2018 - My Year Of Global Breakthrough

Every year, I usually make a blog entry about what my coming year should be all about. Like a view ahead. I try to make these blog entries early in the year, but this time, my year have already been so hectic that I did not have time until now to do it.... So, here goes!

I also used to do New Year's resolutions, but have stopped doing it, because I learned that I sometimes have a hard time controlling what will happend to my time, when opportunities sometimes litteraly gets dropped from the sky and I just have to catch them.

My previous "My Year Of"-blog entries can be found here (some of them in Swedish):
2009 - Året då allt ska hända!
2010 - Året då allt kommer att hända!
2011 - Men var lite stolt för fan!
2012 - The year of new beginings!
2013 - Let's draw!
2014 - A year of reaping the fruits
2015 - The year of new challanges!
2016 - Time to evolve!
2017 - My year of fulfilling my dreams

This year will be epic, both career-wise and personally. I am sure I will remember 2018. Here's why:

• Career:
  My mangas Mjau! and Sword Princess Amaltea will be released in 4 countries (USA, Germany, Italy and Czech Republic) all through the year. I will be travelling a lot and visiting events in each country to promote the mangas.
• Personally:
  My bf and I will build our own house, by hand. More info and photos to come...

 The German and Italian versions of Sword Princess Amaltea is already out! Here's the German one:

My manga in German!!!! <3 Thank you @pyramond !!! <3 #mangaka #germanmanga #mangabook #mangaart #mangaartist #published #swordprincessamaltea #princess #genderflipped #matriachy #girlpower #womencan

Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) 16 Mar 2018 kl. 8:49 PDT

Thus, my year will be filled with travelling, bulding, travelling, building, travelling... and even more building!
This is my plan:


April:
Part time work at Serieskolan (the comic art school where I teach every week) while demo-ing the old house.
Finish a short comic for an anthology project, while working on Nosebleed Studio's upcoming second "how to make manga"-book.
✿ 27th of April: Sell books with Nosebleed Studio at J-popCon in Denmark.

May:
Part time work at Serieskolan while finishing the demo of the house and start preparing the base.
Release my watercolor manga Sjöjungfrun Minna and the free manga magazine Every Girl Is A Hero at Stockholm International Comics Festival (more about the project in an upcoming blog entry), plus working on Nosebleed Studio's "how to draw manga"-book.
✿ 5-6th of May: Sell books with Nosebleed Studio at Stockholm International Comics Festival in Stockholm, Sweden.
✿ 10-11th of May: Sell books with Nosebleed Studio at KodachiCon in Lund, Sweden.
✿ 17-20th of May: Sign books at Zanir's booth at AnimeFest in Brno, Czech Republic.

June:
Part time work at Serieskolan while finishing the base of the house and hopefully start with the wodden frame.
Some more work on Nosebleed Studio's "how to make manga"-book.
✿ 19-20th of June: Visit Armenia to do workshops as part of the Every Girl Is A Hero-project.

July:
Summer break for classes at Serieskolan, so we will work full time with the house. Hopefully finishing the wooden frame, and possibly the roof too.
Hopefully releasing the Nosebleed Studio "how to make manga"-book at NärCon Sommar.
✿ 5-8th of July: Sign books at Tokyopop's booth at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, USA.
✿ 26-29th of July: Sell at NärCon Sommar in Linköping, Sweden.

August:
Summer break still, but school starts at the end of the month so we will try to work as much as possible with the house. Hopefully finishing the roof AND the walls with exterior siding and all.
✿ 3-5th of August: Sign books at Pyramond's booth at Animagic in Mannheim, Germany.

September:
Part time work at Serieskolan while hopefully start work on the inside of the house, starting with the clay floors.
✿ 27-30th September: Sell books with Nosebleed Studio at Gothenburg Book Fair in Göteborg, Sweden.

October:
Part time work at Serieskolan while working on the inside of the house; interior walls and bathroom.
Maybe some spare time to start working on some future projects...
✿ 31st Oct - 4th Nov: Visiting Lucca Comics & Games in Lucca, Italy.

November:
Part time work at Serieskolan while working on the inside of the house; bathroom and kitchen.
Maybe some spare time to start working on some future projects...

