Let's do this in English, because this will be about the future International publishing deals of my mangas!
My latest entry was actually 3 months ago... WOW! This is probably one of the longest pauses I have done on this blog. You who follow me on Instagram have seen that this pause has not been because I did not do manga – on the contrary! So this blog entry will be a summary of my past 3 months, and all the amazing things that have happened!
14th-18th of September: Attended FumettoPolis in Novara, Italy and released book 1 of Sword Princess Amaltea in Italian (I will do a separate report about this in some days).
28th of September to 1st of October: Attended the Gothenburg Book Fair, which by now have become one of my "must-vists" of the year, partly due to this year yet again getting the honorable assignment to interview an invited comic artist from Brazil, on behaf of the Brazilian Embassy. This year it was Mary Cagnin, and amazing artist with such a jawdropping skills in water coloring! Check out her tutorials!
Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
1st-31st of October: I did the Inktober challange again, and gave away the artworks as always. Third year in a row, and I did not miss one day! You can find all of them on my instagram but here's one of my favourites:
Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
26th-31st of October: Travelled to London, UK, and attended London Comic Con, to sell my mangas in the Comic Village section (I will do a separate report about this in some days).
3rd, 11th and 18th of November: Held signings sessions and play tests with the Sword Princess RPGbook at three locations in Sweden; Kulturhuset in Stockholm and the nerdy bookstore SF-bokhandeln in Malmö and Gothenburg. It went well and we had some fun moments with the fans.
19th of November: I could finally annouce another great news; both my mangas Sword Princess Amaltea and Mjau! will be published by PYRAMOND in Germany! AAAAAAHH!! *faints again*
Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
During all this time, I also finished painting my mermaid water color manga and gave it to a company who scan them professionally. I got them back this week and will be doing the lettering (digitally) and prepare it for print before the deadline in the beginning of January. A lot of work!
I also held a whole bunch of manga workshops all over; in Malmö, Stockholm, Mariestad, Knivsta and Arlöv. It's a bit tiring with all the travelling (I probably wasted about 50 hours on just travelling to and from workshops during this Fall), but I forget that when I'm finally there, doing the workshop. I wish I could just teleport myself to and from the workshops, haha...
Also, I am part of the group of comic artist that will organize the annual comic fanzine festival Malmö Seriefest, and this will be our 4th year in a row! It will be held on the 3rd-4th of March 2018 and the tables (which we give out for free to artists) was filled up in less than one minute when we released them last week! WOW! I am so glad to feel that what I was part of initiating now have become something so desireable! We will have more than 150 comic artists represented, so don't miss it if you're able to get here!
This coming 2 months will be intense, tho. I have to:
Prepare the pages of Sword Princess Amaltea vol 1 for Tokyopop. DEADLINE: 18th of December
Prepare the pages of my mermaid manga Sjöjungfrun Minna for print DEADLINE: 8th of January
Do the book keeping for Nosebleed Studio! DEADLINE: 29th of December
Prepare the pages of Sword Princess Amaltea vol 1 for PYRAMOND. DEADLINE: Sometime in December
Prepare the originals and other perks for the backers of the Mjau! English Collection Kickstarter. DEADLINE: Early January at the latest!
Prepare the release of a HUGE SECRET PROJECT that will be my focus of 2018 and 2019! DEADLINE: Early January.
Draw a 30 page short story manga as part of the project Every Girl Is A Hero (more about that in a later blog entry) DEADLINE: 31st of January or mid February at the latest!
I... have a lot to do.
How will I survive, you might ask? Well, as always, I have my master level skill: Dicipline!!
So, now I better get back to my work!
Last but not least, don't miss out on our December Sale at Nosebleed Studio! Or click on the image below to get there~
Ojoj, va segt det har varit att försöka skriva! Eller ja, jag har varit MEGAupptagen!
Så, låt oss börja med en återblick...
Detta har hänt: Rapport från NärCon Vinter
(Linköping, 23-26 februari)
Jag, Magnolia (vår nya testmedlem) och Elise
vid våra bord på NärCon Vinter 2017.
