Category: Books

The Dreaming: The End, or is it?

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It’s seven days from Christmas Day, and I gotta announce that “The Dreaming” vol. 3 is finally out, both on bookshelves and online! You can buy vol1, vol2 and vol3 here on Amazon.com!

IMPORTANT: Please look on the VERY LAST PAGE of volume 3. There’s a SECRET there, to be revealed on the TOKYOPOP site soon, hopefully January.

 

The Dreaming 3 - cover

So, "The Dreaming" trilogy is officially over (at least the manga written and drawn by me is).

 

It’s been a long and busy three years, and so much has changed in that time. My art has also improved, though the results of that can probably only be seen in “Odd Thomas: In Odd We Trust”, the book I’m working on now.

 

 

  • Along with “The Dreaming”, I was one of the first people to be published in TOKYOPOP’s OEL 3-book manga program, and judging from the changes in their publishing plans, probably one of the last.
  • I started work on “The Dreaming” in October 2004, and finished the last of its pages in August 2007.
  • Book 1 was 172 pages, book 2 was 181 pages, and book 3 was also 181 pages. Each had 7 chapters.
  • This makes a total of 534 mostly greyscale-toned pages, including 21.5 black and white chapter pages.
  • The average chapter length was 25.43 pages. The longest chapter was chapter 20, at 35 pages. The shortest was chapter 21, at 17 pages.
  • I worked a total worktime of 22 months, which makes an average of 24.3 pages a month, 7.33 months for each book. That makes about a chapter a month.
  • In a single month, this means 1 week for the pencils, 1.5 weeks for the inks, and another 1.5 weeks for the tones.
  • My favourite chapter break is chapter 2 in book 1, and my favourite dress is the one the unconscious girl is wearing on the “To Be Continued…” page of book 1.

 

 

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  • First, I’d like to thank all my wonderful fans for your interest and support in this series. I give special kudos to all the people who emailed me – I replied to most of your emails, and will continue doing so. I apologise if I haven’t replied to yours in particular (I get on average 1-2 fan mails a day), but I’ll try my best.
  • Secondly, I want to thank all the editors who worked on this series, namely Jodi, Carol Fox and Paul Morrissey. Carol especially, because she spend the most time on it. Thanks to all the senior editors who kept an eye on things too, and also Stu Levy who greenlit this project.
  • An apology and thanks to Katie Huang and Paul Aeria, who helped me with the toning for book 3, but unfortunately didn’t get their names in the credits because of a printing error. Nobody was at fault – there was some confusion with the 1 month delay in street date because of the SECRET on the last page. So I thank Paul and Katie here instead.
  • A big thanks to TOKYOPOP Senior Editor Jenna Winterburg too, for telling me about the SECRET you’ll find at the end of volume 3. Thanks for the TOKYOPOP marketing folks who came up with that too.
  • Thanks to Emily Shao, for maintaining “The Dreaming” Fanlisting, and also my Normal Fanlisting. I really appreciate it.
  • Kudos to all the librarians who pushed this book, and recommended it to their enthusiastic little manga minions. Thanks to Scholastic for ordering 45,000 copies for their book club too. You’ve got to get them reading when they’re young…
  • May I also thank all the reviewers who gave it a good review, and all the bloggers and journalists who interviewed me for their blogs and/or articles! You can see a full list of them on my site.
  • Thanks to all the news sites I read for mentioning me and my book, including MangaBlog, Heidi at The Beat, ComiPress and the now defunct Love Manga (If a news site I don’t read mentioned my book too, then I thank you as well. Hopefully you were saying something nice, teehee.)
  • Last of all, a big THANKYOU to TOKYOPOP for publishing this series, including every single person who worked on it. If you know anything about book publishing, there’s probably quite a few people whose names didn’t get mentioned because of the “behind the scenes” nature of their job. I want to say: your efforts are appreciated.

 

 

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I hope everyone (and my fans) continues to support me in the other works I do.
Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy 2008 New Year!!