December:
Part time work at Serieskolan while working on the inside of the house; the rest... Hopefully moving in before New Years Eve, but I think it will take some more weeks, maybe even until February 2019.
Maybe some spare time to start working on some future projects...


So, as you can see, I have my whole year planned out for me! I love this! I am that kind of person, who likes knowing what I will be doing not just a week or a month from now, but preferably a year from now! I think it's partly because I am a storyteller, and good storytelling is all about planning. Without a plan, you can't fore-shadow things or make a good dramaturgy for the whole story. That is why I make these posts; it's like writing a story – the story of my own life.

Let's finish this wall-of-text-entry with the cover design for the Every Girl Is A Hero-magazine I'm going to release in May. More info soon!

Btw, this is my tenth year blogging, yaaay!
I posted my first blog entry back in August 20th 2008. So I will try to make some special entry here on that date.

✪ Thanks for reading! ✪

2017 - In retrospect

I usually make a summary of the past year, but since I now use mostly my instagram (or at least more than I blog) I will make this summary even more summarized than normal. If you want more details, check out my instagram.

So, here's some important things I did 2017:

• Visited a bunch of comic conventions!
  (links to my blog reports):
  23-26th of February: NärCon Vinter (Linköping, Sweden)
  1-2nd of April: Malmö Seriefest (Malmö, Sweden)
  14-16th of April: GothCon (Göteborg, Sweden)
  21-23th of April: J-popCon (Copenhagen, Denmark)
  26-27th of May: Nordsken (Skellefteå, Sweden)
  27-30th of July: NärCon Sommar (Linköping, Sweden)
  15-18th of September: FumettoPolis (Novara, Italy)
  28th Sept - 1st Oct: Göteborg Book Fair (Göteborg, Sweden)
  27-29th of October: MCM London Comic Con (London, United Kingdom)
  28th of December: Mellandags-marknad! (Panora, Malmö, Sweden)

• Made a lot of manga pages!
  I finished my 42-page historical short story manga Goodbye Sweden, later published in the Swedish manga anthology Nosebleed Studio reser i den svenska historien and the Italian manga anthology Comic 2 Bite. I also finished my 75-page watercolor manga Sjöjungfrun Minna och den hemliga vännen, which will be released in April 2018 in Sweden.
  
  
  

•  Held a lot of manga workshops!
  ...and lessons at schools, libraries and of course my dayjob at Serieskolan (Comic Art School) in Malmö. Plus a bunch of role playing game events with my RPG-book Sword Princess, based on my manga Sword Princess Amaltea.

Dags för mangaworkshop på Österängs bibliotek i Kristianstad! Kl. 14-16 idag. Är ute och håller workshops hela veckan. Imorgon blir det på Anderstorps och Burseryds bibliotek i Småland, på torsdag blir det Kirsebergs och Lindängens bibliotek i Malmö. På tisdag nästa vecka kommer jag till Kristianstads stadsbibliotek. Boka plats hos biblioteken om ni vill vara säkra på att ni får en plats! #tecknamanga #workshop #mangaworkshop #ritamanga #mangateckning #manga #svenskmanga

Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) 11 Jul 2017 kl. 3:54 PDT

And last but not least:

• Signed a bunch of International deals!
  Not just one or two, I signed 6 International contracts for publishing deals for my mangas:
  
  
  
  Sword Princess Amaltea will be published as an omnibus by Zanir in Czech in April 2018
  
  
  
  Mjau! and Sword Princess Amaltea will be published by PYRAMOND in Germany all through 2018.
  
  
  
  Sword Princess Amaltea was published by Kasaobake in Italy in September 2017 and will continue through 2018.
  
  
  
  Mjau! will be published by Phoenix Dreams Publishing in the US in early Spring of 2018 and Sword Princess Amaltea will be published by Tokyopop in the US starting in June 2018.

So, in the end, I'm pretty satisfied with this year. Couldn't have asked for a better year, actually. This year was a year of travelling, a year of completion, a year of International recognition and a year of a lot of new friends!

And in my private life, big things have been happening as well... oh, what the heck, I'll tell you!

Me and my BF have bought a house! A tiny 50 square meter house that we will rebuild to our liking. All on our own. THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM FOR SUCH A LONG TIME! It is finally coming true!

Here's a photo of the cottage right now. It will look totally different in a year or so, when we're done with it. I will keep you posted now and then, I promise.