Jag hade bord med mina vänner i Nosebleed Studio, och vi fick en superbra plats i korridoren så alla såg oss! Vi höll två mycket välbesökta workshops (båda med över 30-40 deltagare!) och ett superpoppis chibiporträtt-event... Så poppis att vi tyvärr fick avbryta det för att våra händer värkte och det var över 50 pers kvar i kön. Kön startade faktiskt redan 1,5 h innan eventet skulle startat!! Wow!
Här är några av de lyckliga som fick sig ett gratis chibiporträtt!
A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
Vi hade även en Karaktärsdesignstävling och fick in lite drygt 15 bidrag! Wow! Vinnarna utlyste vi på plats och via vår Instagram, de vann varsitt exemplar av vår teckningsbok Nosebleed Studio lär dig rita manga! — Karaktärsdesign:
A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
Helt fantastiskt att få se någon cosplaya ens karaktär!! Jag har sett ett antal cosplaya mina mangakaraktärer men det är alltid så smickrande, hedrande och underbart varje gång! Tack!!
Efter NärCon Vinter var det måla, måla, måla som gällde! Jag hann göra flera uppdateringar på min instagram, bl.a. lite videor som denna:
A post shared by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
Jag stressade som tusan för att jag var hundra procent säker på att jag inte skulle hinna till min deadline för min Sjöjungfru Minna-serie. Så stressad att jag hade svårt att sova och fick ont i kroppen... Så jag mailade min redaktör Fabian och bad om mer tid... varpå han svarar "Men vi flyttade ju deadlinen till i höst, med släpp våren 2018"...
FATTA ATT JAG HÖLL PÅ ATT TRILLA AV STOLEN!
Japp, som han skriver flyttade vi på deadlinen, men detta hade jag helt glömt bort!! Så jag har stressat helt i onödan!
Detta fick jag dessutom reda på i lagom tid innan Malmö Seriefest, som jag ju är med och arrangerar, så det passade perfekt. Snabbt bytte jag från serietecknarhatten till organisatörsmössan och lade all tid på att göra det så bra som möjligt. Därav den långa tystnaden på min Instagram.
Rapport från Malmö Seriefest
(Malmö, 1-2 april)
Så förra helgen gick festivalen av stapeln! Det var ett riktigt bra arrangemang tycker jag. Vi har växt i år, med stöd av Kultur Skåne och Malmö stadsbibliotek mer involverade. Biblioteket hade gjort festivalen till ett av sina huvudarrangemang (yay!!) så vi fick i år ta del av deras marknadsföringskanaler genom att vi syntes på annonspelarna i stan. Dessutom kontaktade företaget som har hand om skärmarna på bussar och tåg i regionen oss och bad om foton och info, så där syntes vi också!
Affischerna satte vi på massa olika ställen, t.ex. på Stortorget i Lund!
Våra medarrangörer vad ABF som stod för ansökan till Region Skåne samt Seriefrämjandet som fixade vår ena gäst Max Gustafson. Den andra gästen Liv Strömqvist fixade vi. Utöver dem var dem mängder med aktiviteter i hela biblioteket samt fansinmarknaden som flyttat upp i Ljusets kalender och växt med 50% sedan förra året:
Liv föreläser i Slottet i Malmö stadsbibliotek, Malmö Seriefest 2017.
Totalt besökte 1200 personer Malmö Seriefest 2017, vilket också är en markant ökning från förra årets 700. Året innan dess var 500 så vi ökar stadigt och exponentiellt!
Det var också en del medieuppmärksamhet på festivalen:
På plats var även Malmökanalen och intervjuade utställarna. Inslaget sändes på måndagen.
Detta är en av mina bäbisar! Jag älskar att organisera saker, och denna seriefestival växte ur ett behov men också en dröm och vision. Även om den kan växa mycket mer känner jag redan att den uppfyller den drömmen jag hade, en plats där fansinskapare och serietecknare av alla sorter kan mötas, visa upp sina verk och prata med varandra. Det hela går i rätt riktning!