The Dreaming: Long Time No Update

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The Dreaming v3: Is finished. It’s 182 pages. It is OVER. The “The Dreaming” series has concluded.

It will be out in November 2007. I actually finished nearly all of book3 a while ago, but couldn’t be bothered to post it up since I was also working on “Odd Thomas”. It’s hell working on 2 books at the same time – now that the bulk of “The Dreaming” v3 is done, I’ve got a bunch of minor stuff I need to finish on it, namely the chapter illustrations and odds and ends (like part 3 of the Haunted Linen Cupboard series). Yeah, I’m dragging my feet on this, though luckily the due date is August the 23rd, so there’s plenty of time. It even took me a whole month to finish the cover, which is down below.

 

The Dreaming 3 - cover

After 2 covers, I finally figured out how to do a glowing window properly.

 

Odd Thomas: After that blabber about the last book in “The Dreaming” series, I get to talk about “Odd Thomas”. I totally forgot to post this up, but Allen Klingelhoets did an interview with me here which has some “Odd Thomas” information in it (Thankyou, Allen). I’ll be posting up a longer description of my work on “Odd Thomas” and how I came onto this project in August.

So far, I can’t show any art that’s not been approved, but there’s no hurry, because the book is scheduled to be launched mid-2008. So far, the first 2 chapters (of 7) is close to being finished, and the script is complete, currently being copy-editted. That’s about it for this chunk of news.

 

The Legend of Zelda: An 8-page doujinshi that is part of Life Meter 2, a video-gaming comics anthology. If you’ve ever wanted to see videogame characters in comic form, this is your anthology. This doujinshi was drawn specifically for this book, so this is the only chance you’ll have to see this “Princess Zelda” story in print. I’ll put it online later on… though only perhaps MUCH later on, when the anthology is sold out.

 
Princess Zelda

Zelda Fan Manga!!

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The Dreaming v2: Volume is out, it’s on Amazon.com. I also finally found out which European company it was picked up by – actually FOUR companies. Akileos of France picked up “The Dreaming” v1 for a Jan ’07 release, while Italian publisher Counter SRL also bought it. And it turns out that there was a Spanish and the Netherlands version all along… which explains why I’d gotten fanmail in Dutch (That was a big head-scratcher…). TOKYOPOP will probably continue to sell “The Dreaming” around the world, so perhaps I should keep an eye on it. It’s nice to know that other countries have picked it up though.

 

My Zelda Fan Manga: On the brighter, more fun side, I’ve been waiting for the Nintendo Wii to come out over in Australia (6th Dec), so I can play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’ve been a long-time Zelda fan, so I decided to draw a manga to celebrate the release. Now, this was originally started as drawing practice, but because I don’t sketch much and I never draw anything that isn’t manga, I turned it into something story-based. You get to vote for what happens next though (scroll down to the bottom).

This actually starts halfway through the story, but there’s enough to know what’s going on (we’re in Zora’s Domain, folks). The story’s not based on any of the Zelda games in particular, because then you might as well play the games. It’s set in the same universe, with the same characters, and has the usual Zelda lore in it. It’s fun drawing these characters… Ruto was annoying in Ocarina of Time, but then she’s got some real personality and attitude. She also has an odd nose, which I’ve changed (into something equally odd, but at least different-looking).

 

Zelda - Page 1

 

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Zelda - Page 2

 

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Zelda - Page 3

 

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Zelda - Page 4

 

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Zelda - Page 5

 

Following four pages after these five are up here.

Vote for what happens next. This will NOT determine any plot points, but it WILL determine how the characters interact with each other (possibly with permanent consequences). The poll closed on the 9th December, 2006, and the voting results were quite clear. Option #2 was the clear winner.

