMagazine is an open ecosystem of artists and readers who are passionate about comics and manga. We act as a platform to support our artists and authors and connect them to readers.

MangaMagazine takes input from readers to create a curated experience – highlighting high quality series. Our goal is to become a self-sustaining ecosystem where authors, artists, and readers can work together to find, develop, and launch promising new series on a global scale.

LOOM: What gave you the idea for MangaMagazine.net?

VICTOR: All the founders of the site are huge manga and comic fans! We were really frustrated at the current state of web comics and manga where artists are expected to spend countless hours advertising, setting up websites, and doing lots of work that could be easily automated through a platform with the author and reader in mind. It made it really difficult to find great content and also limited the potential of great authors. That’s how MangaMagazine was born!

LOOM: That’s really encouraging to hear that you are huge manga and comic fans! I know in some circles, sometimes it can be “all business” without appreciation for the art form itself.

VICTOR: We both grew up reading comics and manga and proudly competed with our friends for who had the biggest collection and which characters were our favorite!

 

About the Founders

 

LOOM: So how did you founders meet each other?

VICTOR: Bancha and I have been close friends since high school. We both developed an interest in technology and thought MangaMagazine would be a natural fit to use our skills to help build an amazing community that could really use it!

LOOM: That’s an awesome use of technology. I know while I was growing up the whole digital age just exploded! Now, I see little kids walking around with smart phones! Times have really changed!

VICTOR: Definitely and mobile is an area we are working really hard on. These days it isn’t too difficult to get a template website up, but we want our platform to publish to multiple places and media; iPad, iPhone, Android, Print books, eBooks, etc.

LOOM: What are your backgrounds? You said earlier that the founders, you and Bancha, are manga enthusiasts. Can you tell us some of your favorite titles?

VICTOR: We are both manga enthusiasts! (Neither of us could draw something if our life depended on it….) We grew up using all our allowance on comic and manga and proudly comparing with our friends to see who had the biggest collection (come on… you know you’ve done it before!)

LOOM: I certainly have done it before! I had two sisters, and sometimes we’d pool together our lunch money for those times we’d go into town! I was the youngest, so my participation in saving up for comics made me “cooler” and more accepted by my older sisters.

VICTOR: Haha! My little brother would do the same thing! My favorite titles are: Major, Shota no Sushi, and Doraemon! Bancha’s favorite titles are: Saint Seiya, Rose of Versailles, and Slam Dunk!

LOOM: Ohh! Bancha and I have similar tastes. I adore those titles, especially Rose of Versailles! Major looks interesting to me, though, being a fastpitch pitcher and lover of baseball. I’ll have to check that out!

 

About the MangaMagazine Project

 

LOOM: On to the next question. What do you want viewers to know the most about MangaMagazine.net?

VICTOR: We are here to help and grow this community in any way possible and we love to get feedback! Everything we do is to make it easier for readers to discover the amazing content on MangaMagazine and to make life easier for our authors so they can spend more time on their art and less time fixing website issues or dealing with vendors.

LOOM: Time for some fortune telling. What do you envision for the future of manga, and what role do you plan to take in it?

VICTOR: We are big believers that digital publishing is changing people’s preferences from push-based to pull-based publishing; manga especially!

Instead of large publishing houses pushing down what they think people should read, instead, readers are now voicing their opinion by visiting and buying the content they truly like! We want to serve as the single destination that all readers go to find fresh and exciting manga to suit their tastes.

LOOM: What is the most challenging thing about the project so far? Is it tough being human? I’m sure you’d like to pull a little magic or flaunt some superpowers if you could!

VICTOR: Only the weak let their human characteristics slow them down. We eat baby seals for breakfast to power us through the day!

LOOM: That should be a bumper sticker!

VICTOR: In all seriousness, the most challenging thing for us is making it as easy as possible for our readers to quickly and effectively discover the manga they want to read. We are spending a lot of time working on our site design to make the experience as easy and seamless as possible.

LOOM: That’s really tough with such a huge amount of exciting content, isn’t it?

VICTOR: Definitely, we don’t pretend this is easy and much larger companies try to do this as well. There will be a lot of experimenting along the way but we hope every experiment improves the experience.

 

What opportunities exist on your site?

 

LOOM: So, now it’s time to show your passion! Invite the readers in! What kinds of opportunities exist for regular readers and aspiring artists at MangaMagazine.net? (Would you say there are excellent stories to read or excellent opportunities to post your story?)

VICTOR: For readers, we have an amazing selection of unique and top quality content on our site. There is something for everybody and it is curated to suit all different types of users!

Too lazy to dig around, just check out our premium tier!

Feel like being a little adventurous, check out our featured, or if you really want to live on the wild side, search for undiscovered gold amongst our members! We stand behind our selection of each and every premium and featured author. We think they represent great quality series that could suit your interests.

For authors, sign up for an account and see for yourself! We believe MangaMagazine gives an unparalleled opportunity for up and coming authors to post your story, build a fan base, and monetize your content! Every single author on our site started by posting! We set up our tier system so that authors can have different ways to engage and build their fan base on our site. You have nothing to lose!

LOOM: That sounds very positive. We hope that it’s contagious to everyone who visits MangaMagazine.net. Time for the final question: what advice would you give to aspiring creators?

VICTOR: Be honest and focus on creating a great story. Great things will come to those who spend the most time refining their story into what resonates with readers. We see too many people who get caught up in spending tons of time to generate buzz for their series but never spend enough time improving their skills and content.

LOOM: So, content first and advertising later, huh? Wise words to live by. Thanks so much for this interview, Victor. I hope that people feel inspired by your vision and make their way over to MangaMagazine.net for a look around!

Check out the MangaApps DeviantArt group for more resources, tutorials, and comic creating articles!

ashikai

About ashikai

Ashikai is a Community Manager for MM.net, Co-founder of the resource group Manga-Apps, and artist for the original series, Shamrock. Interested in contributing to the blog? have feedback or comments about MM.net? Send her an email!