Puuh, med det över kan jag andas ut. Men inte ligger jag på sofflocket och latar mig! Redan denna helg ska jag iväg till nästa event:
GothCon
(Göteborg, 14-16 april)
Spelkonventet GothCon har blivit ett av mina stammismål under årets konventstunré. I början var det bara för att hänga, spela brädspel och träffa vänner. På senare år har jag dock haft bord i Artist Alley och sålt där, med mycket gott resultat! Mangafans finns det där med, om än lite äldre än de på mangakonventen, och min fantasyserie Sword Princess Amaltea har gått mycket bra i denna krets.
Som jag skrivit om tidigare var det på förra årets GothCon som jag träffade Daniel från Saga Games, som direkt kände igen min serie för kollegans dotter är ett fan av den. Jag frågade om vi inte kunde göra ett rollspel ihop och direkt nappade han på det! Snabbspolar vi ett år fram så är vi idag klara med rollspelet, och släpper det på mässan i helgen!
Om du är i Göteborg eller kanske t.o.m. på GothCon, missa då inte våra signeringar och speldemo i N-huset på fredag och lördag! Gratis inträde~
Vi fixade ett facebook-event för det hela också, så klicka att du kommer, vetja'!
Som jag längtar efter att hålla i rollspelsboken!! Jag har inte ens fått se den! XD
Helgen efter det blir det ännu ett event...
J-popCon
(Köpenhamn, 21-23 april)
J-popCon är ett manga- och Cosplay-konvent i Köpenhamn, ett av Nosebleed Studios favoritevent på året (vi besöker det varje år!).
I år har vi med oss vår nya teckningsbok, och kommer hålla mangaworkshops:
Lördag 22 april
16.00 - 17.00 Manga Workshop: Character Design
18.00 - 19.00 Manga Workshop: Body And Clothes
Time for a summary of the past year. Initially I'll warn you. This entry will be littered withBad Excuses. When I look back at the past year, I feel a little embarrassed. I havn't done as much as I could have, I feel. Well, maybe I feel like this because the past year was mostly planing, planing and planing. I spent most of my time planing big things for my future, but I didn't get to start any of them yet. Well, you'll get more explanations in the text below.
For you who don't prefere to read, I made this into a video as well, so that you can listen instead.
Milestones of 2016:
January
What the heck did I do in January?? I usually make these yearly reports based on my blog entries, but as I have been less and less active here on the blog, I have NO entries from January! Instead, I have turned especially to Instagram to promote my everyday life as a mangaka. According to my Instagram uploads, I worked on my manga When I Close My Eyes to Nosebleed Studio's 10 Years Jubilee Anthology all through January and finished the inking by the end of the month.
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
At the same time I worked two days every week at Serieskolan (the Comic Art School), my day job so to say. I now have a routine, working monday and tuesday at the school and the rest of the week wth my comics. This is my Bad Excuse no. 1, for not making so many comics this year. I love my job at the school, and feel blessed to work there, but it also takes a lot of my focus, time and energy.
In January, I also did some animation. Sadly, that's pretty much where I stopped (except for some few hours in April), mostly because of lack of time. Bad Excuse no. 2. (wow, this is going fast..!)
February
I visited NärCon Vinter 12-14th of February with Nosebleed Studio and sold our books. Sword Princess Amaltea volume 3 sold out on Saturday, my usual mistake to bring to few books. I made a report here at the blog with some complaints about how the panel I held was treated by the organizers.
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
I was also invited to talk in Swedish national radio about how manga came to Sweden, as some kind of expert since I work at the Comic Art School and am one of the few Swedish mangakas published. You can listen to it here (In Swedish):
I also worked at the school, while screen toneing my manga When I Close My Eyes, organizing events with Svenska Tecknare Syd (Swedish union for illustrators and comic artists) and planing for the next Malmö Seriefest, a local comic convention I am the founder and one of the organizers of. These are not excuses! I want to put my time and focus on not only helping myself but also others in showing their works to the world, so these commitments are important to me.
