On Tuesday after work, I drove over to a electronics store nearby and bought what I'd wanted for a while. A Graphics Tablet! You know, those pads with special pens that lets you draw/handwrite on PC. What for? To draw manga, Silly!
As a child, I used to love to draw cartoons. My friends and I even had a weekly "magazine" going for a while. Three of us would draw our original cartoon series each week in notebooks, bind them together, then show it to our friends.
Tsutomu, my then best friend, was the best cartoon artist. His work was usually adventure epics in the style of the Japanese manga great, Osamu Tezuka.
Katsuhiko was not much of an artist and did not quite have a good grasp on the idea of storytelling, but the extremely poorly drawn nonsense he churned out was VERY funny. They usually had to do with poop. I still remember one of his mangas in which a family of freshly produced poo (a mother and two children) travels through the sewer only to be eaten by a rat. It was LOL funny. My words could never do justice.
I was in awe of Tsutomu. I wanted to draw like him. So, I tried to copy his drawing style and story ideas... but I was never happy with the result. One of his mangas were about a young boy traveling through time to the age of the Dinosaurs. I just loved that. So I came up with my own about a young boy who travels through time to the age of the Dinosaurs. I somehow convinced Tsutomu AND myself it was OK because my characters had different names from his. The thing was though, put together into one volume, it only made it more obvious how superior his was to mine.
After a while, I just quit because I was never going to be as good as Tsutomu.
It was a great time, though. We would gather at his house and read kids' comics magazines like Monthly TV MAGAZINE or KOROKORO COMIC for inspirations. Each issue of those magazines would have cartoon drawing contests in the back pages and we would enter. I can't remember if any of us made it onto the pages but if any of us did, it was not me.
You see, our dream was to become a professional manga artists. Being a weasel I was, I would suggest that we'd work as a team a la Fujiko Fujio who are responsible for many popular mangas like Doraemon and Q-Tarou The Ghost. Tsutomu would do the drawing and I would write the story. He was such a great friend... He went along with my ideas when we both knew he woundn't need my help at all. I wonder whatever happened to him. We sort of went our seperate ways after graduating from elementary school.
I have had a brush with the whole on-line manga community recently and it reminded me just how fun it was.... and I wanted to DRAW!
Well, the tablet thingie is really neat. It came with a couple of programs that supposedly lets me draw and create my own manga.
So, Tuesday night, I installed it and started to draw. Long story short, I suck. Hard. I know I have to get used to the pen first and it takes a while (for anyone) but when I looked at the end result (it was a picture of an original character based on me), I knew I was at least a few years away from those mangas I had seen online, most of which are done by some 15years olds, BTW. How discouraging....
I SOOO could have had a really fancy meal some place nice for the money I paid for the tablet!
THEN, my sister in law visits with her 3 kids so I had to give each of the brats New Year moolah (that's 20,000 yen altogether). I'm not buying anything for a while, I swear.
As a child, I used to love to draw cartoons. My friends and I even had a weekly "magazine" going for a while. Three of us would draw our original cartoon series each week in notebooks, bind them together, then show it to our friends.
Tsutomu, my then best friend, was the best cartoon artist. His work was usually adventure epics in the style of the Japanese manga great, Osamu Tezuka.
Katsuhiko was not much of an artist and did not quite have a good grasp on the idea of storytelling, but the extremely poorly drawn nonsense he churned out was VERY funny. They usually had to do with poop. I still remember one of his mangas in which a family of freshly produced poo (a mother and two children) travels through the sewer only to be eaten by a rat. It was LOL funny. My words could never do justice.
I was in awe of Tsutomu. I wanted to draw like him. So, I tried to copy his drawing style and story ideas... but I was never happy with the result. One of his mangas were about a young boy traveling through time to the age of the Dinosaurs. I just loved that. So I came up with my own about a young boy who travels through time to the age of the Dinosaurs. I somehow convinced Tsutomu AND myself it was OK because my characters had different names from his. The thing was though, put together into one volume, it only made it more obvious how superior his was to mine.
After a while, I just quit because I was never going to be as good as Tsutomu.
It was a great time, though. We would gather at his house and read kids' comics magazines like Monthly TV MAGAZINE or KOROKORO COMIC for inspirations. Each issue of those magazines would have cartoon drawing contests in the back pages and we would enter. I can't remember if any of us made it onto the pages but if any of us did, it was not me.
You see, our dream was to become a professional manga artists. Being a weasel I was, I would suggest that we'd work as a team a la Fujiko Fujio who are responsible for many popular mangas like Doraemon and Q-Tarou The Ghost. Tsutomu would do the drawing and I would write the story. He was such a great friend... He went along with my ideas when we both knew he woundn't need my help at all. I wonder whatever happened to him. We sort of went our seperate ways after graduating from elementary school.
I have had a brush with the whole on-line manga community recently and it reminded me just how fun it was.... and I wanted to DRAW!
Well, the tablet thingie is really neat. It came with a couple of programs that supposedly lets me draw and create my own manga.
So, Tuesday night, I installed it and started to draw. Long story short, I suck. Hard. I know I have to get used to the pen first and it takes a while (for anyone) but when I looked at the end result (it was a picture of an original character based on me), I knew I was at least a few years away from those mangas I had seen online, most of which are done by some 15years olds, BTW. How discouraging....
I SOOO could have had a really fancy meal some place nice for the money I paid for the tablet!
THEN, my sister in law visits with her 3 kids so I had to give each of the brats New Year moolah (that's 20,000 yen altogether). I'm not buying anything for a while, I swear.