07.24
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking as of late, due to the fact that I recently went through something that was part wake-up call and part personal reassessment.
Without getting into it further, I’ve decided to backtrack and upload what I was originally going to post from my sketchbook.
A few months ago I had the great fortune of meeting one of my childhood heroes, Junko Mizuno. When I was still in high school I had the great fortune to discover copies of her books “Pure Trance”, “Cinderalla” and “Hansel and Gretel” at SEED bookstore in Hilo (which sadly does not exist anymore, RIP.) I was selling my own comic zines at the same place, but up until that point I hadn’t realized how far you could take storytelling and art in comics until I saw Junko Mizuno’s work. Her comics and illustration had a huge influence on me, and inspired me to experiment with my comic panels. Being able to meet her was a dream come true, and she was very friendly and easy to talk to. She was also very forthcoming about her experiences in the publishing industry, which surprised me a bit, but I did take away a lot from meeting her.
My friend Jackie Lo was also there in attendance, and conducted an interview with Junko for Green Tea Graffiti. The interview can be read here. While the interview was going on, I sketched Junko, who insisted on taking a picture of it with her cell phone later. Needless to say, I was giddy for the rest of the afternoon.
one of my craziest inspirations was actually some manga called ‘Tokyo Akazukin’ which was this really freaky ass gory loli short manga series (although you know how obsessed I was with Tsutomu Nihei). I saw Junko’s art when I was in highschool, but until I met you I never actually knew the artist’s name ^_^’