 

  • Get all teary-eyed and emotional (12 Votes – 14%)
  • Bow his head, gallantly kiss Princess Zelda’s hand, and greet her with a gentle smile (53 Votes – 61.6%)
  • Smile in relief, pull up a chair, and slap her on the back (14 Votes – 16.3%)
  • Forget Princess Zelda!! Let’s hit on Princess Ruto!! (7 Votes – 8.1%)

 

I didn’t draw this manga in the usual A4 size, which made it fun and interesting. I drew it on 15cm x 10cm page (approx. half an A4), and doing it that way is FAST. WAAAAY faster than drawing a page for “The Dreaming” is, believe it or not. I thought I’d have trouble making a story flow with those page dimensions, but not at all. It makes me want to experiment with other page types. Circle? Triangle? Square? 3-triangles? I also love using dot-tones and cross-hatching. Love it!! It’s not much work compared to what I have to do for “The Dreaming”.

I gotta do something about the font too. Anyone recommend anything?

The Waking: Book 2 is done!!

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The Dreaming (Book2): Is finished. YAY!!! All 181 pages of it, plus a 3-page mini-manga at the end. Jesus, whatta heckuva month. It’s going to be out on November 22, and while I made the deadline, it was no fun experience since there was a major muck-up with my schedule. It turns out that the schedule laid out in my TOKYOPOP contract was wrong. In my contract, it said that everything was due on October 6th, but actually the due date was August 22nd. I found out after mid-July, and while having 6 weeks shaved off your schedule will kill most people, luckily I was a month ahead of schedule. That was what saved me, really – being 1 month ahead of schedule meaning that I had to work extra hard to fill in those 2 other weeks, but otherwise I made it. Now that it’s over, I can get back to bulletin-boarding and essay-writing, which I have really missed. I also got a new editor – Paul. Unfortunately, my former editor Carol is too busy to handle “The Dreaming” now. It’s a bit sad, but she was a good editor and I hope she’s coping well with her new workload.

I’ll be updating my site in the next few days, but first, some divider art. I wish I had more time to spend on these dividers, but given the circumstances, it wasn’t really possible.

 

Chapter 11 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 12 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 13 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Chapter 14 - "The Dreaming" vol2

 

Yu Yu Hakusho Anime: I often “watch” YouTube while working, and I have rediscovered a much beloved golden oldie on it. Yes, people, the Yu Yu Hakusho anime – which along with DragonBall Z, is one of the grand-daddys of the shonen-fighting genre. Created by Togashi Yoshihiro, otherwise known as He Who Has God-like Powers Over Shonen Jump Editors, it ran in Shonen Jump from 1991-1994, and the anime was made around that time. If DragonBall Z provided the endless fight scenes, Yu Yu Hakusho provided the characterisations (and the best-looking special attack moves EVER). Anime like Naruto owe a great deal to Yu Yu Hakusho (and unlike Naruto, YYH has no filler episodes). If you liked Naruto, you’ll probably like YYH (If you didn’t then… well.)

Why the sudden mention of such an ancient anime? Well, apart from the fact that the English Funimation Dub of YYH is SUPERB, YYH also has some of the best character designs EVER. It’s main four-man unit, consisting of Yuusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei, is one of the most memorable fighting teams around. Precisely WHY is pretty easy to pin down – Togashi is a good character designer, and he’s inspiring me to write a detailed essay on character designs. Truth is – you may not have watched YYH, but chances are, you’ll recognise the characters, because they’ve got sharply drawn designs. I first started watching YYH BECAUSE I kept seeing posters of it everywhere, couldn’t get it out of my mind, and after resisting it for a few years, gave up and started watching it. And woah, I was surprised at how good it was.

Unfortunately, the show DOES drag at times. If you started watching YYH but didn’t finish watching all 112 episodes, then you’ll probably have missed the best parts of it. One of the best things about it is the way the story arcs end. It has NO filler episodes, good villains, and great character moments. The first arc in the show descends into endless fight scenes, but the second half of YYH is the REAL reason for watching the show, because it has a real interesting spin on the usual shonen-fighting formula. The story also takes a surprising turn near the end. Unfortunately, you’ll have to watch the first half to know who everyone is and what they’re all doing.