March
In March, most of my time went to three things; working at the school,
making the next anthology with Nosebleed Studio and planning for the
upcoming Malmö Seriefest in April.
This month was also a heavy month when it comes to events:
5th of March: SciFi-mässan in Malmö, Sweden 18th-20th of March: J-popCon in Copenhagen, Denmark 25th-28th of March: GothCon in Gothenburg, Sweden
They where all in different forms: I signed Sword Princess Amaltea in the booth of the publisher Apart at the SciFi fair, since the CO of the company Johan Kimrin is a friend of mine. At J-popCon, I was selling with Nosebleed Studio and holding a lecutre. At GothCon I was sellign on my own, since Nosebleed Studio didn't go there. GothCon is for fantasy and table top gaming so I wanted to focus on my fantasy manga Sword Princess Amaltea, and sold pretty well.
It was at GothCon I met Daniel at Saga Games, the key person to my next project. We started talking about my manga and Daniel proposed we do a RPG book together in the world of Sword Princess Amaltea. I was of course super interested!!
I was also in the media spotlight this month: first interviewed by My Bergström, a friend of mine, for the librarians magazine Biblioteket i Fokus, about my work as a manga artist and my works, and then I was featured at the Swedish national television show Superlördag for kids. The latter practically made me famous among all the 8-10-year olds I met the following months, haha. I talked about drawing manga and drew a little portrait of the show host Tobbe, a well-known Swedish magician.
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
April
Finally time for Malmö Seriefest, which I am part of the organizers of. It took place on the 2-3 of April at the Malmö City library. The video below shows a part of it. All in all we had about 700 participants in 2 days, which is an increase since 2015 when about 500 showed up. Success!!
A video posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
The rest of the month was for some much needed artist rest, mostly focusing on work with Nosebleed Studio, the Comic Art School and holding several manga workshops at schools and libraries.
I also got some time to go shopping some new clothes for me; Morikei. Morikei is a Japanese fashion style and it means "forrest type" or "forrest style". It's often layered outfits with cozy cardigans and long skirts, colorcoded and preferably in a more muted or sober colors like dark purple, moss green or grey tones. I just tried it and found it very comfortable, escpecially in cold Sweden where layered styles and cardigans fit right in!
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
May
So, after some months of hard work, finally we had out new book, and sold it at Stockholm International Comic Festival on 7-8th of May. As 2016 is Nosebleed Studio's 10th year together (Yup! That's a looong time!), our book was dedicated to all these years together with the theme of 'friendship'. This is the magnificent result:
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
I also made a blog entry about my manga in the book, When I Close My Eyes, a 40-page short story manga about a young traveller in need of friendship.
With this new book, we also travelled to Confusion in Gothenburg on the 13-15th of May, the biggest manga convention on the west coast of Sweden. We love coming back to this event, it's one of our fav events of the year!
I also got to make a very cool thing at the nerdy book store SF-bokhandeln's new store: a painted pilar! (Yup, I painted it all myself! Took like 40 hours or something...)
This was seriously so honoring, to get to have Amaltea
with her sword raised standing in the middle of the store,
greeting the customers when they enter through the sliding doors.
I will be proud of this forever and ever and ever and...
Back side of the pilar, with Prince Ossian and a dragon!
June
At this time, I was planing my next big projects, and therefore took a trip to Stockholm to meet my editor Fabian at Raben & Sjögren, a Swedish childrens book publisher. We plan to make a children's comic book together, a new story about my mermaid character Minna from my previous manga Hooked On You. So exciting! And my plan is to make it all in water colors...
In Stockholm, I also met up with Tomas at Saga Games, the writer with whom I will be making the RPG-book about Amaltea's world. This is also a super exciting project! How many manga artists can say their manga has been turned into a playable RPG?! Not many! And soon I'm one of them!