It's the bigger house in the back. The one in the front is a small
guest house in terrible shape, that needs to come down too.

Thank you so much for reading!

Report from FumettoPolis

This report is long overdue, but here we go!

The 14-18th of September this year, I returned to Italy and my newfound and old manga friends there, as I was invited to the comic festival FumettoPolis in Novara. Big thanks to the amazing Daniele Rudoni, organizer of FumettoPolis and one of the heads behind IndieVersus, an online platform for artists an fans to meet.

He also invited a bunch of amazing manga artists from all over Europe:

Marika Herzog from Germany, the creator of CHASM and Demon Lord Camio.

Maaria Laurinen from Finland, the creator of Phantomland.

Fillis and Rafael from Mangatellers from Greece, the creators of RUN and Wi Fi Wars.

Maaria, Marika, me, Fillis and Rafael

Let's start the photo report!

Novara is a beautiful city situated close to Milan in the north of Italy.
The town is historic and the houses so inspiring and pretty!

All through town, you could see these advertisements for the festival.

The festival took place in the castle in the middle of the city!

Inside the castle, the comic market was held in this long hallway.
So cool to be standing in this historical building and selling
modern comic art, like a fantastic mix of old and new~

They also held a special area open for live painting!
So the artists, both invited and exhibitors, could sit down and show
the visitors how they work. This photo is of Maaria drawing one
of her main characters from Phantomland.

This is me while live painting. Wacom supported this event
with great hardware with all our favourite programs avaliable,
so we could paint just like at home!

Together with the other invited manga artists, I also participated
in this panel on stage, where we talked about the working conditions of
European manga artists, the view on manga in our countries and much more.
It was also livestreamed for the IndieVersus viesers, I think.

 Now let me introduce you to some of the exhibitors!

I met these lovely artists, Elena (Ofride) and  Giulia Adragna
back in October 2016 at Lucca Comics&Games. They are so kind and talented!

Even though a lot of the artists where clearly had inspirations from manga
and/or online comics, there where also other kinds of comics represented,
like this horror comic project The NOISE by Pietro Gandolfi.

Kyōdai Manga is a manga artist collective just like
Nosebleed Studio (my group here in Sweden)!
So cool to see others also forming these kinds of collectives
to help each other out, it is a great way to get things done and
keep up the work.

NuPress is another such collective, but with many more members and they also produce
a magazine/anthology called NuName regularly with their members works.

This jawdropping comic, La Calaca de Azucar, by Cristina Guidetti
and Eleonora Gatta is a fairly new work, which will be online and in print I think.

TataiLab is an awesome gang of artists and creators that make
impressive comic projects and print them in luxurious hardcovers.
I am always amazed by what new things they put out!

The festival also included an exhibition of the works of us invited International guests. Both high-quality prints of our manga pages, as well as a life size cut out stand of our characters.

To be able to take a photo next to your own character like this is almost surreal... It feels like something real International famous comic artists do... haha!

What was also super cool was the fact I got to hold this baby in my hands:

It is so fun reading my manga Sword Princess Amaltea in Italian ("reading"... I don't know enought to understand it all, but since I wrote the story, I actually learn some Italian, haha). If you are Italian manga fans, I would love to hear what you think of my manga! #mangastyle #mangabook #kasaobakemanga #mangaitaliano #italiano @kasaobake_edizioni

Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) 14 Nov 2017 kl. 6:32 PST

I am greateful to Kasaobake's chief editor and publisher Elena Toma who decided to take a chance on Sword Princess Amaltea and print it! First book is out and second soon to come~

The Kasaobake team, I feel blessed to be part of it now!

All in all, the festival was not as huge as i.e. Lucca Comics&Games, but even better; the focus was on the artists and the networking, and this seemed to be why so many artists attended. Not the stress and pressure of a huge event with high costs for the exhibitors, more of a friendly, cozy environment where new friendships can be made.

So I highly recommend this event to other artists who wants to go to an Italian comic event!

Thank you for reading!

BIG NEWS! + FumettoPolis!

So yeah, I have been waaaay too busy to blog. Sorry about that. But here's a report of all the amazing things that have happened in my career these past weeks, including what will happen this week end!

