SMA24: Editorial Award for “Letters in Pictures”!

Posted onAugust 12, 2026August 12, 2026Leave a comment

Exciting news! I won an editorial department award from Japanese publisher Coamix, who hosts a silent manga competition called the “Silent Manga Audition” (SMA). This competition has been running for a long time, and SMA24’s theme was “Letters”.

My story “Letters in Pictures” didn’t win a cash prize, but it won an SMA Editorial Department Award, which is a recognition of excellence from the editors.

The comments of Editor Motoda was very kind: “It really made my heart flutter that what brought the two characters together was not words, but the things they liked. From the drawings, I could tell that the two characters had been thinking about each other, not just on the train, but in their everyday life. I also liked the wall filled with pictures of the two of them on the last page. Overall, I really enjoyed this piece!“

I’m considering entering SMA25, which has the theme “A Kind Heart”. Great practice for short stories, especially since it’s only supposed to be 6-17 pages long!

Manga pages for a Contest Entry

Posted onMarch 26, 2026March 26, 2026

I haven’t done right-to-left manga for a while, so it was interesting to do these three pages for a Silent Manga Audition (17 pages in total). No expectations, nor is it my first time doing a silent manga. I do like the art though (it’s a lot of work).

I’ve current printing my Viz-published one-shot “The Mystery Cases of Sister Holmes” as a zine to sell at conventions. It’s a small thing, so it won’t be distributed online (you can see it has no ISBN).

Also, all the mystery yonkoma strips of Sherryford are collected into the back of this zine.