Cover for the PRG-book, planed to be released
in Swedish in the Spring of 2017.
In the middle of the month, I was invited by my friend Daniele Rudoni to do a livestream as part of Indieversus "Meet the artist"-event. Other great artists like JP Ahonen and Sam Chapman has been featured on their livestream webinar, so I felt very honored to get to be part of this! Basically I was drawing a digital painting and replying to questions for 2-3 hours, and it is all online for you to watch, in English, at their site. Go check it out and also see what other events they'll have!
July
I started the month with turning 30! Yay, now I'm officially "an old lady", haha. Just kidding.
In July, most of my time went to drawing storyboards for my Mermaid Minna water color manga for Raben & Sjögren, while writing down lore about the world in Sword Princess Amaltea, for the RPG book. Writing is actually kinda fun. I wouldn't mind writing a book one day. You know, one of those without pictures in it... Ok, maybe some pictures. I can't help myself, haha.
During all this, I also had two week-long manga courses at two different
cultural houses. It was so much fun to get to teach young kids for more
than a short 2 hours event. The week-long courses let's you get to know
each other, and we even got time to make a fanzine together. They were
so diligent and productive!
Oh, and I sew pen cases with Amaltea on! All by hand!
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
I wanted some new merch for the upcoming NärCon Summerin Linköping on the 28-31st of July.
This is the biggest manga convention in Sweden with about 8000 visitors, and one of our regular events of the year. We held a well attended manga drawing workshop (all seats were full!) and finihed it off by announcing out next project; a "How to draw manga"-book in Swedish. It was 10 years since there last was such a book being printed in Swedish, and we also want to make ours fresh and new and more body and gender positive. We asked the participants what they wished to have in the book and got some great tips.
We also held our super popular event "Free Chibi Portrait" and I got to make a couple of cute portraits of coplayers!
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
August
In August, I finally made another video for my youtube channel. I seriously need to give it more time, since it is actually the one of my social media accounts that has the most followers, haha...
I'll try! I promise!
I made a little mini project for a card game developer I met at GothCon in April, some illustrations for his pitch of the game to a bigger developer. We'll see if it pans out to something, would be cool to get to make illustrations for card and board games one day, since I'm a total board game nerd, haha.
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
Except for that, and some illustrations for the RPG-book, most of my summer went for resting, and resting... and well, more resting, of what I gan recall. So you know, all that about "not enough time" is truly Bad Excuses. Haha...
Oh, right! Summer vacation was over at the Comic Art School, so I went back to work.
September
So I went on vacation! To my father's new (and old) home: Portugal. He moved to Sweden when he was only 25 y o or so, and now that he's 67 and finally retired, he's moving back. So I helped him go look at surely over 10 different houses in pursuit of The Right One. And in the end, after some looking, we found it! Sadly, he changed his mind when I had returned home, but he's happy with the new one he chose and that's all that counts.
At home again I trvelled to the biggest book fair in all of the Nordic countries; the Gotheburg Book Fairon the 22th-25th of September. There I not only signed countless of Amaltea books, but also took the stage a couple of times at the booth of the Swedish Comic's Assocciation (Seriefrämjandet). One of the times was to interview the Brazilian comic artist Bianca Pinheiro, invited by the Brazilian Embassy. Such a fun and nice person she is! I found a new friend in her and after the intevew we had time to go around and talk about the comic markets and politics and all kinds of stuff. I'm so glad I got the honorable task to interview her!
October
No, it's Inktober! I repeated last year's popular event by making a small inked illustration ever day on my instagram and give it away to the first comment on the pic. A really fun event with several of my follower keeping a close eye on my account all days long, haha. I'm so sorry for making your eyes hurt, my friends!
A photo posted by Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) on
This one was one of my favs, which I also made a youtube video of while making it:
November
In the end of October and beginning of November, I went with my boyfriend Emil to Italy for the first time in my life, and this was no ordinary vacation. We went to the famous Lucca Comics & Games in Lucca, Italy, on the 28th of October to the 1st of November, the biggest popcultural event in all of Europe, I think, with over 250 000 visitors!