Let's start with the big news:

BIG NEWS No.1: I just signed a deal for Sword Princess Amaltea to be published by Zanir in the Czech Republic! As my Swedish publisher don't have the International rights to the manga, I have to do these deals on my own. This deal came to me as the publisher was looking for European mangas to publish. (Yes, I will deliver these great news in installments as things are signed, more to come!) #swedishmanga #mangaka #publishingdeal #contract #swordprincessamaltea #newrelease

A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on Jun 5, 2017 at 5:03am PDT

BIG NEWS No.2: I just signed a deal for Sword Princess Amaltea to be published by Kasaobake in Italy! Another deal that was finally finalized. It begun back in October of 2016 when I visited Lucca Comics, and it is so nice to finally have it signed and done! The three books will be printed at the same time and released at FumettoPolis in Novara in September — and I will be there of course! More Big News to come! #swedishmanga #publisher #italy #kasaobake #fumetti #mangaitaliano #mangaka #漫画家 #漫画

A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on Aug 1, 2017 at 10:12am PDT

Right now, my American publisher PDP is doing a Kickstarter campaign to bring Mjau! to the US market! Including focusing on libraries, which is my passion. To get the books to as many readers as possible, I believe in the democratic power of libraries. If you wish to get your hands on this book (my American debut!!) and help us out, go to Kickstarter and search for "Mjau!". #mjaumanga #swedishmanga #mangaka #kickstarter #crowdfunding #campaign #mangabook #libraries #library #mangaka #childrenscomics #kidscomics #cats #catsofinstagram #kitten #cutecat #kawaii #kawaiiart

A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on Sep 7, 2017 at 8:44am PDT

My mangas are reaching out into the world! I've signed Sword Princess Amaltea with Kasaobake in Italy and Zanir in the Czech Republic, and am right now crowdfunding Mjau! with my American publisher Phoenix Dreams Publishing. AMAZING!!

To check off so many publishing deals this year is even making me feel motion sickness, haha. No, just kidding, I'm super happy! I have been working hard for these deals, and will work even harder to make then fruitfull. I'm planing trips to all these countries to promote my books. Signing the publishing deals is just the beginning...!

The first trip is already this week end! Thanks to my dear friend Daniele Rudoni who is a professional Italian comic artist, comics teacher and organizer of the event FumettoPolis in Novara, close to Milan. I am invited to FumettoPolis, together with four other amazing European manga creators:

Marika Herzog from Germany, the creator of CHASM and Demon Lord Camio.

Maaria Laurinen from Finland, the creator of Phantomland.

Fillis and Rafael from Mangatellers from Greece, the creators of RUN and Wi Fi Wars.


An amazing representation for European Manga, don't you agree? I am so glad to be part of this gang of talented manga creators, and as I know all of them personally I can ensure they are all great people too! It will be fun meeting them again in person this week end! ❤

Organized by Daniele and two manga publishers in Italy, Kasaobake and Mangasenpai, one work each by us guests is also being published in this beautiful collection, with cover art by Maaria and Marika:

It's really inconceivable to think that all these great mangas are made here, in Europe. I remember about 10-15 years ago, when people said "you're not making real manga, you are not as good as the Japanese artists". That's as far from reality right now as physically possible. The non-Japanese manga artists I know are so friggin talented and experienced right now, it's impossible to call them other than professional. And there's mostly the smaller and newer publishers that seem to be the only ones recognizing this...

Oh, and this:

☆☆☆ Volume 1 of Sword Princess Amaltea, in Italian!! ☆☆☆

I am so amazed!! Can't wait to hold it in my hands! I'll have to make a longer blogpost later about this Italian journey for Amaltea, because it startet way back in 2014, or even earlier, when I got published in Doraetos Manga. To reach this point, with the series being in print i one of the biggest comics nations in the world... it's incredible!

At the event, I will participate in the following:

Selling the Comic2Bite anthology and other works at the International Booth at FumettoPolis.

Singing Sword Princess Amaltea at Kasaobake's booth.

Saturday 11:30: Panel about Sword Princess Amaltea on stage, with me and my publisher Kasaobake.

Saturday 15:00: Live drawing on a Cintiq in the Performance Area.

Sunday 16:00: Panel about Comic2Bite with all  the invited guests.


If any of you readers are coming, please stop by and say hi, and get yourself a copy of my mangas!

☺