I had wanted to go there for some time now, especially because I have gained so many Italian online friend thanks to the publishing of my Sword Princess Amaltea in the Italian manga web magazine Doraetos Manga (since 2014). I got to meet many of them, and talk about both work, life, tools, the future of manga and all kinds of interesting stuff. I made a loooong report from the festival itself here at the blog, so you can go check it out so see more photos from this amazing event.
I feel every time I go on an international trip to an event like this, I get an extrem boost of energy to make more comics, and after a very tired and somewhat depressing Spring and Summer with my manga page count on an all time low, I felt this trip really made me re-focus and gain some energy back!
December
Both November and December mostly went to working on Nosebleed Studio's "How to draw manga"-book. This will be a really good one, we feel, since we once were in the shoes of our potential readers and now can make the "how to"-book of our dreams, with all that which we wished for as young aspiring artists.
Here's a couple of the illustrations I've made for the book:
Also some planning of my short story manga for our next antology. It will be out in Summer of 2017 (we pushed it a little to get enough time to make it good!) and will have the theme of Swedish history. I'm planing on taking on a very interesting part of this country's history, namely the Emigration century in the 1800s. I have put maybe 40-50 hours of reseach into this story, probably the most research I've ever done for a short story manga, but I really want to make it authentic and real. I'll make a longer blog entry about it soon, and also start updating my instagram with pics from it. So don't forget to follow my instagram to see sneak peeks from the process.
All throught the year, I also kept publishing my manga Sword Princess Amaltea online at it's own homepage. Once a week with only a few delays or missed weeks. But I don't know how many reads it, and how well it is spreading... I wanted to track how many visits the site, and preferably have some advertisement on it, but right when I made the site EU changed the laws and now all homepages who wants to track the user's activity (which Google Ads and other advertisement sites wants to do if you use them) then you have to ask for permission from the user first. That's why we see this annoying bar on top of every site nowadays. Good for privacy, though! But because of lack of time and effort, I havn't managed to make it work on my site. Bad excuse no. 3.
Well, that was pretty much all of my 2016. A year of... planning? Yes. A
lot of planning. Sketching storyboards, researching, writing and
so on... This might sound like another Bad Excuse, but I hope you understand. Some years have to be like this. But if everything goes according to keikaku (keikaku = plan in Japanese) I will have not one, not two, not three but FOUR books out next year! Nosebleed Studio's "How to"-book and the Sword Princess RPG-book in the Spring, while the Mermaid Minna book and Nosebleed Studio's Swedish History Anthology in the Fall. That will be epic! I look forward to holding them all in my hands, cradeling them like small babies... lol
Okay, so even if this year was a Bad Excuse year, with lot of resting and not as much manga making as I'm used to, the whole year still feels like a small step forward. Or a big one, in some ways. I need to be proud, and I think I am.
Yet another month has passed, and I didn't have time to write anything here... But now I'm back, I hope!
You know, sometimes you just have too much to do, too many commitments, and then you just need to prioritize. I'm sad that I havn't been able to prioritize my blog, and also my Youtube-channel (which actually has quite a following, 4000+! One of my videos actually have over 100K views! O.o ). I wish I could be more active doing inking videos and tutorials...
You know what? I think I need to be more selfish now. I need to prioritize my own stuff – my blog and my Youtube-channel – to get my own self asteem back. I have been moping around doing routine stuff ever since I finished working on my latest comic When I Close My Eyes, a "short" manga with "only" 42 pages. (Haha, 10 years ago I would have called that a long manga, I guess!) I finished it about 2 months ago, and after that I mostly worked with organizing stuff, like Nosebleed Studio, Malmö Seriefest and other organisations I've been part of. And during that time, I have more and more felt lousy, worthless and untalented... I don't know why!? I mean, my mangas have fans, and a couple of weeks ago I even got to be on Swedish television, on one of the most popular childrens shows on Barnkanalen, called Superlördag (Super Saturday):
Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
After that appearance on the show, I went to some schools and libraries to do manga workshops (unrelated, I had booked them months before) and suddently I was famous! All the little kids had watched the show and wanted my autograph! Haha, of course I enjoyedthe attention (even from a room full of 9-14 y.o. kids) but also felt a bit taken aback by the difference in attitudes people have towards you when you've been on TV. It's crazy...
But even though this all happened, I still can't help but feeling like I'm losing a race... I have been sending Sword Princess Amaltea to International publishers and still no positive reply. Only a few so far, so I guess I should try harder, but not getting any response at all from some of them is what makes me confused. Should I wait? Or should I look for others? Or is it a pointless game since my name is unknown in those countries? Do I need to go there personally, maybe even travel to some cons or make myself a name first? So many questions... Still, maybe I just need to put more effort into my Youtube-ing, and they migth notice me... Or does that even matter to them?? Gaaaah!! *confused* Anyway, this blog entry really should be about the latest manga I have made, When I Close My Eyes. I haven't posted anything here about it, but that's because I now use Instagram alot for quick updates about my everyday life and especially my manga drawing.
I updated throughout the process of making this manga. Here are some posts I made:
Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
With this manga, I decided I wanted to do something else than what I have made previously for Nosebleed Studio's anthologies. The previous three anthologies all had storys made by me for sending to Shueisha Ribon Magazine in Japan, for their monthly manga competitions (which I blogged about here and here). But after my third entry did not place, probably because it was too mature for their audience, I felt I did not thrive anymore in doing mangas for a competition like theirs. It felt too constricting and I wanted more freedom.
So the story for When I Close My Eyes was a story I truly felt I wanted to tell. Without rules and restrictions. It's about a your person, Lo, who a lone traveller in our world. And no, I'm not going to tell you anymore, because then I might spoil it for you!
I also tried a new inking technique with fineliners instead of my beloved steel nibs. It was a nice change, and I like the rough and experimental look it gives to the drawings. Less mainstream, which worked better for the story.
Here's the cover illustration and the beginning pages, as sneak peek:
The manga was printed in Nosebleed Studio's 10 Years Jubilee Anthology, which will be released at Stockholm International Comic Festival on the 7-8th of May! But... we are right now taking preorders via our webshop, and then you also get a discount:
Ursäkta det långa uppehållet. Ibland är jag så upptagen med coola projekt och grejer, att jag inte hinner med bloggen.
En av de coola grejerna är:
Yes, en ny omgång! Och detta året är jag inte ensam arrangör, haha.
Vi är ett litet mysigt team på 5 pers som har utformat denna supercoola seriefestival som går av stapeln i helgen på Malmö stadsbibliotek!
Förutom den fullsmockade marknaden med över 100 serieskapare representerade, har vi dessutom hjälpt till att arrangera två kändis-föredrag under helgen på biblan! Sara Granér berättar om sina satirserier och nya bok på lördagen kl. 13.00, och Tony Cronstam håller ett inspirerande framträdande för stora och små på söndagen kl. 12.00. Båda två sker i Slottet, en annan del av stadsbiblioteket. Fansinmarknaden sker i det s.k. Röda rummet.
Hoppas ni kan komma i helgen! Jag kommer såklart ha ett bord med Nosebleed Studio, och sälja mina och Nosebleed Studios böcker. Kom förbi och säg hej, om ni är där!
Bl.a. kommer jag ha Sword Princess Amaltea 1-3 (hela serien!) som ett paket för bara 295 kr!
Signering ingår! ☺
På kvällen på lördagen kl. 18.00 är det dessutom seriemingel på nyöppnade seriebutiken/galleriet Hybriden på Claesgatan 8 i Malmö, i samarbete med C'est Bon Kultur och Tusen Serier!
Här kan ni hitta facebook-eventet:
